The Insider’s Guide on Developing a Growth Mindset
I stepped into the shoes of my 7-year-old self and started to live more freely, started learning more openly, and making mistakes more frequently. Here’s why.
We all have a friend who we don’t speak with every day, but when you do, even if it’s after a long time, it’s filled with stories, wisdom, and a bunch of memories.
A few weeks ago that specific meetup happened with me. Constantly messaging back and forth with one of my closest friends, we finally picked a date and time where we could meet. Sharing that he recently received an exciting internship as a software engineer he wanted to show me around. He invited me to his new workplace where we could chat and catch up on all the time we missed together. A day before we met, I asked him if we wanted to go to a nearby restaurant for lunch or wanted to somewhere else before we went to his workplace. He quickly responded with a screenshot of a menu from the cafeteria at his workplace and asked me what I wanted to eat.
This was new.
Knowing that times would be different from when we last met, I was excited to see him, his growth, and what he was learning at his new gig.
Arriving at his workplace, entering through the double doors, I was in awe. The layout, space, the snack bars, and bookshelves, the meeting rooms and patios, this was a dream workplace you’d want to work in. I gave him a hug and we started roaming.
As the day continued we started talking about everything, yet one of the heaviest conversations was on what our career development goals looked like post-graduation. I shared with him my struggles of finding a job within my field, my endeavor of continuing to write, and the passion projects I was working on. He did the same, he told me about how his final year was going, caught me up with his personal life, and shared what he did as an intern for the start-up.
As we continued the conversation, I asked him a burning question:
‘This is such an inspiring, motivating atmosphere. Start-ups are really investing in ensuring the space they create is allowing the employees to work without stress eh. It’s making me want to make mistakes so I could converse with the person beside me to figure it out. What does this environment bring that’s so different than the rest?”
He put his laptop aside and replied with a sentiment which deconstructed my question.
‘Mobeen, if there’s one thing I’ve learned being a part of this start-up, this culture, is that a growth mindset is everything. From recognizing your position in life, having a vision of where you want to be, and using your skills to boost your presence, a growth mindset can change anything. That is what this environment encourages.’
This guy dropped wisdom on me. He continued to share that this mindset was one which companies were trying to instill in the minds of their employees. By doing so, employees are able to encourage self-development and contribute to their work tasks more effectively.
Growth mindset. Maybe this is what I needed to work-on as I worked on my goals. At first, I thought I carried that mindset, yet after a deep period of reflection, maybe I was wrong.
After talking to him more about how he developed the growth mindset and reading Dr. Carol S. Dweck’s book ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’, I understood how important it was, especially in the 21st century.
Here is my take on what it means to have a growth mindset and how it can be nurtured.
But before that let’s understand what a growth mindset is.
A growth mindset is believing that your soft/hard skills, strengths, and qualities can be cultivated over time through dedication and hard work. It is a mindset where you believe that you can develop yourself and your qualities through continuous effort to become the best form of yourself.
Here’s an example of what a growth mindset would look like:
You had a hard time understanding chemistry in high school, you want to earn a degree in science which will require theories which were taught in chemistry, but you won’t let the past experience stop you from earning the science degree.
Why is it important? What about this mindset helps you become successful?
In attempting to answer this question, let’s look at the opposite of a growth mindset, a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset makes you believe that the skills and talents you possess are enough and whatever you had to learn, has been learned. It keeps you stagnant and limits your self-development.
As a kid, for many of us, the fixed mindset was one which was boosted by those around us whenever we had achieved something. Praise like “You’re the smartest!” or “Wow, you’re a genius!”, made us believe that the qualities we possessed were set in stone and that we had to continue doing what we were doing to be successful. This mindset forces individuals to reject challenges and seek spaces where they are comfortable. This mindset was/is faulty as it limits our growth and our progress in developing our talents.
Through developing a growth mindset, you intentionally are willing to learn new things and seek to be in uncomfortable situations to build on your hard and soft skills. By being in this mindset you seek for opportunities that may not be in your direct field of expertise. You wish to be diverse in the knowledge you hold and want to be interdisciplinary.
The definition of success is what you make of it yourself. Determine what success looks like for you and work towards progressing towards the goals that will take you there. The growth mindset will help you jump over the hurdles and give you the stamina to complete the 1500m finishing first.
Adopting this mindset at first can be difficult, especially since many of us have been raised with a fixed mindset.
Here are 6 ways you can adapt and nurture the growth mindset as you continue the journey of life.
#1 Try something new EVERY DAY.
Whether it’s eating a new food that you’ve never tried before or using a type of pen that you always neglected to use. Try something that isn’t routinely. This will allow for your mind to ease out of the comfortable zone and bring you into the uncomfortable zone.
#2 Welcome change.
Even though change is inevitable, it encourages development. As we grow older, our mentalities change, our behaviors change, biologically we change, and one way we can adapt the growth mindset is by making the most out of the change. By learning about them and using them to our advantage.
#3 Face a challenge head-on.
Once you start being in uncomfortable situations you will be faced with challenges and barriers you would have never imagined. Take this as a blessing. Tie your shoelaces and be creatively resourceful and persistently determined to explore solutions to any problem, issue, and challenge at hand.
(Side note: you will fail, not once, not twice, MANY times, but every time you fail you’ll do what you didn’t do before.)
#4 Reflect. Reflect. Reflect.
Once you put yourself in the position where you want to work towards greatness. Take time to ground yourself and acknowledge the position you are in. Hear your inner-fixed mindset and let it know that it is your time to boost the skills you have. Showcase the passions you carry and confirm with yourself that you are ready to learn, unlearn, and relearn.
#5 Surround yourself with others with the same mindset.
Surround yourself with people that reflect who you want to be and how you want to feel. Energies are contagious. Surrounding yourself with dreamers and doers will lead you to be less stressed and finding joy in smaller achievements.
#5 Add ‘yet’ to all your sentences.
Alright not ALL of them, but the ones which can limit you from progressing. Instead of saying ‘I can’t do this’, add yet, to make it ‘I can’t do this yet’. Instead of saying ‘I’m not good enough at this’, add yet, to make it ‘I am not good enough at this yet’. Lead yourself to your defined success.
As you practice strengthening your growth mindset, you’ll start to recognize certain behaviors you’d see of children as they do things for the first time. Touching certain things they’re not supposed to, constantly making mistakes and laughing at them, and even not giving up on things they truly want.
Embrace these firsts and make the most out of them. These are the small practices and behaviors which will bring out your true self and allow you to be a force to be reckoned with.
