Ever try something new like going to an escape room for example. If you aren’t good at it straight away, what’s your attitude like?
Frustrated, angry, annoyed, sour?
Do you complain and spew out negative comments about the activity?
Do you stop trying your hardest because you feel negatively towards the activity?
That’s how you know you have a Fixed Mindset — when you get discouraged easily and avoid things you aren’t naturally good at.
On the other hand, what if you were bad at it but your attitude was,
I’m determined to get better,
My skill level doesn’t negate the fact that this is a fun activity,
What can I learn from this,
It’s my first time at this, why should I be good at it?
That’s how you know you have a Growth Mindset — when you bring an attitude of curiosity and embrace challenges as learning opportunities.
Which mindset do you think leads to a more successful outcome?
The Paradox of Your Mindset
The paradox is the contradictory nature of your mindset’s influence on your life. On one hand, your mindset has the power to propel you towards success, enabling you to achieve your goals and overcome obstacles.
On the other hand, your mindset can also become a barrier to your success. Negative beliefs, self-doubt, and limiting thoughts can hold you back from reaching your full potential.
The paradox lies in the fact that your mindset, which has the potential to be your greatest asset, can also be your biggest obstacle if left unchecked.
If you’ve ever found yourself trapped in self-limiting beliefs even though you have goals and aspirations you are trying to achieve, you’ll understand this.
Understanding the Power of Your Mindset
Your mindset will largely determine how you move through life. Yes, it determines how successful you are, but also how much you enjoy the process of becoming successful.
You can get to the top of the mountain with resistance at each turn. Or you can embrace each challenge as an opportunity for growth. Your mindset will determine your relationship with the world around you.
Seeing things that happen to you as either a burden or a gift. Guess which mindset leads to a happier disposition?
Those with a growth mindset believe in their capacity to learn, adapt, and improve, while people with a fixed mindset tend to view their abilities as static and immutable.
Cultivating a Growth Mindset
A Growth Mindset doesn’t mean denying your challenges or setbacks. It’s quite the opposite. A person with a Growth Mindset acknowledges the reality of obstacles but chooses to view them as opportunities for growth and learning.
The good news, nobody is born with a specific mindset, which means yours can be changed.
With awareness and practice, you can cultivate a growth mindset — a belief that your abilities can be developed by embracing challenges, persisting despite setbacks, and seeing failure as a stepping stone to success.
10 Practical Strategies for a Growth Mindset
1. Identify Limiting Beliefs through Self-Awareness
Start by cultivating self-awareness and identifying any self-limiting beliefs that may be holding you back. Reflect on past experiences or during challenging tasks and pay attention to recurring thought patterns that sabotage your progress. Check if those beliefs are even yours, a lot of the time our beliefs form through societal pressures, bad experiences, and other people’s opinions. Learn how to overcome your limiting beliefs in this article.
2. Reframe Thoughts and Language
A Growth Mindset starts from reframing your thoughts and language. Instead of saying, “I can’t do this,” say, “I can’t do this yet.” By adding the word “yet,” you acknowledge the possibility for growth and improvement.
Your language can either be your jailer or your liberator.
3. Inner Dialogue
Become more aware of your inner dialogue and challenge any negative thoughts that arise. Do you easily get angry or complain about your circumstances? By shifting your inner dialogue to, thoughts such as — if I can’t control my external circumstances, how can I control my attitude towards them? By creating new attitudes, you create new neural pathways that become your default response.
4. Set Realistic Goals
Set achievable goals that also stretch your abilities and don’t forget to celebrate your progress. If you don’t celebrate your progress, you won’t reinforce the behavior. I can’t stress this enough, surround yourself with positive influences, whether it’s supportive friends and family or inspiring role models who embody that Growth Mindset you aspire to.
5. Increase your Resiliency Muscle
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. Increase your resiliency by adopting a solution-focused mindset. Rather than dwelling on problems, focus on identifying solutions and taking proactive steps toward a solution.
6. Practice Gratitude
One effective strategy for building resilience and a growth mindset is to practice gratitude. Find one thing you’re grateful for each day, no matter how small. This simple practice can shift your focus from what’s going wrong to what’s going right, which can shift your entire perspective.
Gratitude is one of the few emotions that are appropriate in all situations.
7. Do Things You Aren’t Good At
By pushing yourself to do uncomfortable things like things you aren’t naturally good at, you create new synapses in your brain which creates more neuroplasticity. It’s like doing weights for your brain. Do something artsy if you are more left-brain inclined, or try doing some problem-solving puzzles if you’re more right-brain inclined.
8. Visualization
Visualization is a powerful tool for shaping your mindset. Create a mental image of your desired outcomes. Visualize yourself achieving your goals with clarity and vividness, engaging all your 5 senses in the process. Visualization primes your unconscious mind for success and enhances your motivation to take action. Hypnotherapy is a great modality for this.
9. Positive Affirmations
Counteract negative self-talk with positive affirmations. Affirmations are powerful tools to rewire your subconscious mind and redirect it into a Growth Mindset.
The key to affirmations is activating the emotion associated with the affirmation.
Repeat affirmations daily to reinforce positive beliefs about yourself and your abilities while feeling the emotion associated with that affirmation. A classic example is ‘every day in every way I’m getting better and better’.
10. Seek Support
Don’t hesitate to seek support from trusted friends, family members, or professionals like myself. Surround yourself with positive influences who believe in your potential and can provide encouragement and guidance along your journey. We need support and validation from our community to fulfill our goals. Read more about that here.
Conclusion
The simple formula for a growth mindset is this: say you can do ‘X’ more times than you can’t and practice saying ‘yes’ in those critical moments that could derail your progress. If you see life as happening for you, not to you, you’ll be able to embrace everything that comes your way with more perspective and less emotion.
The path toward a Growth Mindset forces a shift in your perspective, not just on your external goals and aspirations but your relationship with yourself and how you relate to the world around you.