These growth mindset quotes aren’t just great for kids, they’re perfect for your homeschool, too!
Teaching kids how to develop a growth mindset has been a hot topic in the field of education for many years now.
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Since the release of the book, Mindset, by Carol Dweck in 2006, educators of all types – public, private, and homeschool – have been trying to teach their students how to have a growth mindset.
In this article, we’ll go over:
- What is a growth mindset?
- The difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset
- 75 growth mindset quotes that demonstrate the qualities and principles of a growth mindset
We’ve also go a really cool free download ready for you in our Free Resource Library: Growth Mindset Bookmarks for Your Kids to Color!
Keep on reading to check it all out!
What is a growth mindset?
According to Carol Dweck, writing for the Harvard Business Review, having a growth mindset can be described this way:
Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning.
Basically, individuals with a growth mindset believe that their abilities can be developed with hard work over time.
Growth mindset-oriented people know that talent and intelligence are only starting points on the path towards achievement.
Those with a growth mindset tend to be more resilient because they do not see failure as a reason to give up, but rather as an opportunity to learn and try again.
What is a fixed mindset?
On the flip side of the growth mindset coin is the fixed mindset.
People who have a fixed mindset tend to believe that their talents and strengths are static throughout life. For example, people with fixed mindsets often believe or make the statements like these:
- I’m naturally intelligent, athletic, etc.
- You are so talented – that’s why you don’t need to practice
- I am just not made with a brain for math
- You’re a natural-born swimmer, dancer, math whiz, etc.
- I’m no good at reading
Individuals with a fixed mindset have a much harder time handling failure because they tend to view it as a reflection of their character.
Fixed mindset-oriented people are much less resilient and have a tendency to give up when faced with obstacles.
Growth mindset quotes for kids
The following quotes by world-famous thinkers, celebrities, athletes, and more are perfect illustrations of a growth mindset.
Read through the entire list and choose your favorites to share with your kids, or you could read a few at a time instead.
1.“You have not failed unless you have quit trying.” – Gordon B. Hinckley
2. “Love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.” – Carol Dweck
3. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
4. “Always do what you are afraid of doing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no hope at all.”
6. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
7. “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
8. “All things are difficult before they are easy.” – Thomas Fuller
9. “If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” – Frank A. Clark
10. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Albert Einstein
Related post: Growth Mindset – 5 Great Ways to Teach It In Your Homeschool
11. “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!’” – Audrey Hepburn
12. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan
13. “Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine
14. “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” – Nelson Mandela
15. “Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success.” – J.K. Rowling
16. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Confucius
17. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the ones you did.” – Mark Twain
18. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
19. “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” – Charles Swindoll
20. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
21. “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make a mistake.” – Elbert Hubbard
22. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.” – Vince Lombardi
23. “Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.” – Thomas Watson
24. “There is a difference between not knowing and not knowing yet.” – Sheila Tobias
25. “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” – Albert Einstein
26. “The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed.” – Michelangelo
Free Printable Growth Mindset Bookmarks
To help infuse more growth mindset in your homeschool, be sure to download and print the free growth mindset printable bookmarks from The Reluctant Homeschool Mama’s Resource Library!
Print out the bookmarks, give them a trim, and let your kids color them while you discuss some of these great growth mindset quotes for kids below!
More growth mindset quotes
27. “Don’t worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Sherman Finesilver
28. “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” – Kevin Durant
29. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” – Dr. Seuss
30. “Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you where a student could end up.” – Carol Dweck
31. “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” –Maria Robinson
32. “Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” – Napoleon Hill
33. “The thought ‘I can’t’ is a lie. We use it to excuse ourselves from trying.” – Darren Hardy
34. “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison
35. “If at first, you don’t succeed, you’re normal.” – Kid President
36. “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann von Goethe
37. “Everything is figureoutable.” – Marie Forleo
38. “The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.” – Wallace Wattles
39. “After every game or practice, if you walk off the field knowing that you gave everything you had, you will always be a winner.” – Mia Hamm
40. “Failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying.” – Sara Blakely
41. “There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
42. “DNA has nothing to do with success. Turn your genes into overalls and get to work.” – Darren Hardy
44. “When you close the door of your mind to negative thoughts, the door of opportunity opens to you.” – Napoleon Hill
44. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison
45. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
46. “Life is about being and becoming, not having and getting.” – Stephanie Seabrook Hedgepath
47. “With effort, talent becomes skill and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.” – Angela Duckworth
48. “If you don’t give anything, don’t expect anything. Success is not coming to you; you must come to it.” – Marva Collins
49. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
50. “Don’t tell me how talented you are. Tell me how hard you work.” – Arthur Rubenstein
51. “There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
52. “You may have to fight a battle more than once in order to win it.”– Margaret Thatcher
53. “Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.” – Samuel Johnson
54. “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden
55. “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” – Harry Golden
56. “Dreams don’t work unless you do.” – John C. Maxwell
57. “I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.” – Nadia Comaneci
58. “When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.” – Eloise Ristad
59. “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene
Related post: 59 Inspirational Homeschool Quotes That All Homeschool Moms Need to Read
60. “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford
61. “A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.” – Ray Davis
62. “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
63. “Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change along with it.” – Steve Maraboli
64. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman
65. “Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.” – Robert Kiposaki
66. “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.” – Carol Dweck
67. “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – attributed to Winston Churchill
68. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy
69. “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho
70. “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” – Zig Ziglar
71. “When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.” – Joel Osteen
72. “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”– Walt Disney
73. “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” – Napoleon Hill
74. “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale
75. “You’re in charge of your mind. You can help it grow by using it in the right way.” Carol Dweck
Further reading suggestions
For more in-depth reading about growth mindset, these two books are the absolute best places to start:
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Final thoughts about these growth mindset quotes for kids:
We hope you’ve enjoyed these growth mindset quotes for kids and that you’ll find them useful in your homeschool!
Developing a growth mindset definitely takes time and practice, so these quotes are here to reinforce and help whenever you need them.
Before you go, don’t forget to snag the free growth mindset coloring bookmarks for your kids!
Related articles about homeschooling and growth mindset:
How to Easily Create a Fabulous Homeschool Library
Dealing With Homeschool Burnout? You Need These 7 Great Tips!
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Which of these growth mindset quotes for kids resonates most with you?
