When people say “focus on your strengths”, one may intuitively think of it as “focus on your strengths and nothing will improve.” But that is also where we fall into the trap into what Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset”, believing that our talents are innate and unchangeable. 

Dweck argues that as opposed to a “fixed mindset”, people with a “growth mindset” sees that both their strengths and weaknesses can be improved. She asserts that people with a growth mindset “tend to achieve more than those with a fixed mindset because they put more effort into learning.” In other words, people who believe they can improve put more energy and time into improving, which, in turn, helps them improve.

The effectiveness of a strengths-based approach in the context of self-development may thus be contingent on one’s mindset and subsequently how much effort they put into cultivating those strengths.

Researchers performed an experiment on students who were underperforming in school. They split the students into two groups. One group learned about the stages of memory, while the other group was introduced the concept of “growth mindset”. Students in the group that was taught about the growth mindset were more motivated and put in more effort, and their grades improved. On the contrary, students who learned about memory continue to decline in their grades.