Growth Mindset Activities for High School Students

Making mistakes never feels good. But it’s a part of life for everyone. Especially if we want to get really good at something. Stephen King was rejected by 30 publishers before someone agreed to publish his first novel, Carrie. And Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. In other words, making mistakes and experiencing rejection doesn’t mean that you won’t go on to become incredibly successful. You just need to stay motivated! And the best way to do that is to reframe mistakes as opportunities for growth. 

Cultivating a growth mindset helps students embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, and develop personal and academic resilience. In this article, we’ll discuss common obstacles to developing a student growth mindset, strategies for overcoming these challenges, and daily practices you can use to foster curiosity instead of self-criticism. 

Why a Growth Mindset Matters

Having a student growth mindset means viewing mistakes and setbacks as challenges that you can work through, rather than as barriers. When you embody a student growth mindset, you believe that your abilities can grow through effort and practice. This perspective helps you become more resilient in the face of academic or personal setbacks. With a student growth mindset, instead of giving up when something feels difficult, you’re more likely to approach it with curiosity and determination. Over time, this mindset builds confidence. Not because everything comes easily, but because you’ve learned that persistence leads to progress.

Common Obstacles to Building a Growth Mindset

Even though embodying a student growth mindset feels like a healthy goal, there are still obstacles you’ll need to overcome in order to set yourself up for healthy habits. Here is a list of 4 of the most common obstacles kids face when striving for a growth mindset: 

1. Fear of failure or perfectionism

The saying “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” may be a cliché, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Lots of students struggle with a fear of failure. This can look a lot of different ways: Maybe you don’t try out for the school play or the soccer team. Maybe you decide that you don’t want to run for student council — even though you have a lot of really great ideas. Or maybe you refuse to raise your hand in Spanish class, rather than risk mispronunciation.

While perfectionism can sometimes feel like a strength — after all, it demands that you always try your very best — the pressure it causes often leads to procrastination, poor mental health, and a fear of failure. So even though there are some positive associations with perfectionism, having a fear of failure actually prevents you from trying your best. This is because it prevents you from taking risks and trying new things, period.

2. Comparing oneself to peers

Everyone is unique. We all have different upbringings, family dynamics, physical and mental health, diets, access to resources, routines, strengths, weaknesses, preferences, etc. Still, even with this in mind, it can feel difficult not to compare ourselves to others. If our best friend gets a higher grade on an exam, we wonder why. If our sibling is better at playing the piano than us, we feel jealous or hurt. 

It’s natural to compare yourself to others. Especially when you’re a child or teenager. But we need to be gentle with ourselves and recognize that even though our instinct is to compare ourselves with others, we deserve more patience and understanding. After all, personal growth takes time. The best that we can do is to focus on ourselves and doing the best that we can. The rest will come with time. 

3. Confusing effort with lack of ability

We all want to feel successful. Which is why failure can feel so devastating. Especially when we are learning something new. If we don’t have natural talent or a bit of “beginner’s luck,” it can feel easier to admit defeat before we really get started. For example, if we decide that we want to learn how to ice skate, but spend two hours toppling over and landing on our butt, it might feel easier to say we simply can’t ice skate, rather than put in the time and hard work to learn how to stay upright. This is all to say, that sometimes we confuse a lack of effort with a lack of ability. Just because something doesn’t come easily to you, it doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of succeeding with enough effort.

4. Difficulty breaking out of fixed mindset patterns

Breaking patterns is difficult, especially mental patterns. If we believe something about ourselves, or have been told something enough times, it can be difficult to change our thinking. For example, if we earnestly believe that we are bad at math, that belief will limit our ability to learn and grow in this area. Similarly, if we believe that we’re incapable of learning a new language, we’ll never be able to learn a new language. 

Breaking out of fixed mindset patterns can also relate to cultural biases in our families and communities as well. For example, if you live in a community where there is a lot of misogyny, racism, ableism, or other biases, these patterns will shape your lived experiences, regardless of whether you want them to or not. Even if you’re actively trying to resist cultural biases, it takes a lot of effort and hard work to break out of fixed mindset patterns. All in all, breaking and reshaping mental patterns takes a lot of effort and dedication, but it is well worth the effort! 

Practical Growth Mindset Activities for High School Students

Now that we’ve identified common barriers to building a student growth mindset, let’s talk about some growth mindset activities for high school students:

1. Keep a journal

Keeping a journal is a great practice both for in and outside the classroom. One that will allow you to engage in self-reflection, articulate your worries, and track your personal growth. Life is busy and so many things require our immediate attention. There’s nothing wrong with this, but because we are often so focused on the present — and our anxieties regarding the future — it can be difficult for us to look back and truly appreciate our progress. Keeping a journal gives us the opportunity to see how far we’ve come and to remind ourselves of the finer details of the life lessons we’ve learned. Overall, keeping a journal is a great way to manage anxieties, explore difficult questions, and celebrate our successes, all while being able to track our progress. 

2. Complete goal-setting exercises

It’s important to dream big! If you want to be an actor, daydreaming about Broadway can be a great way to feel motivated and inspired. But dreaming big isn’t enough; we also need to be able to set small, manageable goals for ourselves so that we can work towards those big dreams. Big goals can feel inspiring, but setting smaller goals with incremental milestones is the best way to maintain momentum and continuously make progress. 

