<i>If you have a fixed mindset – you believe that people are either smart or they’re not, and they can’t really change that – then you also tend to believe that if you’re good at something, it should be easy for you, and if something is hard for you than you must not be good at it. That’s a fixed-mindset view. People who have a growth mindset believe that you need to exert effort and work hard at something to become better at it.</i><p>I fully agree with this, and I think the problem is schools too easily trap people into fixed mindsets. There are so many exams in school that if you constantly get medium to low scores it&#x27;s easy to think you just aren&#x27;t smart.<p>I learnt programming as a hobby outside of school and fast forward to today and I am a software developer with a 1st degree in compsci. When I look back and wonder why I found programming so much easier than school subjects like math&#x2F;geography I realise I hated the system more than the subject. The constant dull drills, working through equation after equation. All to pass the next exam and then forget. As I wasn&#x27;t good at them I just decided that I never would be.<p>Now that I am older I realise that mindset is ridiculous. So as a test, about a year ago, I started practicing memorising all the countries in the world (using Anki[1] flash cards, which I flick through at work whenever I am waiting for a build to finish!), and these days I can literally zoom over the world in my mind and name 90% of the countries. I also started using an abacus to see if I could get my brain to instantly solve math equations just by looking at them [2] and am having some success. I sometimes wish I could go and tell my younger self to skip school but there you go hindsight is 20&#x2F;20.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ankisrs.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ankisrs.net&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;alexs-adventures-in-numberland&#x2F;2012&#x2F;oct&#x2F;29&#x2F;mathematics" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;alexs-adventures-in-numbe...</a>