Your “Mindset” shapes your pain: here is what to do about it.
“I don’t mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I’ve done as well as I possibly could.”
― Carol Dweck
The problem this book solves
“You just need to think positively about your pain.”
If you’re like most of my patients, hearing that makes you want to scream. When you’re awake at 3 AM with burning nerve pain running down your leg, positive thinking sounds like a bad joke.
I get it. I’m not here to tell you to smile through the pain or visualize yourself better. That’s garbage advice.
But here’s what I have noticed after years of treating chronic pain: it’s not about thinking positive. It’s about thinking *differently*. Two people, same injury, same treatment plan. One gets better, rebuilds their life. The other gets worse, more disabled, more stuck.
For a long time, I couldn’t figure out why. Then I read Carol Dweck’s work on mindset, and everything clicked.
Who is Carol Dweck?
Carol Dweck is a psychologist at Stanford who studied a simple question: why do some people bounce back from challenges while others crumble?
Turns out it’s not about talent or smarts or luck. It’s about what you believe can change.
She wrote a book called *Mindset* that breaks it down into two camps. Fixed mindset: you are who you are, your abilities are set in stone. Growth mindset: you can learn, adapt, get better at things through effort.
Her work has been tested in schools, businesses, sports, relationships. But what grabbed me was how perfectly it applies to chronic pain.
The two mindsets in chronic pain
Here’s how it sounds with pain:
Fixed mindset:
“I’m broken. My body doesn’t work anymore. Nothing helps. This is just who I am now.”
Growth mindset:
“This is really hard right now. I’m still figuring out what helps. My nervous system can learn new patterns. I might not control everything, but I’m not powerless either.”
See the difference? Neither one pretends the pain isn’t real. It’s not about being optimistic or tough. It’s about whether you think anything can shift.
Fixed vs growth Mindset
Four key ideas from “Mindset”, adapted for pain management
1. A flare-up is feedback, not failure
Idea from the book: When something’s hard, fixed mindset says “I can’t do this, I’m not good enough.” Growth mindset says “I can’t do this *yet*.”
With chronic pain: When you have a bad day, what do you tell yourself?
Fixed mindset: “See? I knew it. I’m too fragile. I can’t handle this.”
Growth mindset: “Okay, that sucked. What happened? Did I overdo it? Was I stressed? What would I change next time?”
I see this all the time with exercise. Someone tries to walk around the block, pain flares up, and they decide their body can’t handle walking anymore. Done. Case closed.
Someone else tries the same walk, gets the same flare, and thinks: was it too far? Wrong shoes? Bad timing? Let’s try again differently tomorrow.
Here’s what’s actually happening: Pain doesn’t come straight from your tissues. It comes from your brain deciding how much danger you’re in. When you treat a flare as proof you’re broken, your brain cranks up the alarm. When you treat it as information, the alarm settles down.
This isn’t woo-woo stuff. It’s measurable. How you think about your pain changes how your brain processes it.
In real life: Next time you have a setback, ask “what’s this teaching me?” instead of “why does this always happen to me?”
Exercise : Write down three things that might have contributed. You’re a scientist looking at data, not a criminal getting sentenced.
2. Effort doesn’t mean you’re failing
Idea from the book: Fixed mindset thinks if something takes effort, you must be bad at it. Growth mindset knows anything worth doing takes work.
With chronic pain: So many of my patients feel ashamed that managing pain is hard. They see other people functioning fine and think “what’s wrong with me that I have to work so hard just to get through the day?”
Let me be clear: managing chronic pain *is* work. Pacing yourself takes work. Breathing exercises take work. Building back activity takes work. Better sleep takes work.
That doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you. It means your nervous system learned some unhelpful patterns, and unlearning them takes practice.
The science part: Your brain can rewire itself. That’s neuroplasticity. But it requires repetition and consistency. When you’ve had pain for months or years, your nervous system got really good at producing pain. Changing that pattern takes time and effort.