The best goals are “SMART goals.” SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. So let’s take a moment to see what these self-learning guidelines might look like in context. 

Say your goal is to write a book. Is that specific? Not really. Is it measurable? Technically, yes. If you write a book, then you’ve reached your goal. Is it achievable? Probably. What about relevant? If you’re interested in reading and writing, then probably. But say you grow up to be an expert on forest ecosystems, but you decide to write a book about agriculture. Suddenly, your goal doesn’t feel that relevant. Now, what about time-bound? As the original goal stands, “writing a book” is too broad. Do you mean this year? Before you die? By the time you graduate college?

Now, let’s turn our initial goal of writing a book into a SMART goal. This can look a lot of different ways, so here are a few examples: 

1) My goal is to write and publish (with a small press publisher) a collection of 15 short stories that explore themes of gender and belonging within rural settings by the time I graduate with my MFA in Creative Writing. 

2) My goal is to write a book about implementing forest management plans in the Northeast in cooperation with small private land owners that incorporate the cultivation of tree crops and other non-timber products. I want to publish this book with the University Press where I completed my Master’s degree in Forestry by the time I’ve spent 10 years actively working in my field. 

These are detailed and well-thought out goals. They’re Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. While it’s unlikely that you’ll have such ambitious goals while you’re in high school, the main takeaway is that your goals should be detailed, include a clear timeframe, and should have a clear end goal.

3. Collaborate with your peers

It can be easy to get stuck in our heads. Especially if we’re always working alone. Sometimes it’s good to switch things up, especially if you want to avoid that fixed mindset behavior! Host a study group or ask for feedback on your essay from a friend. Being exposed to other perspectives can help build camaraderie and provide some much needed perspective. If you’re really struggling on an assignment, but you’re working with a group of peers and everyone is experiencing similar difficulties, it can help ease some of our anxieties. 

We can also learn a lot from our peers about what works well for them. If you have a classmate who’s really good at remembering dates and formulas, ask them if they have any study tips they can share with you. All in all, collaboration helps build camaraderie, ease anxieties, and provides us with relatable perspectives.

4. Celebrating effort and progress

Celebrate your successes! Even if they’re small. Taking time to appreciate your efforts and progress helps you maintain morale and momentum. Taking time to celebrate your achievements isn’t self-indulgent. It’s a key part of staying motivated and inspired. If you do really well on an exam, ask your parents or guardians if you can go to the movies with your friends. Or maybe you can order pizza! 

5. Reframing mistakes as opportunities for growth

Mistakes are always disheartening. But they shouldn’t make you want to quit. Rather, they should signal a new beginning. As difficult as it may feel, we learn a lot from our mistakes. In fact, the lessons we learn while making mistakes are often the ones we remember the most. So rather than associate mistakes with failure, try to reframe mistakes as opportunities for growth. 

Remember, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. And look where he ended up! By embodying a student growth mindset, you’ll develop the confidence, adaptability, and resilience you’ll need to succeed both inside and outside of the classroom.  

Incorporating Growth Mindset into Daily Life

There are lots of ways you can incorporate a student growth mindset into daily life. Here is a list of strategies that may come in handy: 

• Using positive self-talk and affirmations

• Practicing resilience in extracurriculars or sports

• Seeking constructive criticism and using it for improvement

• Applying growth strategies in school subjects and projects

How Teachers and Mentors Can Encourage a Growth Mindset

Teachers and mentors play an important role in helping students develop a growth mindset. One way trusted adults can encourage a student growth mindset is to model positive behaviors by acknowledging when they’ve made mistakes and problem-solving out loud. This way, students can witness real-life examples of what a growth mindset looks like. It’s also important for teachers and student mentors to create a safe environment for risk-taking and experimentation. This is because when students feel comfortable making mistakes without fear of judgment, they’re more likely to take on challenges and think creatively. Additionally, teachers and mentors can design lessons or projects that reward curiosity and exploration, making it clear that effort and innovation are valued just as much as correct answers.

Recognizing effort alongside achievement reinforces this message even further. By celebrating the process — such as time spent revising an essay, working through a tough problem, or showing determination in practice — educators help students see the link between effort and growth. Guiding students through reflective conversations about their progress also strengthens this mindset. When teachers encourage learners to identify what strategies worked, what didn’t, and what they’d try next time, students build self-awareness and confidence in their ability to improve.

Conclusion: Grow with Polygence

Setbacks are a part of life and if students can learn to view them as challenges, rather than barriers, they’ll be able to indulge their curiosities and creativity. What’s more, teens will be able to learn and grow without the anxiety and limitations that so often come with perfectionism.  This is why learning how to embody a student growth mindset is so important — not only for your mental health, but also for your sense of enthusiasm and resiliency in and outside the classroom. 

Here at Polygence, we offer research mentorship programs that foster a growth mindset. By pairing motivated students with expert research mentors, students are given the resources and guidance they need to complete independent research projects on a topic of their choosing. Not only does this empower students to pursue their passions, but it also looks great on their college resumes. Just look at our students’ admissions results!

Interested in learning more? Take a look at our student and parent testimonials.