Develop an Unstoppable Mindset
3 Nuanced Flavors of Growth Mindset You Should Adopt to Feel More Unstoppable
If you’re pursuing creative, entrepreneurial work you can’t just rely on productivity tips and tools.
You need creative confidence.
And a powerful way to develop your creative confidence is by adopting a growth mindset.
You’ve heard about growth vs fixed mindset a million times already.
Let’s get a bit more nuanced.
Keep reading to learn about 3 specific mindsets that you can integrate into your personal operating system to become a more effective creative entrepreneur, founder, or creator.
Quick Reminder of Growth (vs Fixed) Mindset
Let’s do a quick refresher on growth mindset and why it matters.
A person with a growth mindset operates very differently than a person with a fixed mindset.
Rather than avoiding challenges and fearing making mistakes, a person with a growth mindset embraces challenges and views mistakes as simply opportunities to learn and improve.
A growth mindset sets you apart because many people fear making mistakes, failing, or looking incompetent — they’d rather play it safe and look good.
A fixed mindset, however, is way of thinking that ensures one stays stuck or status quo.
A person with a fixed mindset keeps doing the things they know they can already do competently rather than venturing out into the creative unknown. They may also believe that intelligence, creativity, and any other quality is inherently fixed — there is nothing one can do to grow or get better.
Rather than giving up easily, growth mindset-oriented people persist in the face of setbacks and continually test out new approaches. They know that with continuous effort and experimentation, they’ll eventually succeed and get through what’s keeping them stuck or holding them back.
They know that if they are committed to a creative pursuit, they will figure out how to get there.
With a true growth mindset, goal achievement becomes simply inevitable. And you become unstoppable.
Here are 3 nuanced flavors of “growth mindset” that you can experiment with and adopt to help strengthen your overall creative confidence:
The Scientist Mindset
To overcome uncertainty, overwhelm, perfectionism, and fear of commitment adopt the mindset of the Scientist.
With the Scientist Mindset, you operate in experiments. You follow the scientific process:
- First, you Explore & Review. You research, read, gather information, and explore what other people are doing. You review the situation from multiple perspectives to get a holistic view. At this stage, you’re simply learning and exploring — there is no pressure to achieve any “result.” You’re looking for where there’s consensus and where there are gaps (that you could potentially fill in with your unique perspectives and actions). What feels most interesting? Most promising? What do you WANT to do most next? Where would you like to focus your attention on? How could you contribute?
- Next, you Generate Hypotheses and Theories. What do you think will happen? What could you test out next? During this stage, you’re exploring possibilities about what you believe could happen. You’re generating ideas, theories, and next actions.
- Then, you Test your Hypotheses by Running Small Experiments. You don’t go all in and commit the rest of your life to something right off the bat. You try things out — knowing whatever direction you embark on is just temporary and can change. Which experiment feels best to test out next? How will you conduct this experiment?
- Next, you Analyze the Data — You take an objective look to see what you learned or discovered. You ask yourself, “What did I observe? What did I learn? What do I now know more confidently and with greater certainty?
- Last, you Adjust and Implement your Next Experiment — What do I want to do next? What should I experiment with next now that I know what I know?
You continually repeat this process, build certainty, and build commitment.
It’s a constant learning process that never concludes. There’s no final endpoint — you simply move closer and closer to uncovering your truth and bringing forth your full creativity. All you need to do is identify and execute your next tiny (or large) experiment to be successful.
The “Edit” Mindset
This mindset is another antidote to perfectionism, fear of rejection, and fear of not being good enough.
When you apply this mindset, you shift your goal of creating the “perfect” outcome to creating the next “version” or “draft.”
Everything usually feels so serious — like if you make one mistake, it’ll all end in disaster. But really, everything you do is just an update, a new feature, a modification.
Regardless of what you’re working on, you almost always have the opportunity to go back and make upgrades, changes, or improvements.
When you apply this mindset, nothing is ever “done” or final (until you decide it to be).
Just like the iPhone, there is always another update or version coming out.
You can always edit what you created or build the next version — with updates, bug fixes, and new features!
With this mindset, you move fast, launch things into the world frequently, see what happens, and make small changes along the way.
With this mindset, you constantly remind yourself of the mantra, “Progress over Perfection.”
Any progress, even if tiny progress, is better than waiting until you do more research, make the perfect plan, or feel fully “ready.”
❓ Ask yourself, “What is the SMALLEST thing I can do to move this FORWARD? To make this BETTER than it was yesterday?”
Then commit to take action on that step and create progress. Just get moving.
Focus on the forward movement, rather than the final outcome.
The Artist/Body of Work Mindset
In creative work, there are no “right” or “wrong” answers.
There is no “correct” sequence of events for what you are building.
You can decide to do whatever you want.
So do what you want.
Trust yourself and your intuition.
Do NOT do just what you think you “should” do.
The best artists and songwriters don’t say, “What would my target market want me to create?”
They look at the blank canvas and ask:
- “What do I WANT to express?”
- “What do I WANT to create?
- “What do I like?”
- “What is energizing or exciting to me right now?”
They look to create something authentic. Something that has never been done before. Something fresh, and exciting to them.
And, they aren’t looking to just create one perfect, final masterpiece — they’re looking to create a body of work.
Could you imagine if Picasso stopped painting after one masterpiece? Or if the Beatles stopped creating music after their first #1 hit? How sad would that be for us? For them?
With this mindset, you’re expressing yourself authentically, creating a “portfolio” of experiences or products, and your style and purpose evolve over time.
There is no “right” order.
Zoom out and visualize the entire body of work you wish to create in the long term.
🤘Pick something that is most resonating with you from this body of work and just build.
What’s most resonating with you? Which one of these mindets could you test out next?
Share below! 👇
More About Coach Jeff
My name is Jeff Fajans (rhymes with “lions”) and I help creative entrepreneurs bring their biggest ideas to life and reach their next level of creative success.
I have a PhD in Positive Organizational Psychology from Claremont Graduate University, where I studied under Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the world-renowned author of Flow. My research focused on how to help people learn, develop, and lead more effectively to better achieve creative goals.
I am also an avid music creator and guitar player. 🤘
Through my 1-on-1 Creative Momentum Coaching, 30-Day Creative Momentum Challenge community, internationally acclaimed digital courses, and speaking engagements, I’ve helped thousands of people from around the world connect with their purpose, clarify their creative vision, amplify their motivation, and create actionable strategies that make achieving their most meaningful goals inevitable.
These are people who are pursuing big goals like starting or leading a business (and scaling it to higher levels of innovation & growth), writing + filming a feature film (and it winning a Sundance award), building an app or product (and getting accepted into Y Combinator or getting VC funding), writing a book (and hitting the Amazon bestseller list) or even exploring a meaningful side hustle or passion project.
I’m also experimenting with building my own “assistant coach” (i.e. my AI clone via GPT), Creative Momentum Coach. Feel free to test it out if you have GPT+ and be sure to give it feedback! It hopefully will help guide you toward bringing your biggest ideas to life — but who knows what exactly it will do at the moment :)
