Change Yourself—Starting with Your Mindset
Changing yourself doesn’t mean you need to change how you look—unless that’s something you want to do. Real change begins with your mindset.
Carol Dweck, in her influential book Mindset, wrote:
“The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.”
So what is mindset? It’s the collection of beliefs you hold about what you can and cannot do.
Let me tell you a story. When I was a freshman in high school, we were introduced to physics for the first time. I was fascinated. I used to read the textbook just for fun, even when many of my classmates thought reading without solving problems was a waste of time. But when the first quiz came, I scored the lowest in the class. My teacher humiliated me in front of everyone, saying, “You scored so low, it’s like you don’t even have a brain.”
I was really emabrassed. But that moment stuck with me—not as a reason to give up, but as a lesson. Years later, I became one of the top students in my school and was accepted into a top-tier engineering program in my country.
What I realized is that my teacher had tried to trap me in a fixed mindset—the belief that your abilities are set in stone, and only high grades define your value. But I had something else: a desire to grow.
You’ve probably heard the phrase “Believe and succeed.” It might sound like a cliché, but belief is powerful. When you truly believe in your ability to grow, your mindset begins to shift. It stops being about proving others wrong or chasing validation. Instead, it becomes about learning from setbacks, turning failures into fuel, and using every experience to push forward.
This is the essence of a growth mindset. It allows you to tune out the noise—the criticism, the doubts, the distractions—and stay laser-focused on your path. Like someone walking a tightrope, your eyes stay fixed on your goal. That focus, that drive, comes from one thing: belief.
And once you believe in yourself, real change begins.