Do you operate with a growth mindset? Or a fixed mindset?
Those who adopt a fixed mindset believe that talent, skills, and intelligence are something that you either have or you don’t, while people with a growth mindset believe that you can learn and develop skills and abilities. It has been found that people with growth mindsets typically experience more success and develop more skills over time.
Before you begin to adopt a growth mindset it’s important to assess where you are at. Often times people have a growth mindset in some areas of their lives while they don’t in other areas. For example, you may feel that when it comes to your job you can learn anything that you need to, but maybe your confidence doesn’t extend to the gym and you feel uncomfortable there when you’re trying to learn new things. Developing a growth mindset in as many areas as we can, will help us move towards more success in more areas.
Look at challenges as opportunities
One of the most obvious things you can do when setting out to adopt more of a growth mindset is to see your challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. When looking at obstacles in front of you try and think of ways that you can overcome these things instead of just giving up because they are blocking your path. Looking at obstacles as opportunities can help you grow and push towards learning new skills in order to move those obstacles out of the way. Every challenge in front of you is an opportunity to learn something.
Understand your own limitations
While the growth mindset does promote that we can learn anything we set our mind to most of us do have limitations in some capacity. You may have the ability to learn how to code for example, but the time that it would take you to learn that isn’t worth it for you and you are going to hand that off to someone who is better at that. That’s okay when these types of things happen. While it’s important to believe that we can learn, grow and achieve new things there are also situations where the resources to do so are not there and it’s going to take some time. These limitations will vary for everyone which can be a great opportunity to reach out to resources around you.
Start using the word “yet”
Finally, start using the word yet when you are talking about skills you don’t currently have. Saying that you aren’t able to do a cartwheel yet, is very different than saying you don’t know how to do a cartwheel or you can’t do a cartwheel. Using the word yet allows our brain to see opportunities for us to learn new things and grow instead of closing the door on something because we don’t have that skill or ability yet.
When it comes to the growth mindset, it’s important to work at developing it over time. Some of us naturally have a growth mindset in some areas while others may have to work a little bit harder at it. Adopting a growth mindset and teaching yourself that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to can bring more confidence and positivity into your life overall while leads us to happier and healthier lives!
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