Develop a Growth Mindset — 7 Methods
Build on 5 Years of Experience
Half a decade later,
After continual trial and error,
Developing the only tool I have TRUE control over to change my life…
My mind.
No one wants to be filled with regret but, sometimes the challenges seem too great.
We’ve all been there. Everyone you walk past in the street. Everyone you have met and will ever meet. All of us.
Developing a growth mindset doesn’t just happen overnight, it takes continuous effort and perseverance. Discovering that even at your lowest lows, there are still ways you can make progress.
Turn crisis into an opportunity, failure into a lesson.
1. Reframe the challenges.
Instead of getting worked up and feeling overwhelmed when you face a difficult challenge learn from the situation.
Don’t get emotional with us now.
It’ll allows you to adapt, evolve, and stop it from happening in the future. Or at least prepare you for next time.
It’s not just about what you can learn from the situation though, it’s what you can learn from yourself.
How did you react? Were you calm? Or were you impatient and irrational?
Don’t let it control your life.
Do you have your emotions in check? Can you be patient enough for the situation to pass?
Take notes and review them in the future when the dust has settled.
Have you ever heard anyone say, ‘Sleep on it’?
When you have a difficult situation instead of making an irrational spur-of-the-moment decision, take your time. Don’t get overwhelmed and feel the need to rush.
It’s a challenge, it’s going to require effort, both physically and mentally.
2. Celebrate mistakes and small victories.
Look back on all the progress that you have made. Celebrate the smaller achievements which you have completed and the mistakes you have learned from.
If all you do is work flat out, you will cause yourself to get burnt out and you’ll get no work done.
Once you achieve a step towards your goal, pause. Take a moment to thank yourself. you are one step closer to a better life, be proud.
You may not be where you want to be, but you are far from where you were.
All the small efforts compound to make big results.
This also plays a big part in why people give up on the journey to success. They see post on social media apps that tells them to work every waking hour, neglect their sleep and don’t socialise or do anything enjoyable until they’ve reached the top.
It’s a toxic work ethic.
If it works for you then great, but most of the population can’t take it.
That is why you have lunch breaks at work because you need to walk away from the current task briefly and have a change of settings to perform at your best.
Be efficient but don’t rush things through. Take breaks and celebrate!
Don’t be a victim of the work, enjoy the journey.
3. Set realistic goals and create manageable steps.
As discussed in my previous article ‘Setting Goals is Hard’, the best way to get all you want to be completed is to break down your goals into smaller steps.
Once you decide to do this with your goals you’ll realise that you know exactly what you need to do, no time is wasted thinking of what to do next. 💭
You won’t feel intimidated by big or hard tasks. The task at hand will be achievable.
How many times have you started something and given up because it was harder than you expected?
What about that instrument that you were learning? Or that language?
Prevent this feeling COMPLETELY by outlining what you want to achieve (the goal), what needs to be done (the task you’ll complete to get where you want to go) and then break those tasks down into steps (the smaller actions you’ll take to achieve those task).
A simple but effective formula.
4. Make time for reflection and self-evaluation.
At the end of the week or month (whatever is most convenient), put an hour aside and take the time to go over the task you have completed.
Evaluate your performance.
Did you miss a lot of days? Were you consistent? Did you perform to the best of your ability?
Look for any patterns.
Keep a habit log (a list of all your habits and the day you have completed them, I’ll list a template here) and measure your daily consistency.
Find out how you can improve, the best way to make the most of your time and what could have been done better.
Self-reflection is how sports teams win. It’s how businesses are made. It’s how crafts are perfected.
People will sit down at the end of a term and decide who was performing the best, what can they learn from them? What could the team/ someone do to improve? What worked? What still needs development?
These are all questions and actions that professionals do to achieve success.
Do you think Kobe, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, would have achieved the level of success he had if he didn’t evaluate his performance?
Psychologist Jordan Peterson and Author Simon Sinek both have talked about self-reflection and its importance when discussing personal growth.
Unless you make time for self-reflection, how will you ever learn from your mistakes?
5. Persevere and stay focused on your goals.
When chasing a goal, the reason why most people don’t get to where they want to be isn’t because the goal is too hard, it’s because they give up.
They fold.
They buckle under the pressure of what the task asks of them.
Yes, it may be hard to keep learning and working at the task at hand, however, if you keep moving forward you WILL get there. It may not be tomorrow or next year, but you WILL get there.
If you give up what else are you going to do?
Are you just going to give up and be like everybody else?
You can always get another job if things mess up, but you can’t get back the time you have wasted.
Why settle for less than you want?
When you ask older people what they regret most in life they tell you they wish they had done x or y.
It’s why parents stress to you “Don’t fail those exams”, “Do something that you will enjoy” and “Don’t do something just because your friends are”.
The regret at the end of life is REAL. People are out here wasting their time like the Afterlife is guaranteed.
When people give up, what they don’t realise is they are only giving up on their physical actions.
You will ALWAYS keep thinking back to that skill or to that goal that you were working towards. It never leaves you, nor does the regret.
Imagine where you would be now if you maintained that skill you gave up years ago.
If people pondered on where they would be if they didn’t procrastinate or gave up they would have tortured minds. They would never forgive themselves.
Your life is leaking away. Take grasp of every opportunity before it is too late.
6. Seek feedback from others and use it constructively.
For these points let’s separate constructive criticism from hating. The line can get blurred sometimes.
If somebody insults you or your craft, that’s not feedback, that’s hate. That’s them being a [insert word of choice].
If somebody watches you or your craft and tells you how you can improve, and what were your strengths and weaknesses, then that’s feedback. It’s the constructive criticism you should be looking out for.
If a friend or family member tells you ‘Everything was great’ and are being yes people, then that is not feedback that can be used in the real world.
They are just saying something to not offend you and to keep you happy.
Look for a teacher/ coach or that one friend that is serious with you and get feedback from them.
They will want to see you improve and see you at your best.
That’s feedback that can be used in the real world.
7. Seek out new experiences and challenges.
The final step towards a growth mindset and arguably the most important is getting out of your comfort zone.
Take up new experiences, preferably ones that you don’t like.
This could be socialising if you are an introvert, or it could be going to the gym if you are self-conscious about your body.
Do things that you are not used to.
The reason why most people never grow and stay within their comfort zone is because they are afraid.
Everyone is too scared of looking like an idiot, of being the foolish beginner in attempting something new.
However, some people aren’t content with where they are, they want more from life.
They take that new job, they learn that skill and they go for that new experience.
Yes, they are afraid like everyone else, but they don’t let it stop them from doing what they want.
Everyone has a comfort zone, and everyone has experiences they could do to expand it. It’s whether you take those chances.
I always refer back to the piano example. For me playing on public pianos was the next step in getting out of my comfort zone. I could play but this was a way of performing to people in real-time without recording a video and getting it perfect online.
I took that leap, and I did it.
It was the willingness to let myself mess up in public and look like a fool that helped me progress.
Now every time I see a piano I go and play it.
The most interesting and exciting experiences are the ones just out of your comfort zone.
On the other side of fear…
Thank you for taking the time to read my article. If you found it helpful and think someone else could find it helpful too, please share it and 👏🏽👏🏽.
A writer mainly on self-development. I occasionally write on personal experiences, interest,s and other topics too. If you are interested in self-development, then please read some of my other articles (linked below). Enjoy.
Resources:
Habit log template — https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JGPbKRU6ybj65LtCW74DpmlTu5dk5CVroaIkT0AO0rg/edit?usp=sharing
