Growth vs. Fixed Mindset: How To Change The Way You Think
The word “mindset” is used in different ways and has different meanings for many of us.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of mindset is:
“A person’s way of thinking and their opinions”.
Essentially one’s perspective on life.
In her book “Mindset” Dr. Carol Dweck describes two types of mindset: The fixed mindset and the growth mindset.
What not to adopt: The fixed mindset
Those with a fixed mindset see intelligence, abilities, or creativity as fixed and static. People with a fixed mindset don’t believe in big (personal) changes. They believe only in natural talent and therefore don’t take required efforts to enhance their skills or other qualities.
Not only don’t they believe in themselves, they also constitute a serious danger to others, judging them by their failures. In the fixed mindset the perception is that failure is something bad, that should be avoided at any cost. If you fail, all your hard work is wasted. They are only outcome-focused and don’t value the learnings and the progress being made.
What they don’t know is that individuals who wanna achieve great are destined to a hard, long path full of mistakes from which they learn. There are countless tales of personalities who failed hard before becoming successful. Including Michael Jordan, Walt Disney, JK Rowling, Thomas Edison,…
The growth mindset
People with a growth mindset believe that intelligence and skills can be developed. They focus on learning and improving by the means of challenging themselves. Bad results don’t get them down. They enjoy the effort and love the journey they are going through. No matter what they do, they observe, learn, improve and see the progress. Consistency is their key to growth and obsession is their fuel.
Why do people differ?
People’s backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, and environments are the main reasons for different mindsets and perspectives. Just ask yourself and think about where your thoughts, limits, perspectives come from. Could it be possible that your workplace, your team, your family, or your friends have had an impact on your mindset? Are they helping, supporting, or only judging?
How to change your mindset
It is to be known that we all share elements of both mindsets. What makes the difference is the perception and the consciousness about your mindset: To be conscious about your thoughts and to know how to change them. How do you feel after a rejection? Judged, hurt, vengeful? Or learning, hopeful, forgiving, and moving on? Only if one can realize that they are in the fixed mindset they are able to change it. Mindset change is about seeing things in a different way. The goal is to go from a judge-and-be-judged to a learn-and-help framework.
“Mindsets are an important part of your personality, but you can change them. Just by knowing about the two mindsets, you can start thinking and reacting in new ways. People tell me they start to catch themselves, when they are in the throes of the fixed mindset — passing up a chance for learning, feeling labeled by a failure, or getting discouraged when something requires a lot of effort. And then they switch themselves into the growth mindset — making sure they take the challenge, learn from the failure or continue their effort.” -Dr. Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University.
We have to remember what we can influence and what not:
What is not up to us: Other people’s emotions and judgments, the weather, the economy, disasters, trends,…
What is up to us: Our emotions, attitude, perspective, decisions, creativity, desires, determination,…
Your behavioral tendencies are important here. To feel in a way but act in another way.
Don’t give a s*** as long as you make progress
You should not worry about not being smart or making failures as long as you learn. You can get stupid in situations where you challenge yourself. In these cases, failure can be a painful experience, but it doesn’t define you. Don’t let other people’s judgments and defining overcome you in these situations. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable you are facing. Only your progress is significant for you.
The next day comes and the next day goes. In the long term, what really matters is your progress and growth and taking necessary steps to get with all that it needs to where you want. No one can define you better than you yourself.
