Improve your mindset

Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset

The growth mindset is based on the belief that your talents, skills, and abilities can be cultivated through hard work. Although people may differ in their unique genetic aptitudes, people with a growth mindset understand everyone can improve with experience, training, and personal effort. People with a growth mindset take more risks because failing doesn’t make them feel like a failure. They see it as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Fixed mindset:

People with a fixed mindset believe their qualities are fixed traits that can’t be changed. They avoid challenges because it makes them feel like they’re not talented or smart. They lose interest when the work gets hard, and they give up easily. They tend to let one setback define them forever.

Learning to have a growth mindset helps create significant motivation and productivity in every area of your life. The mindset you adopt impacts the way you live, see the world, and make decisions. Having a growth mindset is key to reaching your highest potential!

Here are eight general approaches for developing the foundation for a growth mindset:

1. Create a new compelling belief. Believe in yourself, in your own skills and abilities, and in your capacity for positive change.

2. View failure in a different light. See it as an opportunity to learn from your experiences and apply what you have learned next time around.

3. Cultivate your self-awareness. Work on becoming more aware of your talents, strengths, and weaknesses; gather feedback from those who know you best and put it together for a comprehensive view of yourself.

4. Be curious and commit to lifelong learning. Try to adopt the attitude of a child, looking at the world around you with awe and wonderment; ask questions, and truly listen to the answers.

5. Get friendly with challenges. Know that if you mean to accomplish anything worthwhile, you will face many challenges on your journey; prepare yourself for meeting these challenges, and for failing sometimes.

6. Do what you love and love what you do. It’s much easier to succeed when you are passionate about what you’re doing. Whether you cultivate a love for what you already do or focus on doing what you already love, developing passion is important.

7. Be tenacious. It takes a lot of hard work to succeed, but it takes even more than working hard—you must be determined, weathering obstacles, and getting back up after each time you fall.

8. Inspire and be inspired by others. It can be tempting to envy others when they succeed, especially if they go farther than you, but it will not help you succeed; commit to being an inspiration to others and use the success of others to get inspiration as well.

Follow these eight principles, and you will find it hard to have anything but a growth mindset.

Farrah Smith