I am writing in furtherance of my new discovery, “The Blocked Mindset” which I discovered not quite long ago. The Europeans and the US came up with the :Fixed Mindset and The Growth Mindset. I came to realise that in Ghana for whatever reason, we lack the growth mindset a lot and if I am not afraid I would say about 95% of all Ghanaians possess the Fixed Mindset which by our history and our laid-back attitude to all things, become easy to come by. We all LOVE negative things more than Positive things and whenever anything occurs in our society and communities, our first natural reaction would be geared towards the negative. Example, there is a major accident that has occured on our roads and it is being reported by an eyewitness, no Ghanaian would ask “How many lives were saved” but our national reaction: How many people died? We have this natural disposition towards negativity.

A Small Game: Kwame is just THREE years and he sees a kids bicycle he wants to ride. He would ask his Mom, can I ride that bicycle? Answer from Mom, No…but mom why? You would be injured.(Ghanaian with fixed mindset) A mother with the Growth Mindset, her answer would be yes you can ride that bicycle but you need to wear a helmet. To the growth mindset, the child should be exposed to the danger so that he learns from it but would caution him to be careful. So as the fixed mindset kills initiative,retards progress and subject people to mental slavery without any openness, the growth allows experimentation and mistakes so that we learn and become perfect.

My focus today is my new discovery : The Blocked Mindset which shows itself in many ways: How do you tell somebody something is white but you know very well that it is black? How do you accuse a group of people that they are corrupt but when you have power to prove them guilty you fail to produce the evidence? How would a society allow politicians to come to them, tell them a situation they already know does not exist but would in the long run allow themselves to be convinced by that LIE and stand on the side of that politician and vote for them? How would anybody who loves their own country think the best way to win power is to destroy what already exists so that when I come to power, I would have to look for money to start something else.How would a society that profess to have 70% as Christians but cannot distinguish between wrong from right? Why would the majority sit unconcerned as the minority take all the important decisions in a nation? How could a society allow its Police Service to become permanent bribe takers but nobody does anything to stop it? This tells you that, the Blocked Mindset is anybody who tends to be indifferent to the situation they find themselves in at any period of time. ” I know my legs are inside fire being burnt but I would not do anything about it.In the Blocked mindset, nobody takes responsibility for their actions,they pass things off and in the end point accusing fingers at others.

Education, the light of every society, would the citizens in a nation ARGUE over it? Where in the WORLD would a Constitution say there must be FREE SHS but politicians would be in power for over 23 years and would not do anything about it but when another party starts it, it becomes a topical issue? The blocked mindset is like somebody who thinks only of themselves. He may have a family but within the family the focus is all around him alone. The blocked mindset is selfish and very destructive, To such a person if it means KILLING for the “SELF” to be maintained in any poistion they occupy, they would. Why would anybody kidnap a kid? You would say the underlying cause is money but that is not the main cause. It is the selfishness that is going to grow to the want of money to satisfy the “SELF” and once the self is not satisfied, the Blocked minded person would go to any length to remove or break what is in their way.

In most cases, those with Blocked mindset do irrational things and you sit and wonder why a person born of woman would stoop so low to do such things. To help you understand a person with the Blocked mindset the best place in the Bible to let you understand it is found in Galatians 5:19-21.

Therefore as far as my findings are concerned: I wish every Ghanaian would conceptualise the Growth Mindset.