Many of us remember a graduation. High school, college, grad school.

Do you remember the speeches?

“You are poised to do great things.”

“You stand ready to fulfill your potential.”

“Work hard for your dreams. Your destiny awaits.”

We were advised to get out there, get to work, and do the things we love and were meant for.

To believe in ourselves, what we could do, and that victories in life were waiting for us as a result.

Do you still believe? Did you ever?

Think about yourself right now. What’s your mindset?

Consider your gifts and talents, your intelligence, your personality.

Do you believe who you are is set in stone and must be maintained? Or are you changeable and able to be refined, cultivated, and improved with time?

According to the research of mindset pioneer and Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, your beliefs pertaining to your abilities and potential fuel your actions and foretell your successes.

Essentially, we all have a “mindset” that governs what we think about ourselves and what we believe we can achieve.

One of our most basic beliefs is connected to how we see and assume our personalities. We tend to do this with mindsets that are either “fixed” or oriented towards “growth.”

• A “fixed mindset” assumes that core qualities and traits are inherent, or givens. You may feel you are simply endowed with a level of character, brains, and creativity that are pretty much set and unchangeable in any real way. Any success just affirms what already exists and so the challenge (and worry) becomes to measure up, to prove yourself, and to strive for success by doing whatever you can to avoid failure. You simply work hard at maintaining the level of character, intelligence, and talent you’ve always assumed is central to who you are and all you can be.

• A “growth mindset” assumes little as it pertains to what is given. If you think in terms of growth, you view your personality traits as changeable through your own hard work and dedication. Your “givens” are just the beginning of a journey that thrives on future challenge and lessons learned through failure. Growth and expanded abilities are key goals. You aren’t interested in preserving or maintaining an initial idea of yourself or your intelligence.

So, if mindset impacts your own personality this way, it stands to reason there will be a fixed vs. growth approach to learning anything, to your relationships with significant others, and to engaging with the world at large.

Consider the risks of Mother Theresa, Ghandi, or Martin Luther King Jr. Look at the accomplishments of Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, or Michael Phelps. To do great things, something internally expansive is happening. A belief system that drives you higher and further than your starting point. Your initial abilities and brains must grow, change, and even be traded for the things that spur you toward your fulfilled potential.

All in all, your mindset is an instructive, internal process. It informs you and drives you.

If you subscribe to a fixed mindset, your process is marked by a consistent inner conversation that consists of constant judgment and assessment. The information you take in from the outside world is either confirmation of your abilities, worth, and superiority–or it isn’t.

However, if you subscribe to a growth mindset, your internal monologue fuels little judgment or self affirmation. Instead, your belief system feeds a healthy appetite for learning, searching out guidance and expanded understanding, and developing more constructive behavior.

A growth mindset inspires action based on more than maintaining the status quo and truly believes in graduating to great things.