The LIFE Project

Chapter 6: Growth Mindset Is a Myth, so I'm Trying Compassion Instead

Whoo boy, this is not going to be an easy chapter to write. Part of why I am where I am is because I really struggle with this. See I grew up with the blessing and curse of being considered a gifted child by all who knew me. 

On the one hand, this experience gave me a very powerful sense of self-worth and a firm belief that I truly can achieve anything I set out to do. 

Sadly, this blessing came at a terrible cost: my serenity. 

I grew up able to pick up almost anything I tried to do and perform well above average with almost all of it, but I never ever felt like I was good enough. 

I had people who were incredibly proud of me, but I spent my life deeply aware that every time I exceeded expectations, those expectations would  simply be shifted higher. I was terrified of the day that I knew would come, when I just couldn't reach anymore. 

In response, I became a perfectionist, and by far the most merciless task master in my life. 99% at anything was not good enough. If I had ever managed to climb Mt. K2, I promise you that I would have eyed Everest speculatively without even truly taking a breath to celebrate what I had achieved. 

This behavior got so much validation and praise. So smart. So driven. That child is going to grow up to be a huge success one day. With that mind and her capabilities, she'll achieve great things. Not just like the rest of us. She'll become a kazillionaire, or maybe a brilliant doctor that changes the world. 

If I ever failed, it was almost never seen as a setback. No no no. My entire world and I myself would fall apart. I could not cope with failure because I grew dependent on the validation of being (one of) the best and biggest fish, at least within my small pond. But when I was young, the training wheels have still not come off, so I would eventually just pick myself back up and perform, and this cycle of validation, expectation, and performance would continue. Until one day when the training wheels had come off and I hit the earth hard enough to change my world view.   

This performance-driven thinking... the expectations (both from myself and from those around me) very nearly led to my destruction. There's also a very nice, straight red line between these experiences and the death scare I referred to in the previous chapter. 

I know this. I've learnt this the hard way several times. And if I'm honest, I'll probably learn this again in the not too distant future. I grew up tying my value to the level of my performance, so the urge to keep doing so is second nature to me.

It doesn't matter why I failed. It doesn't matter what I learnt from this failure. It doesn't matter how small a given failure might be against my progress. In my mind, there is the failure. Anything else is either insignificant or non-existent. 

No wonder, then, that I got diagnosed with anxiety disorder and burned out for the first time at the age of 19. If your entire identity is built on external validation and your own level of performance, while you are unable to see any of your performance as a good enough achievement... If you are constantly hounded by the urge to master greater and greater challenges... 

Society tells us this is called "growth mindset". I have come to call it "self-destruction". I got my first hint of this when, fresh out of high school, I chose a field of study that's almost impossible to get into. Almost all of my reasons for doing this came down to three rough themes: 1) Because it was expected of me. 2) Because it made the most money. 3) Because the things that I really cared about weren't considered "good enough" and my life was about seeking perfection. According to the standards of our post-modernist, end-stage capitalist society (sorry, I know my inner liberal is showing), I was making the best possible decision to maximize my success, using the amazing resources I had.