For a long time, I chalked up my attitude toward learning and challenges to confidence or, a bit of delusion. I’d dive into things I didn’t fully understand yet, convinced I’d figure them out along the way. Sometimes it felt reckless, often times a little chaotic. But recently, I came across a snippet on growth mindset, and something clicked.

It turns out, what I thought was just stubborn optimism might actually be a mindset built for learning and resilience.

what a growth mindset looks like:

- I can learn anything I want
- Challenges help me grow

- My efforts and attitude determine my abilites
- Feedback is constructive
- I like to try new things
- Failure is an opportunity to grow

Seeing these written out made me realize that what I used to downplay as “being confident” is actually a powerful approach to learning and life. It isn’t about always being positive or never struggling. It’s about understanding that you can change, adapt, and grow over time. 

*note to self: please please please remember this so you don't have to look it up next time*

.gsub( /__/ , __ )
the value to replace => what you want to replace it with

\d = all numbers

" " =  spaces

[^...] = match any character NOT in the set

[^a-zA-Z0-9] = all non alpha numeric values
[a-z] = downcase letter
[A-Z] = uppercase letter

[0-9] = any digit

use .gsub! if you want to modify the string in place

use .sub if you want to replace just the first match