Becoming aware of what is possible and comparatively assessing various possibilities goes beyond cognitive – or, for that matter, neurological – processes. The possible is not merely a mental representation or way of processing information; it involves the entire being and it especially has a strong motivational and emotional dynamic.

Adolescents who never learn to control their consciousness grow up to be adults without a “discipline.” They lack the complex skills that will help them survive in a competitive, information-intensive environment. And what is even more important, they never learn how to enjoy living. They do not acquire the habit of finding challenges that bring ou

In a fixed mindset, learners believe that their traits are fixed or innate and thus there’s no point in trying to improve them. In a growth mindset, in contrast, learners see their own capacity for learning as something that can be actively improved. In some ways, these two types of mindsets become self-fulfilling prophecies. Those who think they c

What if they felt no fear that they were about to get the answers to these big questions wrong (because they’d internalised that there’s only one right answer, one way to be in the world, one path to follow)? What if young people felt an unshakeable belief that anything were possible and that they could achieve whatever they felt capable of in that