How to Develop a Growth Mindset

Did you know that Darwin and Tolstoy were ordinary children?

Akshay Kumar, one of the biggest Bollywood actors and a National Award winner for Best Actor was told that he is only good for action and stunts and not acting.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Geraldine Page, one of the greatest actresses was advised to give it up for the lack of talent.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper agency because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas”.

The list goes on and on.

All these people were ordinary at some point in their life, so what changed and how did they achieve all this, and most importantly, how can we get to that position?

Being successful depends on many factors but one of them happens to be the mindset.

There are two types of mindset –

• Fixed mindset
• Growth Mindset

Fixed Mindset is about believing that your talent and ability are fixed and you can’t do anything about it.

A growth mindset is about believing that through relentless efforts you can develop skills and abilities.

Carol Dweck is a world-renowned Stanford University Psychologist. She has done decade-long research on why people differ, why some people cope with failures, why people with innate talents fail miserably sometimes and why people with no or little natural ability thrive? Her book “Mindset” focuses on why Growth Mindset is needed if we want to achieve something in life.

Our Belief system plays a great role in shaping our mindsets.

How Belief System Shape Our Mindset

Your belief in anything comes from various factors. Your parents, friends, environment, books, videos, etc. All this makes up for your experience of life and your belief in general.

The story you tell yourself can make or break you. This is a great way to look at yourself.

Are you always blaming others for your failure?

Do you believe in talent more than effort?

I am not saying that people with a fixed mindsets don’t believe in effort. They just choose talent over effort. So, most of them don’t work as hard as they should.

Excuses are a great way to escape a problem. We all at some point in our life have been in both fixed and growth mindsets.

We’ve all given excuses to avoid doing something (Fixed Mindset Mode)

And then there have been instances where we worked, to make something happen (Growth Mindset Mode)

Fixed Mindset can seriously impede your progress and prevent you from developing any skills. For example –

“I am not good at ___” is just an excuse to not do it. Avoiding it won’t do any harm in the short term but it can hinder your ability to learn, improve and grow in the long run.

On the other hand, people with a growth mindset are willing to stretch themselves even if they failed at first. They see failures as an indication that they must develop their skills, rather than just saying “I am not good. So, I can’t do it”

Giving excuses, procrastinating, avoiding problems are all part of a fixed mindset.

“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even when it’s 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”. says Carol Dweck in her book Mindset

How to Develop Growth Mindset

Even if you are in a fixed mindset, you can change it. The good news is that our brain is plastic and it has an amazing ability to adapt. So, you can always develop new skills, adapt to new beliefs and take in new information. There are few ways you can develop a growth mindset.

1. Embrace Perfection

“Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.” -Jhumpa Lahiri

We aren’t perfect. And that’s what makes us human. Just imagine that you’ve created something, that is perfect. You’ve done something impossible. Now what?

The sad truth about perfection is that you can’t improve it, you have no motivation to do stuff, you won’t be learning anything new about it. Boring? Imperfections allow you to do all that.

Every day we get out of our bed because we want to do something, create something, learn something, be something. You go to achieve that perfection but it’s always far away from you. And the best part about imperfections is you can always make them better than before.

There is no perfect but if we think something is perfect, will we even work on it? Will we even learn new things, new ideas, innovation, etc. All innovations are the end product of something imperfect. Imperfect allows you to progress.

People with a growth mindset know it, so they strive to be better every single day. And are happy with their imperfection. So, Embrace Imperfection.

2. Become Curious

“Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.” -Aaron Swartz

Go out and find yourself. Become Curious, asks questions. People with a growth mindset are always asking. They are passionate about learning. People with a growth mindset are always trying to get better. And you get better when you ask questions.

Curiosity builds knowledge. As Steve Jobs said- “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”. That’s a growth mindset. Having a desire to grow and looking at everything from the perspective of a beginner’s mind.

Curiosity is about trying new things, new ideas. You want to do something, go and figure out how others are doing it. Study them, emulate them and then come up with your own style.

Learn from others people’s failures. People with a growth mindset know that skills can be developed through effort. So put your curiosity to work and learn something new.

3. View Challenges as Opportunities

“When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge — every adversity — contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth” — Roy T. Bennett

Challenges are opportunities to grow. Experts say it takes almost 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a field. So, there’s a lot of work involved here. People with a growth mindset thrive on challenges.

Challenges can be frightening due to fear of failure. Most people don’t try new things due to the uncertainty of the outcome. They don’t know whether they’ll be able to pull it off. In these cases, we may avoid challenges altogether. But we don’t grow in our comfort zone. And if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

There will be ups and downs in life, so there’s no way you can avoid disappointments in life.

Most people avoid challenges thereby limiting their growth. But if we seek challenges, if we try to get out of our comfort zone, we are already ahead of the majority.

Example of Difference Between Fixed and Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck did research. She asked fixed mindset people “When do you feel smart?” Their answers were-

“It’s when I don’t make any mistakes”

“When I finished something and it’s perfect”

“When something is easy for me, but other people can’t do it”

Fixed Mindset focus on being flawless right away or assuming immediate perfection.

They don’t want to make mistakes, and rather than challenging themselves, they focus on their comfort zone, something that comes easy to them.

And when Growth Mindset people were asked the same question. They said-

“When it’s really hard, and I try really hard and I can do something I couldn’t do before.”

Or “When I work on something a long time and I start to figure it out.”

For Growth Mindset; it’s not about immediate results. It’s about confronting challenges, learning something over time, and making progress.

So, try something new. Start something you always wanted to. Take it as a challenge, learn about it and figure out everything in the process of achieving it.

4. Value Process Over End Result

“The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” -Bobby Knight

Having goal is good but focusing on your system and process is better.

Becoming a writer is a goal, your writing schedule every week is a system, and then writing is the process.

Getting in shape is a goal, your workout schedules every week is a system, and working out is the process.

The goal is the outcome; your system is the routine you set to achieve your goals and the process is the actual work you do.

It’s necessary to fall in love with the process because it’s the only thing we control. Most of the time; the outcome is not in our control. The only thing we control is our effort.

People with a growth mindset aren’t worried about the results. They do it because they want to learn about it. They put in the effort for learning.

That means falling in love with the process, falling in love with the learning. This also means falling in love with the boredom of following up on your routine. This is how you build mental resiliency. This is how you develop skills.

Books To Read:

Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck.