Growth Mindset for Women: Why Learning Feels Harder

One of the sneakiest beliefs many of us carry into adulthood is the idea that we are no longer very good at learning new things.

It doesn’t announce itself loudly. It doesn’t show up as a conscious decision. Instead, it whispers quietly in the background of our lives, shaping what we attempt, what we avoid, and how we see ourselves.

Somewhere along the way, learning became risky.

As kids, we expected to be beginners. We fell down, tried again, asked questions, and made messes without attaching our worth to the outcome. I remember being four or five years old, learning to ride a bike in my driveway. I must have fallen a dozen times that first afternoon, scraped knees and all. But I never once thought, “Maybe I’m just not a bike person.” I just got back on. Eventually, I could feel the difference between riding smoothly on my tires, versus bouncing between the shaky training wheels my dad had loosened. It wasn’t long before I was asking him to remove the trainers because they were impeding my freedom.

But as adults? Learning often feels loaded. We worry about looking foolish. About getting it wrong. About wasting time. About proving something we would rather not face.

So instead of trying, we often don’t.

We stay where we are comfortable. We stick with what we already know. We tell ourselves stories like, “I’m just not good at that,” or “It’s too late for me,” or “I don’t want to fail.”

That is exactly why February’s focus on Growth Mindset matters so much.

Why Learning Feels Harder as Adults

As adults, we tend to confuse competence with safety. When we know what we are doing, we feel in control. When we don’t, it can feel vulnerable, even threatening.

I see this play out all the time. A friend who won’t take a pottery class because she “doesn’t have artistic hands.” A colleague who refuses to try pickleball because he’s “not coordinated.” A family member who won’t learn to swim because she’s “too old to start now.”

These aren’t statements of fact. They’re protective barriers.

Add in past experiences where mistakes had consequences—criticism from a teacher, embarrassment in front of peers, a failed attempt that felt public—and it makes sense why many of us avoid being beginners. Our brains remember those moments and try to keep us safe by keeping us in the familiar.

But avoiding learning does not actually protect us. It quietly shrinks our world.

Research on growth mindset, pioneered by psychologist Carol Dweck, shows that our beliefs about learning directly shape our capacity to grow. When we believe our abilities are fixed—that we either “have it” or we don’t — we avoid challenges that might expose our limitations. But when we believe abilities can be developed through effort and practice, we approach challenges differently. We see struggle not as evidence of inadequacy, but as part of the process.

In one of Dweck’s studies, students who were praised for their effort rather than their intelligence were more likely to choose challenging tasks later. They understood that difficulty was an opportunity, not a threat. The students praised for being “smart” avoided harder problems, worried that failure would disprove their intelligence.

This same pattern plays out in us as adults. When we tie our worth to our current competence, we protect that competence fiercely. We stick to what we know. But when we untangle our worth from our skill level, we become free to explore, experiment, and expand.

A growth mindset reminds us that learning is not a verdict on who we are. It is a process. And struggle is not a sign of failure. It is evidence that growth is happening.

Learning in Your Body, Not Just Your Head

This fear shows up even more clearly when learning something physical.

Think about it. Learning to dance, surf, scuba dive, strength train, or try a new sport requires your body to move in unfamiliar ways. You cannot hide behind competence or experience. Your body feels awkward. You wobble. You fall. You mess up in very visible ways.

And that can be deeply uncomfortable.

I felt this viscerally a few months ago when I decided to try a dance class with our chorus front row. I had been in front row in all of my other choruses and had even studied dance as a kid up through college. But it had been a long time since I had worked in a true choreography learning environment taught by someone who really knows the ropes of professional dance.

At first, the session was excruciating. Not physically—the moves were simple enough. But emotionally? I felt exposed. Everyone else seemed to pick up the combinations faster. I felt stiff and unsure and we didn’t have mirrors that I could use to check my lines and posture. I could feel the heat rising in my face every time I stepped in the wrong direction.

I wanted to leave. I never wanted to come back. I wanted the floor to swallow me up.

But something kept me there. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was curiosity about who I might become if I pushed through the discomfort. So I stuck with it, and every time a session is offered, I join.

Eventually, something shifted. I still wasn’t graceful, but I was less apologetic about it. I stopped watching everyone else and started paying attention to my own body. The instructor’s cues started making sense. My hips started to move with more ease. I even felt myself smiling.

I realized I wasn’t there to become a professional dancer. I was there to prove to myself that I could stay with something uncomfortable long enough to see what was on the other side of the awkwardness. It felt great for my body to return to some old competence, and I started feeling like me again.

That’s when the real learning began.

Many adults avoid learning physical skills not because they can’t do them, but because they don’t want to look clumsy, weak, or uncoordinated. They tell themselves they are “too old,” “not built for it,” or “not athletic.”

But those are not truths. They are protective stories.

Your body is capable of learning at any age. Neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form new neural connections—continues throughout our lives. Yes, we might learn differently than we did at twenty. We might need more warm-up time, more recovery, more patience. But learning is still happening.

The question is not whether we can learn. The question is whether we are willing to feel awkward long enough to let the learning happen.

“If You’re green, You’re Growing”

Years ago, I worked with a manager who used to say something that stuck with me. Anytime someone was struggling with a new concept or procedure, he would smile and say, “If you’re green, you’re growing.”

The first time I heard it, I was fumbling through a new software system integration that I was leading for the first time, feeling utterly incompetent. I had been in my role for years, and I felt like I should have figured this out by now. When I apologized for the third time, he leaned back in his chair and said those words.

“If you’re green, you’re growing.”

That one sentence took the pressure off.

It gave permission to not know yet. It normalized the awkward middle. It reframed struggle as progress, not incompetence.

As a leader myself, I have returned to that phrase countless times. I have said it to team members who were learning new systems. I have said it to myself when I felt out of my depth. I have said it to friends who were beating themselves up for not being experts on day one.

That mindset made learning faster, lighter, and far less intimidating. Because when you are allowed to be green, you don’t have to pretend you are already ripe.

Falling on Your Head Counts as Progress

I learned this lesson much earlier, in my own body.

When I was younger, I was told I would never be able to do back walkovers in gymnastics because I was too tall. My coach meant well, I think. She was probably trying to manage my expectations, to steer me toward skills that suited my body type better.

But something in me bristled at that. Instead of accepting it, I said, “Watch me.”

And then I spent the entire summer practicing.

I practiced upside down on our stairs. I recruited my younger brother to spot me. I fell. A lot. I landed on my head more than once. I failed over and over again.

Some days, I wanted to give up. Some days, I believed my coach was right. But other days, I could feel something shifting. My back was getting more flexible. My arms were getting stronger. I started noticing that feeling of almost going over and learned to kick harder then. The movement that felt impossible in June started to feel possible in July.

By the first day back at school, I could do perfect back walkovers. Not because it came easily, but because I was willing to stay green long enough to grow.

That experience taught me something I have never forgotten. Physical learning is not about natural talent. It is about repetition, patience, and believing your body can learn. It also taught me that other people’s beliefs about my limitations do not have to become my own. Someone else’s “never” does not have to be my truth. “Watch me” is my favorite retort.

Growth Mindset Invites You to Stay Curious

A growth mindset does not say, “This is easy.” It says, “This is learnable.”

It does not say, “I should already know this.” It says, “I am allowed to grow into this.”

When you approach something new with curiosity instead of judgment, mistakes become information instead of evidence against you. And information helps you adjust, refine, and improve.

I see this in scuba diving, snorkeling, surfing, and skiing. I don’t get to do any of them all that often, but when I do, I learn something new about buoyancy, breath control, or navigation. Some dives feel smooth and effortless. Sometimes it’s hard and frustrating to stand up on that board. Each time I ski, it takes a couple of runs to get my skis under me again. But each of these experiences teach me.

The smooth dives remind me that my body knows more than I think it does. The clunky runs show me what still needs attention. Neither is wasted. Both are part of the process.

This is what growth mindset offers us. Not perfection, but process. Not immediate mastery, but patient improvement. Not the absence of struggle, but the reframing of what struggle means.

Struggle is not a sign you are failing. It is a sign you are at the edge of your current ability, which is exactly where growth happens.

