How to develop a Growth Mindset?

World-renowned psychologist, Dr Carol Dweck, set off on a journey a few decades ago to answer the following question: 

Why do some people succeed, while others who are equally or more talented don’t?

Based on her in-depth research that spanned over three decades, she concluded that our mindset plays a big role in our overall success. 

What is Mindset?

Mindset is the power of belief, coupled with what we choose to focus on. Since I run a lot of workshops on this topic, I have observed my audience appreciating a mathematical formula for mindset: 

Mindset = Power of belief + what we choose to focus on

Let me explain. Mahatma Gandhi said:

Your beliefs become your thoughts, 

Your thoughts become your words, 

Your words become your actions, 

Your actions become your habits,

Your habits become your values,

Your values become your destiny. 

We tend to under-estimate the power of belief. But it is this belief that creates the foundation for our overall destiny. 

Beliefs

Where do our beliefs come from? The root of most of our belief systems comes from our environment: the people we surround ourselves with, the books we read, the shows we watch, the topics we talk about, and more. A toxic environment injects us with self-doubt. A nurturing environment empowers us with self-confidence. 

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

Hence, the first step to cultivating a growth mindset is to create an environment of growth, learning & development for yourself. Surround yourself with like-minded individuals who encourage you and support you on your growth mindset journey. If you can’t find real people in your life who can become your cheerleaders, then find yourself a coach or a mentor who can guide you. Books and podcasts can also sometimes play the role of a virtual coach. However, coaching from books and podcasts won’t be tailored to your real-time needs. 

Focus

The second part of the mindset equation is focus. Reflect and ask yourself: whenever you take any action, are you doing it for your own learning process or are you doing it for a particular outcome such as, to be perceived ‘smart’ by others? 

If your focus is solely on the outcome and on ‘looking smart’, then you are usually not focused on the learning process. Instead, you are focused on others and how others perceive you. Hence, the second step to cultivating a growth mindset is to create a learning process for yourself along with your coach or mentor. 

There are four (4) key drivers to a growth mindset:

• Effort - be mentally prepared that the journey you are on will be a long and difficult one. As a result, you will be required to put in a lot of effort in your learning & development. Results will not come quickly and this is where you will need to resist the temptations of your fixed mindset to focus on the process and not care about the outcomes. The positive outcomes will be the byproduct of your consistent effort and focus on the process. 

• Challenges - People who are successful embrace challenges instead of avoiding them. They cherish challenges as opportunities to improve their craft. I have worked with a lot of students and working professionals who are on the lookout for an easy path in life: an easier degree, an easier job, so that they can put their lives on cruise control. Cruise control makes driving convenient and easy, but it doesn’t equip us with the skills to survive through a storm. Hence, anytime you are faced with a dilemma to pick between a difficult path or an easy path (especially in relation to your life goals), pick the difficult path. 

• Mistakes - As you embark on the journey of learning and development, you will realize that the most efficient and effective way to learn is to experiment and iterate. The process is similar to a lean startup: Build (try something new) → Measure (did it work?) → Learn (what worked? What did not work?) → Repeat. 

The adoption of this iterative learning cycle will encourage you to experiment and make mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the faster you learn and the faster you succeed. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes and failing. Every failure and mistake is actually taking you a step closer to your goals. As Oprah Winfrey said: “I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure, if you enjoyed the process and learnt something from it”. 

• Feedback - This is perhaps the most overlooked growth mindset driver. Find yourself a coach or mentor who isn’t just your cheerleader but also someone who can help you identify and address your blindspots. Value and cherish the feedback you receive from your coach, mentors and customers. Incorporate this feedback into your learning process as you enter the next iteration cycle. The worst thing you can do is to ignore the valuable feedback you receive and get defensive about it. 

A very straightforward framework I use to receive and implement feedback into my process is the following:

• Keep doing: things that I am doing great and should continue doing. Here are some examples from my mentors on things that I should keep doing: keep learning new skills, keep making my mind productive and thoughtful, and keep connecting and meeting up with positive and creative people.
  

• Stop doing: things that I should stop doing. Here is an example from my mentors on something that I should stop doing: stop distracting myself from your goals, stop wasting my time on non-productive things that may affect my career and mindset negatively, stop taking frisk decisions…etc.
  

• Start doing: things that I should start doing. Here are some examples from my mentors on things that I should start doing: plan ahead the career and make a strong strategy, start staying aware of my mindset and keep a positive attitude in any stage of my career, and start training myself for high-value skills in my industry.
  

Once you hop on the Growth Mindset journey, you will discover your true superpowers. Unlike the superheroes of Hollywood, the real-world superheroes work in teams with real people to collaboratively achieve success and greatness. 

So, take action and create an environment of learning, find a mentor or coach and surround yourself with a team of like-minded individuals who are in the same boat as you: The Growth Mindset boat! 

We hope you’ve found good insights on starting a mentally healthy lifestyle. Explore more on building the growth mindset for  effective career growth with us.

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