The effort isn’t the problem. The effort is literally how change happens.
Your experiment: Look at the things you’ve tried for pain. Instead of writing them off as “didn’t work,” ask yourself if you really gave them a fair shot.
Most pain interventions need 6-8 weeks of daily practice before you see real change. Pick one thing. Do it every day for two months. Track what happens without judging it.
If you’re putting in effort, you’re still in the game.
3. The stories you tell yourself matter
Idea from the book: “I’m bad at math” leads to different behavior than “I’m still learning math.” The way you talk to yourself shapes what you do.
With chronic pain: Listen to your own thoughts about pain. Do you say “I can’t” or “I can’t yet”? Do you say “my back is destroyed” or “my back is sensitive right now”?
Words matter. They shape what you believe is possible.
I had a patient who kept saying “my body hates me.” Every single session. We worked on shifting it to “my nervous system is being overprotective.” Same pain, different frame.
Within a few weeks, she was trying things she hadn’t attempted in years. The pain didn’t disappear. But something shifted in how she related to it.
What the research shows: There’s solid evidence on pain neuroscience education showing that how you understand and describe pain actually changes how your brain processes it.
Catastrophic thinking amplifies pain signals. More realistic language turns the volume down.
A simple practice: For one week, just notice how you talk about your pain, even in your own head.
When you catch yourself saying “I’m broken” or “I’ll never get better,” pause. Rephrase it. Not with fake cheerfulness, but with accuracy.
“My nervous system is stuck in a pattern right now.” “I’m working on this.” “This is hard AND I’m figuring it out.”
Your brain is listening to you.
4. Discomfort isn’t the same as damage
Idea from the book: Growth happens outside your comfort zone. But there’s challenging yourself smartly versus recklessly.
With chronic pain: Recovery usually means doing things that hurt a bit. That’s how you show your nervous system that movement is safe. But here’s the key distinction: hurt versus harm.
Hurt is discomfort, soreness, fatigue. Harm is actual tissue damage.
Most chronic pain is hurt without harm. Your alarm system is overreacting, but nothing’s actually being injured. Learning to tell the difference is huge.
Fixed mindset avoids all hurt because it assumes hurt means harm. Growth mindset gradually tests the edges while staying smart about actual danger signals.
It’s not about pushing through pain. It’s about getting curious about your limits.
The evidence: Graded exposure works. It’s one of the best-supported approaches for chronic pain. You gradually do the things you’ve been avoiding, teaching your brain they’re actually safe.
But it only works if you approach it as an experiment, not a test you can fail.
Start somewhere small: Pick one thing you’ve been avoiding because of pain. Start stupidly small.
If walking hurts, walk to the mailbox. If sitting hurts, sit for five minutes. Do it regularly. When it gets easier, bump it up 10-20%.
Your brain learns through repetition, not heroics. You’re building evidence that challenges your pain story, one tiny piece at a time.
Where this leaves you …
I hope you enjoyed my version of Carol’s Dweck book “Mindset”!
—> Dweck’s research shows mindset isn’t permanent. You can shift it.
And that’s good news for chronic pain, because recovery isn’t one magical moment.
It’s hundreds of small decisions about how you interpret setbacks, how you talk to yourself, how you approach hard things.
You don’t have to be positive. You have to be open.
Open to your nervous system changing. Open to learning what actually helps. Open to effort being part of the process, not proof of failure.
Your pain is real. Your ability to influence it is also real. Both things are true.
Pick one idea from this article. Try it for a week. See what happens. That’s growth mindset right there. Not pretending you know everything, but believing you can figure things out.
That belief might be the best tool you have
Want to know your mindset pattern?
Curious whether you’re operating from a fixed or growth mindset when it comes to your pain? I created a quick quiz to help you figure out where you stand.
Take the Pain Mindset Quiz →
It’s 10 questions, honest answers only. No judgment, just awareness. Sometimes seeing the pattern is the first step to shifting it.
