an achievement-oriented mindset

Ever since I was a little kid, I've liked to learn new things. I tend to have a lot of interests, and like most people, my interests mutate over time. Very frequently, they loop back around, but some times it can take a while.

Because of my proclivities, I end up forcing myself to learn new things. Recently, I learned quite a bit more than I ever expected to about physics simulations, C++, and using OpenGL. Learning new things sometimes just for the sake of learning is something I've always been very passionate about.

I've learned that the attitude I've always had when learning new things seems to be part and parcel of an important psychological construct: the achievement-oriented mindset. You can read an excellent synopsis of the phenomenon in this Scientific American article.

It boils down to the fact that people who believe that they can improve on their skills and abilities through sustained, concentrated effort do better in various measures of achievement. On the other hand, people that believe intelligence and abilities are innate, fixed qualities, simply give up before they even have a chance to learn something.

Granted, it's kind of silly they had to perform empirical research in order to quantify this situation, but it's nice to know that something I've understood intuitively for years has some research backing it up.

personal development literature- useful for fostering an achievement-oriented mindset?

It seems to me that most of the literature about personal development/self-help are simply a bunch of different strategies to get around to developing an achievement-oriented mindset. They then wrap this very basic piece of information around heuristics that make most peoples' lives easier; waking up early or surrounding yourself with a 'peer group that will hold you accountable' - part of one of Tony Robbins' 'pillars' apparently. Is that like one of the Pillars of Islam? Probably not.

If you have any self-help or personal development books, I would say that's a sad waste of money. One great, classic coming-of-age novel or an autobiography of a successful person (by your own definition) has scads more 'personal development' material that's way more applicable and actionable than what you'd find in the best ten percent of the most prolific personal development writer's canon.

academic research and the rhizome at work

Write down your goals. Track your progress towards them. Figure out what stands between you and your goal. Whoop-dee-fricking-doo. Really this sort of behavior just makes me think that these 'self-help gurus' are simply just living out a particular type of life story. My former professor Dan McAdams outlines a personality type in his book The Person: A New Introduction to Personality Psychology that seems awfully similar to the personality types these goo-roos seem to possess. They're these very outwardly-focused individuals that tend to have a lot of intensity and energy. The ones that McAdams profiled also frequently spent a lot of their time working to better their communities. I hear the same thing come from self-help gurus: pay it forward, help others because by helping others you help yourself, use willpower to break through barriers blah blah.

McAdams researched these people in a relatively simple fashion; he would have them recount their life stories. McAdams believes that a person's own narrative of their life is the key to understanding them. McAdams had an assistant of some kind that was working with him on the study that had no idea what the study was about, and she had to interact with these people each day. For a while, McAdams only sent her people with these outwardly-focused and very intense personalities. When he started sending her just random people, she remarked to him about how she really liked the new people much better because they were much more normal, cordial, and laid-back!

closing the book on personal development

I would posit that self-help and personal development gurus can only assist you if you fit a relatively narrow set of criteria. I would also say that it's almost one hundred percent certain that if their thoughts can assist you then you don't really need their ideas. You are perfectly capable of coming up with your own ways to write down your goals and achieve them. It's astounding, I know. You can thank me later.

More or less, it seems to me that the gurus of personal development are simply following the path of their biological personality imperative. The chicken and egg relationship is very apparent.

Of course, if you're just a dullard and not particularly creative, they deserve to make money off of you. Get your ass to the bookstore, but I'd always recommend something with a little more substance.