How many times you told yourself that you weren’t good enough? How many times you avoid changes, difficulties or criticism? What about all those times you feel about quitting?
Feelings and questions that hunts us very often in our life’s…But why?
The mind is a powerful tool, but must be used wisely as many times can trick us. Our beliefs and behaviors are managed by our mind, these are two essential characteristic that form our personality and who we are.
Beliefs and behaviors are built by the stories we tell our self and the actions we take in a daily basis. This mean that our perception of the world is built completely by our own mind. Our thoughts, dreams and fears are just a projection of this.
As the Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck said:
“For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value. How does this happen? How can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and, as a result, your life?”
Prevent change or allow new skills to blossom?…It’s you and what you think about yourself the responsible for making this to happen.
Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck have been studying for decades cases of success and personal achievements. In this studies she have found that our lifes are ruled by two types of mindset;
The Fixed Mindset and The Growth Mindset.
One of the most basic beliefs about our self, and what tend to define all our life, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. This is the start point to difference the fixed with the growth mindset.
A Fixed Mindset can make us believe that our intelligence, creativity, character and skills can’t be changed in any meaningful way. Because of this we tend to avoid challenges that could put us in an uncomfortable positions where we could make a bad impression or “to look stupid in the eyes of others”. So we are always at the defense, staying in a zone where we can pretend to be smart and confident, having the complete control over all our actions and their outcomes. We search for success but we avoid failure at all costs as a way of maintaining our status.
“Is better to give up than fail” is usually the best option for this kind of mindset.
In the other hand, a Growth Mindset have a completely different approach. Our skillsets and intelligence can be developed and improved over time through challenges and failures. A Growth Mindset embrace the search for learning, challenging what we consider as established, persisting in the face of obstacles, where effort and dedication is the only path to success.
In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it. — Carol Dweck
This two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, are extremely important in defining our behaviors and actions. Ultimately it defines the way we handle success and failure, how we expose to the world and our capacity to feel happiness.
After reading this, I think we all agree that having a growth mindset is the optimal choice in our life and probably everyone will agree if asked “What kind of mindset you believe you have?” the answer will be “Of course that a growth mindset”
But let’s be honest, Almost every one of us are guilty of having a fixed mindset in certain situations, which in my perspective is totally fine as it’s part of our learning and growing process. The importance is to realize that we can change this over time.
Growth Mindset in the Startup culture
A Growth Mindset is the fuel of our culture and the path toward building companies that can revolutionize the world. But working in the edge of innovation have its costs, where we are constantly facing the unknown, our fears and other people criticisms. Changing the “Status Quo” will probably make us doubt about ourselves, our work and our vision.
But the beauty about this is that we always can keep doing actions that can help us to maximize our growth process and minimize the fixed thinking.
This can be applied not only to our personal life, but also to our team experiences, product and customer development.
- Every day do small but repeated actions.
- Ask for feedback, expose yourself to criticism.
- Do one action in your daily life that puts you out of your comfort zone.
- Read and get inspired by the success of others.
- Put yourself in a position where you can teach, lead or be an example to others.
Don’t focus on the result, focus in the process. This will inspire you as a person, your team and ultimately your product.
As Maria Popova says in her Blog;
At the heart of what makes the “growth mindset” so winsome, Dweck found, is that it creates a passion for learning rather than a hunger for approval. Its hallmark is the conviction that human qualities like intelligence and creativity, and even relational capacities like love and friendship, can be cultivated through effort and deliberate practice.
Applying this little daily changes can have huge impacts in your relationship with life and will surely open a new world to explore.
Don’t be tempted for the easy way, the fixed way.
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