Generally, people are grouped into two categories – those with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset.
The thing is, your mindset is independent of your environment, education, genes, and other factors.
Having the right mindset is a learned skill and it’s partly dependent on your application of the fundamental principles of human psychology.
Studies have shown that kids who succeed in life have grit and they persevere to the end.
Before we delve into the series of ways of developing the success mindset, you’ve got to understand
- Fixed Mindset: If you believe that your skills, intelligence, abilities, talents, and other qualities are fixed traits, then you’ve got a fixed mindset.
That is if you think that your abilities are inherent — you can’t change it. What you’ve got is what you’ve always had. That’s it! It can’t change. Then your mindset is fixed.
- Growth Mindset: If you believe that your skills, abilities, and personal qualities can grow over time — you’ve got a growth mindset.
These people are those who believe that their skill level is dependent on the amount of practice, experience, and guidance they receive.
They are the ones who go for it and who dare to achieve better results.
Here’s the thing…
Anyone can fall into the fixed mindset trap. For instance, high school students who have experienced little or no failure may believe the hype — that they’re genetically wired to be intelligent and successful. And that achieving success in life is easy.
This mindset coupled with public expectations will make them afraid of failure.
The result?
They won’t love to move out of their comfort zone and take the risk. The dumb students, however, may go on to accomplish incredible things in life since there are no public expectations. And all they had to do was to follow their passion and grow along the way.
Furthermore, corporate workers face similar mindset challenges.
For instance, when someone is promoted to a higher position like the MD of a company. They may feel reluctant to keep learning and improving themselves.
To them, they have arrived. And they’ll see themselves like godlike leaders who know everything.
With this fixed mindset, it could be hard to say “I don’t know” or “let’s think about it.”
You see, anyone can fall into the fixed mindset trap. And to avoid the trap, you’ve got to look for ways of improving on your skills consciously.
How To Develop The Growth Mindset
Challenges are part of life. It’s what forces us to grow and become a better version of ourselves.
With a fixed mindset, you’d see challenges as threatening.
People with a fixed mindset sees challenges as an avenue that exposes their weakness, their vulnerability, and their Achilles heel.
Fixed mindset makes you feel relaxed in your comfort zone — you’re afraid of stepping out, scared of challenges.
However, the person with a growth mindset sees challenges as an opportunity to grow.
The major difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset is that the individual with a fixed mindset focuses on the outcome — what will people say? Will I meet up to expectations? And will people see my weakness?
But the person with a growth mindset focus on the process — where did I go wrong? How can I learn from a setback and improve in the future?
Keep an open mind
This phrase sounds cliche, but still as powerful as it was since someone coined it. A close mind is a dying mind. If you want to grow both psychically, financially, spiritually, and otherwise, you’ve got to drop off conclusions about everything and anything. If you know, think “well I know, but not sure I know enough so I’m still learning.” If you don’t know, you don’t know!
Next time you’re faced with a challenge, instead of focusing on the outcome, try to move to the growth region by focusing on ways you can learn and improve.
Do you have a growth mindset?
