5 Steps to Free Yourself From a Fixed Mindset
Don’t be a prisoner to your own mind
I was the textbook definition of someone with a fixed mindset.
I was afraid of failure. I had a list of things I was “bad” at and never attempted to improve on. I gave up at the first sign of a setback. I was crushed by negative feedback or rejection.
I was trapped. Until I decided to do something about it.
But let’s take a step back. For those who aren’t familiar, the concept of a fixed mindset was introduced by researcher Dr. Carol Dweck. I personally learned about it when I read her book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,” in which Dr. Dweck explores how the beliefs we carry about ourselves have a profound impact on our lives. She found in her research that most beliefs stem either from a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
- Fixed mindset: The belief that people are born with a fixed level of intelligence that can’t be changed. People with this mindset are afraid of appearing incompetent, and they give up easily because they think effort indicates a lack of natural abilities.
- Growth mindset: The belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed with effort, learning, and persistence. With this mindset, people believe they can improve themselves in almost any area through hard work and view challenges as a necessary step in the path to mastery.
After reading this book, I recognized that I’ve been in the former category my whole life. Desperate to break away from this mindset, I devoured self-help books, article, and podcasts; hired a leadership coach; went to therapy — nothing changed.
Eventually, I came up with my own approach, and it was the first time I saw positive results. So I kept at it, and now I want to share my method with you. While I’m not anywhere close to being a 100% growth mindset person now, I’ve made leaps and bounds in improving myself and no longer feel prisoner to my own mentality.
Step #1: Identify areas where you don’t have a fixed mindset.
One of the ironies of having fixed mindset is that your beliefs are so rigid that you don’t think you can ever change that mindset. This is a huge mental block and can prevent you from any attempts at self improvement.
What might surprise most people (myself included) is that your fixed mindset does NOT affect every single part of your life. I can almost guarantee there’s at least one area, activity, or even a moment in time where you practiced a growth mindset.
For me, that area is my marriage. I’m not afraid of “failing” at my relationship, I‘m constantly improving myself as a partner, and I believe the amazing marriage my husband and I built together is a product of hard work — not because of our natural relationship abilities.
Once I realized this, I felt so liberated. It was living proof that I knew how to have a growth mindset, even if it was only in one part of my life. So I encourage you to take the time to pinpoint areas, activities, or moments that you feel like you’ve approached with a growth mindset. This can literally be anything: your friendships, French cooking, creating claymation movies, etc. Write them all down!
Hint: be honest. Nobody else is going to see this list, so there’s no need to write down things that sound impressive to others.
Step #2: Then identify areas where you do. Compare notes.
After you identify the areas where you have a growth mindset, create another list of the areas where you have a fixed mindset. Don’t be hard on yourself if this second list is way longer than the first one — that’s why you’re reading this article in the first place, remember?
When you’re finished, compare the two lists. This is the time to poke and prod your thought process and ask questions like “what’s the difference between these two lists?” “Why do I enjoy the activities on my growth mindset list than the ones one my fixed mindset list?” Write down all your observations.
Publishing my personal writing is an area that’s on my fixed mindset list. Here are some thoughts I jotted down when I compared notes between my approach to writing vs. marriage.
- I’ve never thought to myself “I’m the best at marriage!” because that’s a ridiculous statement. So why do I set this unrealistic expectation when it comes to publishing my writing?
- Why do I have a fulfilling marriage today? It’s thanks to the learnings I took away from my past experiences with dating, which I initially sucked at. With writing, I’m always beating myself up about not being better — despite the fact that I’ve still progressed a ton from when I first started.
- I don’t compare our marriage to other people’s marriage because I know ours is unique and someone else’s positive relationship doesn’t take away from the happiness ours — it actually inspires me. But I compare my writing to others all the time because I view their success as an indication of my failure.
As you can see, some of my questions led to other questions, and many of my observations are open ended. That’s ok! The purpose isn’t to know everything, it’s to explore your thought patterns. What I learned from this exercise is that I tend to set unrealistic expectations, don’t appreciate progress, and believe that another person’s success indicates my own shortcomings as a writer.
Step #3: Apply those learnings to a new activity
After you take the time to internalize your observations, pick up a new activity that’s low effort and low risk. You can start running, take pottery lessons, volunteer at a shelter, etc. Just make sure it’s something that’s actually interesting to you. Then as you start the process of learning about this new activity for the first time, apply your observations from Step #2.
The reason why I recommend applying these learnings to a new activity first is because I believe it’s much harder to break existing thought patterns than it is to develop new ones.
For instance, I started to take singing lessons. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try because I grew up in a musical family, but I always shied away from it because I don’t think I have a great voice.
I took a lot of time to mentally prepare myself before starting lessons. I gave myself pep talks and constantly reminded myself that I wasn’t going to become Cecilia Bartoli overnight; that the purpose of this was to enjoy my new hobby; and that even if I didn’t improve, I would still learn something new.
But, of course, I did improve. I found myself really loving learning about this new world of classical singing. If I couldn’t grasp a technique, I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I just practiced it. When I listened to recordings of other singers, I didn’t lament how long it would take me to get to their level. I listened carefully to their interpretation of the piece and tried to learn from it.
Step #4: Apply those learnings to an existing activity
This next step is more challenging. It’s about taking an activity that’s already on your fixed mindset list and trying to approach it with a growth mindset. Try to start with lower risk activities (AKA ones that aren’t as closely tied to your identity) then work your way up.
The article you’re reading right now is a perfect example of this exercise in action. I actually write for a living — I work with startups to help them with social media and content marketing needs. But that kind of writing is different from this type of writing. This type of writing is vulnerable. This article isn’t about another company’s product, it’s about me as a human. It’s about my weaknesses that I’m putting out there for everyone to know about.
With my fixed mindset just a few years ago, I wouldn’t have ever published this article on Medium. Even now, it’s a struggle. I rewrote this piece countless times. At one point, I deleted the whole thing because I convinced myself it was trash and was afraid everyone would hate it. But the important part is that I hit “publish.”
Step #5: Continue to expand this process — with patience
From here, it’s all about practice, patience, and repetition. Continue to take all your learnings (always add more as you go) and apply them in more areas of your life, or to higher risk activities, or both. Take it slow, and on your own time.
My biggest mistake from my prior attempts at breaking through my fixed mindset was the expectation that I could change my entire way of thinking in a few weeks or months. All the resources I turned to told me to “remove the word failure from my vocabulary” or to “be kinder to yourself,” but this alone wasn’t powerful enough to override almost three decades worth of a fixed mindset.
That’s why you might find this approach of applying a growth mindset to specific activities and areas in your life to be more effective. And it’s one you should expect to be a lifelong journey. Because you might be enjoying your new painting classes today but, almost inevitably, you’ll hit a wall. Or you might be making a lot of progress on overcoming your fear of learning how to code, then one day feel like giving it all up.
The most important thing to remember in these moments is: if you hit a roadblock, IT’S OK. Keep moving forward. Even if you’re not making progress, and even if you’re afraid. And if you can’t move forward? That’s not a failure. That’s a learning to add to your book.
There’s no easy way out of a fixed mindset — especially if you’ve carried these beliefs with you your whole life. As you can tell from this article, it takes a lot of introspection, dedication, and time. But the feeling of liberation is worth it. And you can pat yourself on the back because just by reading the steps in this article, you’re one step closer to that growth mindset!
