Getting to Yet: Mindset matters

What new things are you doing in this pandemic time warp? I have never been very good with building things, or putting things together. So do not ask me why, but I recently ordered a cabinet with shelves. Perhaps I was not thinking clearly, or maybe I thought this would be a good project for life during social distancing. Little did I know what kind of adventure this would be. When I opened the box, I instantly wanted to cry. There were so many pieces of wood and hundreds of little things, that I soon learned were cam lock screws, dowels, washers. The directions themselves were twenty pages long!

Boom, fixed mindset takeover.”I’ll never be able to do this,” I thought, followed immediately by “I am just not good at this.” According to renowned psychologist Carol Dweck, a fixed mindset is the idea that my intelligence, talent or abilities are fixed and can not change. On the other hand, a growth mindset means we think our intelligence or abilities are not fixed, and can improve through effort and hard work. Now, it is important to keep in mind that mindsets themselves are not permanent, and they are not good or bad. In addition, we can have both fixed and growth mindsets simultaneously about different aspects or areas of life.

Carol Dweck  reminds us that while we may think we are not good at things, like math or building furniture, we must remember that we are just not good at it yet. I’m not good at building furniture yet. I admit that I have a fixed mindset about it. I own it. Growth mindset about other things maybe, like tennis, languages, and writing, but not about this.

However, I decided that this could be an opportunity to challenge my fixed mindset. My goal was to get to yet. I took a deep breath, a 6-2-7, and stayed calm. I tried to give myself a pep-talk and change my self-talk. I did an inventory of all the parts and made sure everything arrived. I spread everything out on the floor, and pretended the parts, were my new friends: Dan the drawer, and Sammy the screw, and Wally the washer. I read through the directions and pumped myself up.

Step one, put the dowel and screw in easy enough, and then got stuck. “Ha,” said my fixed mindset. I took my deep breath and called customer service to help me. Okay, so the piece was wrong side up! Only 19 more steps to go! Again, the fixed mindset taunted me. I got intimidated and took a break. For a week, I left all the pieces on the floor, and avoided them, turning the room into my personal obstacle course. Tip toeing around the parts was like resisting the challenge and letting my fixed mindset win. Then Saturday rolled around, and I decided today was the day. The plan was ask for help, and keep going as far as I could, and if I could not finish it today, I would return it for a refund.

Maybe because I took the pressure off of the project, and had a back up plan, or maybe because I stayed calm and in the present moment, or maybe because my wife validated that this was hard, who knows, but somehow I managed to finish the cabinet and find the yet. Not only do I have a beautiful piece of furniture, but I broke through that fixed mindset! Now, I will enjoy the pride of this accomplishment and hold off on building anything else….not yet.