growth mindset
/ɡroʊθ ˈmaɪnd.set/
Very CommonThe belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort, not fixed at birth.
The gap between legitimate use and buzzword use is wide. In corporate settings it often means 'we expect you to work harder without complaining' and in self-help spaces it can mean 'if you failed it's because you didn't believe hard enough.'
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | They cut the budget, laid off half the team, and told us to approach the situation with a growth mindset. | A company using positive psychology framing to avoid addressing a real problem. | x, 2023 |
| 02 | The growth mindset stuff actually helped me when I was learning to code. Stopped quitting when it got hard. | Genuine acknowledgment that the concept helped reframe frustration as part of learning. | reddit, 2022 |
| 03 | My manager wrote growth mindset in my performance review where feedback should have been. | A buzzword substituted for substantive feedback or guidance. | x, 2024 |
| 04 | The conference speaker said the key to success is a growth mindset. That was the whole talk. | A presentation that reduces complex issues to a single motivational concept. | reddit, 2023 |
Use it when
- Describing the genuine belief that skills are learnable rather than fixed.
- A company uses the phrase in all-hands meetings to avoid addressing structural problems.
- Someone uses it as a deflection when something goes wrong instead of fixing the cause.
- A manager tells an employee to 'have more of a growth mindset' instead of giving them resources.
Do not use it when
- Describing hard work or practice without the self-help framing.
Origin and context
Based on Carol Dweck's research at Stanford, published in her 2006 book 'Mindset'. Became widespread in corporate and education culture throughout the 2010s and was widely adopted and then over-applied as a management buzzword.
- First seen
- 2006
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/growth-mindsetUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0