Mindset history paper + My story of transformative learning
I'm overjoyed to share that The history of mindset paper has been published in the Middle Eastern Journal of Positive Psychology! Big thanks to Dr. Louise Lambert and the team at the Journal.
You can access the paper here →
As you read through this paper, I invite you to place aside any preconceived notions you might hold about mindset history and mindset psychology, and you engage in this material with a beginner's mind. This means, if you think you already know what a mindset is, and/or if you think you already know where the term mindset comes from, you place aside what you know, and you approach the history and psychology of mindset as if you are learning it for the first time.
To go with this paper, here is a story about the process of transformative learning I moved through to embrace a deeper understanding of mindset history. I’m choosing to share my story here, because perhaps you will find my experience to be relatable and supportive in your own process of learning.
My journey towards embracing a deeper understanding of mindset history
My mindset education began in 2014, while I was studying positive psychology at university. I was curious about the psychology of how systems change, and a word that kept on showing up in my research was mindset. Not knowing much about mindset, I decided to focus my psychological studies and training in this area.
While studying at university, I was taught a story that Carol Dweck was instrumental in pioneering the first era of mindset research, and her fixed and growth mindset theory was presented to me as being the legitimate foundation for scientific inquiry in the field (see Dweck& Yeager, 2019). I wanted to be a good psychology student that was engaging in sound scientific practices. So, I internalised the historical story that was taught to me and I moved forward on the basis that Dweck’s work was foundational science in the field of mindset. When it came to developing my own body of work, I included fixed and growth mindset theory as the basis for proposing benefit mindset theory, which is a compassionate and transformative evolution of Dweck’s work for supporting systems change and wellbeing for all.
As I moved from university into the field as a practitioner, I thought I had a sound scientific grounding in the history and psychology of mindset. However, it wasn’t long until I started to notice cracks appearing in the story of mindset history and mindset psychology I had internalised. I also had experiences with and alongside other practitioners in the field where I was beginning to realise that the history and psychology of mindset was much broader and more diverse than I currently understood. All of a sudden, the scientific grounding that I was standing on that I thought was sound and strong, was quickly becoming shaky and was disappearing under my feet.
All of these experiences ended up coalescing in my life and work, and gave rise to what Mezirow (2000) refers to as a “disorientating dilemma”, whereby I realised that I was being called to let go of the story of mindset history and its psychology that I had internalized, so that I could let come a deepening in my connection to the mindset lineage and a broadening of my psychological understanding.
So, I began the process of moving through a second mindset education. Whereas my first mindset education happened largely within and around the bubble of my university’s dominant paradigm, my second mindset education opened me up to deeper and more inclusive ways of understanding mindset, including acknowledging the voices and perspectives of everyone that helped walk the lineage into being. Rather than limiting myself to scientific ways of knowing, I also open myself up to the possibility of embracing multiple ways of knowing, including intuitive, spiritual, and indigenous ways.
What happened was that through this process of letting go, and by looking deeply into the lineage of mindset, I experienced a profound transformation of view, that some practitioners in the field refer to as a “mindset shift” or a “paradigm shift” in my very way of understanding the history and psychology of mindset. I had been stuck inside a partial and incomplete story of mindset history and psychology. Now, I was able to see the history and psychology of mindset through many different eyes, and more of the collective wisdom of the lineage of mindset was revealing itself to me.
I also started to have this intergenerational experience whereby I could now see myself as an active participant in the mindset lineage. Before, I was an independent practitioner that was working without much of a sense of the people who came before me, or who were practising alongside me. Now, through this process of deepening my historical roots, I could see myself as an active participant in an intergenerational process who is walking a path alongside the people that walked the lineage of mindset into being. I now had a much better sense of my place and social location within the mindset lineage, as well as having a much better sense of the place and social location of the researchers and practitioners that are working alongside me. I could also begin to see how I was part of a larger collective intelligence in the field, and that the way I related to and participated in this collective intelligence influenced what was possible in the lineage as a whole.
Finally, I found a connection to lineage to be an excellent foundation upon which I could build the future of my mindset and benefit mindset work. I now felt more confident to grow my branches high and wide as a mindset practitioner, because of the deep system of roots I had established in mindset history. My newfound connection to lineage also awakened a sense of professional and ethical responsibility within me, to make sure my mindset work left the lineage in a better condition than I found it.
On reflection, I am now able to see how my enrolment into one of the dominant paradigms while at university was the result of me engaging in what Bell (1987) calls “the unreflective taking in of information” and what Mezirow (2000) refers to as “uncritical assimilation”. I was behaving in an unreflective and uncritical manner because I was new to psychology, and I didn’t feel confident enough in my abilities to question what Meadows (1999a) refers to as the “shared social agreements” about mindset history and its psychology. However, over time, as I matured as a practitioner, I was able to awaken around the story I was taught and take more of a reflective and critical stance towards that story. What made my transformation possible was my openness to let go of the story I had internalised, regardless of how much of my life and work I had invested into it, and my willingness to look deeply into the history and psychology of mindset, so that a whole new understanding could emerge through me that was grounded in the collective wisdom of the entire field.
Overall, this experience made me realise that there are the personal transformations each of us can move through as individuals when we study the history and psychology of mindset in an inclusive and holistic way. There are also the collective transformations we can move through as a field, if we come together and participate in a shared inquiry into the collective wisdom that exists within and between everyone in the mindset lineage. I believe, if we want to support the cross-pollination of ideas, and the emergence of new paradigms of mindset psychology and practice, we need to be willing and able to look to the past and to the future, as well as acknowledge the ideas of the people standing alongside us right now, so that we can ground our work in a more inclusive, holistic, and intergenerational understanding.
An invitation
To conclude, I would like to invite you to join me in a process of transformative learning in the field of mindset. Let’s deepen our shared understanding of the collective wisdom that is present in the mindset lineage, including the voices and perspectives of everyone who helped walk this lineage into being. Let’s critically examine the stories of mindset history and mindset psychology we have internalised, and update those stories so that they are more accurate and complete. Let’s make our work in the field of mindset an interdisciplinary and intergenerational project, whereby we are putting this collective wisdom to work in the world, and we are also passing our learnings onto future generations.
If this call-to-action sounds like a process you would like to participate in, I invite you to get involved and contribute wherever you are, however you can, so that together, we can actualise new paradigms of mindset psychology and practice. And of course, if you don't want to participate in a transformative learning process, and you would prefer to stick with one of the established ideas in the field, that's fine too, and that’s your choice. My only ask is that you be respectful to the broader lineage and field of mindset, by being explicit about the idea you are sticking with, and you acknowledge that this idea is one of many ideas in a diverse and long lineage.