How to develop a growth mindset for more success in life and business
Why do people succeed? Why don’t they succeed? How much do mindset and core beliefs play a role whether you succeed in life or not?
Have you ever embarked on a journey to understand how these factors play a role in modern life success?
If so, you probably encountered the studies or research of psychology professor Carol Dweck (Author of Growth Mindset) and her revolutionary work cultivating a growth mindset.
In her studies, she found out how mindset and attitude towards challenging situations make all the difference in coping with failures. And how the things we tell ourselves have a profound impact on whether we will ever succeed in our endeavors.
What is a growth mindset?
Carol Dweck describes a growth mindset as follows:
The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it is not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.
This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.
If you think about it, we are obsessed with looking good in front of others, whether it is our close friends or complete strangers.
The question is whether it makes sense to waste time on non-profound things to prove how good you are. Instead, you should put your energy into advancing your skills by focusing on getting better at the task at hand.
Since most of our mindset comes from our beliefs, it makes sense to talk about the belief system first.
Our belief system is mostly influenced by our upbringing and key moments that shaped our lives. One example that I can give you from my life is a life lesson that I will carry with me until the end of my life:
The people you encounter in life will not remember what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
How developing a growth mindset changed my outlook on life
My life story goes back to high school. Do you remember those days when everyone had to hold a presentation in front of a class during the school year?
Since I was a very introverted and shy kid, I hated presentations, especially on topics I was not intrinsically interested in.
However, I tried to look good so I prepared very diligently for that presentation. On the day of the presentation, two of my classmates presented before me and they did an amazing job.
I was really nervous. In my mind I was building up the belief that my presentation will be s*** compared to theirs (in retrospect, definitely not a healthy way to think).
And as Henry Ford put it, whether you think you can or you can’t, you are probably right.
“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
I completely bombed my presentation and received really bad feedback from my teacher. Sentences like
- “Your classmates are more natural than you when presenting.”
- “Your presentation style is really bad.”
I want to share this story with you, not because I want to sound brave, but because I want to share that, all these years, I had a fixed mindset myself.
I really took her words to my heart and I still vividly remember this really bad memory. These feelings became a thought which embedded into my belief system.
At the end of the day, I now regard it as a learning opportunity. I swapped these beliefs to:
- “Nice, I can learn from my peers”
- “My presentation style is not good, yet.”
A change of perspective thanks to an inspiring book was all I needed after all.
How can one belief lead to lasting success — the love for challenges, the belief in hard work, or the resilience in the face of adversity? Let’s find out together.
The difference between a fixed and a growth mindset: nature vs. nurture
The fixed mindset. Carol Dweck describes the fixed mindset as a belief system: Everybody is dealt a certain hand of cards for life and these cards will never change.
If you are dealt a bad hand — well, you have to live with it and try to adapt and accept the fact that you will just live with this hand for the rest of your life.
If you are dealt the royal flush of hands, on the other hand, congratulations, you are a lucky winner in the game of life.
Being fixed leads to the following belief system:
If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply would not do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics. […] Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? […]
A fixed mindset will give you another set of skills: deceiving and trying to look good in the eyes of society. You want to be seen as intelligent or skillful.
However, being this way does not help you to develop a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Feelings that we, when we look back at our lives, wish we longed for rather than social desirability.
Let me tell you one thing:
It’s okay, not to be okay.
The growth mindset. Let’s turn our focus on what encompasses a growth mindset. In contrast to a fixed mindset, Carol Dweck describes this belief system as follows:
There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you are dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.
Well, in essence, people with a growth mindset do not care what cards they are dealt with.
Growth-minded people will just keep playing, find new strategies, draw new cards, think outside the box, and show much more aptitude to grow out of their given situation.
Another point is that we can have growth mindsets in certain areas of life and fixed mindsets in others.
Many people tend to believe that intelligence (i.e. certain skills in one area) is a growth area. That means you can improve your skills significantly with hard work and practice.
On the other hand, they tend to believe that interpersonal skills (e.g. desirability) are more fixed.
I strongly believe that all skills, intellectual or interpersonal, are learnable. Therefore we encourage everyone to approach whatever area, which they are interested in, with a growth mindset.
What is the growth mindset principle?
Do you remember your first driving lesson? Odds are, given it was a manual car, when you tried to start the engine, you managed to stall it.
I did so, on a regular basis, during my first ten driving lessons.
But did I give up? Or did you give up? Probably not.