New Thoughts to Practice This Month

As we move through February, I invite you to gently practice some of these thoughts:

I am allowed to be a beginner.

My body can learn new things.

Awkward is part of the process.

Every attempt counts, even the messy ones.

I don’t need to be good at this yet.

If I am green, I am growing.

These are not affirmations you have to believe fully right away. They are possibilities you can try on. You can test them. You can see what shifts when you repeat them to yourself during moments of frustration or doubt. When you say them, your brain will go to work proving you right.

You do not need to prove anything this month. You do not need to get it right. You just need to stay open and allow the feelings to happen.

Because growth does not require confidence first. Confidence is built through action. It comes from doing the thing scared, doing it awkwardly, doing it anyway, and discovering that you survive. And then, slowly, you start to thrive.

February Physical Growth Challenge: Stay Green. Grow Gently.

This month is not about performance. It is about willingness said out loud with your body.

For the next four weeks, I invite you to practice being a beginner on purpose.

The Challenge

Choose one physical skill or movement you are not currently good at, or haven’t tried in a long time. Not because you want to master it. Not because you want to be impressive. Simply because you are willing to learn.

Your choice might look like:

Taking a beginner dance class, in person or online
Practicing a new strength move, like squats, push-ups, or lunges
Trying a balance exercise, like standing on one foot
Learning a simple yoga flow or stretch sequence
Taking a surf, paddleboard, or scuba lesson
Practicing flexibility with a short daily stretch routine
Revisiting something you once loved but stopped doing

Small counts. Awkward counts. Modified counts.

The Rules (There Are Only Three)

1. Show up as a beginner
Expect it to feel clumsy. That is not a problem, it is the point.

2. Practice twice a week
Ten to twenty minutes is enough. Consistency matters more than duration.

3. Notice, don’t judge
Pay attention to what improves, what feels different, and what surprises you.

Weekly Reflection Prompts

At the end of each week, ask yourself:

What felt awkward at first?
What got slightly easier?
What did my body learn this week?
What thoughts came up about failing or looking silly?
What did I do anyway?

A Gentle Reframe

You are not doing this to prove you are capable. You are doing this to remind yourself that you are teachable.

Every wobble is information. Every repetition is progress. Every attempt is growth.

Your February Mantra

“If I’m green, I’m growing.”

Say it when you feel frustrated. Say it when you want to quit. Say it when your body surprises you.

Optional Bonus

At the end of February, write yourself a short note answering this question: “What did learning something new in my body teach me about learning in my life?”

Why This Matters Beyond February

Here is what I have learned from years of choosing to stay green: the willingness to be a beginner in one area of your life changes how you show up everywhere else.

When you prove to yourself that you can learn something physical—that you can be awkward and keep going, that you can fall and get back up—you build evidence that contradicts the sneaky belief that you are not good at learning anymore.

That evidence transfers. It shows up in how you approach a difficult conversation at work. In how you respond when a new technology confuses you. In how you think about career changes, creative projects, or relationship challenges.

I have watched this pattern in my own life. After that summer of practicing back walk-overs, I approached school differently. When algebra felt impossible, I remembered landing on my head in the backyard and getting back up. I thought, “If I can learn that, I can learn this.”

Years later, when I started my business, I drew on that same reservoir. I didn’t know how to build a website. I didn’t know how to market. I didn’t know how to price my services. But I knew how to be green. I knew how to stay curious instead of defeated. I knew that awkward was part of the process, not evidence that I should quit.

The physical learning we do teaches our nervous system that discomfort is survivable. That we are more resilient than we think. That progress does not have to be linear to be real.

Because growth is not limited by age. It is limited only by willingness.

And willingness is a muscle we can strengthen.

Stay Green, My Friend

This February, I will be practicing too. I will be showing up to movements that feel unfamiliar. I will be wobbling, adjusting, learning. I will be reminding myself that green is good.

I hope you will join me.

Not because you have to get it right. But because you deserve to know what your body can learn when you give it permission to try.

Growth is happening, even when it feels uncomfortable. Especially when it feels uncomfortable.

Stay green, my friend. 💛