After taking the mindset test, I received the results that I am working towards a growth mindset, but my fear of failure and rejection from my peers holds me back from achieving that and my goals. I am not surprised by these results as I am far too often afraid of upsetting people and failing at life and school. I blame this fear on the fact that I was placed into gifted and talented programs as a child and never really challenged at anything during my formative years. Through the research and learning I’ve done in this class so far, I am aware that this exact thing is what leads to people having a fixed mindset. I would like to report that this fear of rejection is only majorly in an academic setting and I think I do have a growth mindset for social relations and other people. 

I know I’ve had a fear of academic rejection (rather than rejection from my peers) and I have known for a long time, so when I’m frustrated by something that is extremely challenging to me, I shut down into tears a great majority of the time. I have extremely intense emotions all of the time due to (self-diagnosed) Neurodivergent in specifically the autistic field so it only adds to my frustrations because when I get overwhelmed and upset, it makes everything 20x worse. Usually, I am able to overcome struggling and challenges, but I don’t have an easy time doing it in a mental and physical sense. Instead of helping me learn like I know it does from the various studies shown, I instead feel exhausted from the strain and just more and more frustrated at the thing I am struggling with. It makes me want to give up and curl in a ball to try and stop the overwhelming feelings of relief that it’s finally over with, residual frustration, and anger at myself for not being able to understand it the first time. It is something that I am trying to work on, but it is incredibly hard. The results of me being reluctant to do things because I am not good at it immediately and reluctant to do things really does line up for me, even if not all of the results are accurate (I do not care about what my peers think for me for the great majority of the time, but rejection among close people is true). 

I think that with more practice I can achieve the growth mindset I am trying to achieve and capable of, but it is undoubtedly going to be much more difficult for me to reach that point with the fact that my brain does not work the same way most people’s do. I am not blaming this on me not having a growth mindset, but it is certainly one of the causing factors in being stuck in this seemingly endless loop of trying to understand and live in a world that just isn’t meant for me a great majority of the time. But, I will be doing my absolute best to achieve it so I will be able to be a better educator in the future. I believe that having a growth mindset or be willing to actively try and change your mindset into a growth mindset is incredibly important for an educator to have and I want to be the best teacher I can possibly be when I get to that point in my life.