I also assume after a couple of years now, driving became second nature to you and you do not really think about it while doing it.
This is a classic example of a growth mindset. At first, it was really challenging. After you put in some effort, you got the hang of it, and voila, now you acquired a new skill for life.
A growth mindset is based on the belief that you can cultivate your skills through your efforts. Although people may differ in their initial talents, aptitudes, interests, or temperaments, all can change and grow through practice and experience.
Remember that all kinds of tests that give you a score on your current performance are nothing else than stating your current performance. This goes for IQ tests, admittance tests, tests on physical ability, etc..
These tests only tell you where you stand at the moment. They do not tell you anything about what is actually possible. That is up to you to decide.
You are where you need to be in life. Everyone’s time to shine will come eventually.
Insight to Action Growth Mindset Challenge
Take your notebook, set a timer for ten minutes, and answer the following questions:
- What area of my life do I want to improve?
- Why do I want to improve it?
- What is my current skill set in this area?
- How will it make me feel if I have improved it?
- How will it improve my life and the lives of the people around me?
End this action challenge, by signing it with:
I have a growth mindset and I am capable of achieving anything. — Your Name
Why does a growth mindset matter?
If you are not hooked yet on the concept of a growth mindset, let me tell you how it will improve your life and the lives of those around you.
Changing our belief systems can have a powerful impact. Besides building resilience, a growth mindset ignites a powerful passion for learning and experimentation.
Or as Dweck puts it
“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be simply getting better.”
Life is too short to live up to other’s expectations
If you have the wish within you to create something in your life, to experience life to the fullest, or to leave it behind a little bit better than when you found it, nurturing a growth mindset will give you the right tool at hand to pursue all your dreams.
“Life is not easy, Life isn’t fair, don’t fall into the entitlement trap of feeling like you are a victim. Most things are more rewarding if you break a sweat doing them.” — Matthew McConaughey
How to cultivate a growth mindset: The power of “not yet”
If you are in a fixed mindset your typical reaction to struggles, setbacks, and mistakes is that you are probably not good enough.
I want to help you change this perspective from “not good enough” to “not good enough, yet“.
This tiny little word yet has so much profound meaning in the literature about growth mindset and building long-lasting skills that it is worthwhile elaborating on it.
What are 3 characteristics of a growth mindset?
- Physically grow your brain. Research indicates that you can physically grow your brain and improve your memory for certain types of tasks and jobs. For instance, memory champions grow their brains to a large extent thanks to exhaustive training and exercises that focus on spatial imagination.
- Re-wire your brain. When you learn a new skill, you create new neural connections in your brain. For instance, I teach myself 10-finger-typing at the moment, which is pretty challenging for me since I am used to typing the way I do for over 15 years now. Learning new skills will rearrange former patterns in your brain, helping you gain new perspectives and novel approaches, a process that is attributed to neuroplasticity.
- Speed up your brain. When you practice something for a very long time, say 10,000 hours, you normally achieve expert skills in your field. What happens in your brain during these hours of practice is a process called myelination. Myelination refers to an increase in the fatty sheath surrounding neuronal processes and fibers that increases the efficiency of electrical transmission. In layman’s terms: you are able to process information through these neural pathways up to ten times faster than a novice.
Adam Grant, a leading research professor in the field of organizational psychology, describes the process of failing as an opportunity to learn.
Learning how something is not done.
Going back to the power of not yet, failing is simply a state that shows that you are not quite there yet.
But with the right amount of hard work and deliberate practice, you can use the concept of “not yet” as fuel for honing your skills and progress further in life.
This will help you to embrace challenges rather than be scared of them.
Conclusion and final words on growth mindset development
We are blessed with opportunities in our modern times. However, modern technology and increasing transparency lead to constant comparison among people.
People do not want to look bad in the eyed of society. It is a pity that we focus so much on how we look rather than how much we contribute.
Contributing to a growth mindset environment can be the first step towards a more vulnerable and open-minded world.
I challenge you to praise your friends and colleagues next time for their effort or progress.
Words like “You worked really hard, I admire that” or “Wow, you improved so much” are much more powerful in pushing our boundaries than “Wow, you must be really smart”.
All people have the right to live in environments that cultivate their growth.
Let’s not waste any more lives.
Here are some resources to explore more on growth mindset
Youtube Resources
- Advice from former Navy Seal David Goggins
- Carol Dweck’s Ted Talk on Growth Mindset
- Tom Bilyeu explaining going from “I can’t” to “Not yet”
