Fixed VS Growth Mindset
Your mindset and its impact on you
We all intuitively recognize the importance of mindset.
All of us can pinpoint certain moments or times in our lives where we repeat to ourselves that we have to believe that things can happen for us.
Be it in life, relationships, business, and so on.
Mindset has been and is a very abused form of self-help and maybe the first frontier of getting things to happen.
After all, mindset and believing that it can happen is the first step to ‘’it’’ happening.
We all know people that seem to cruise through life purely on a base of self-confidence and belief in themselves and their skills.
Sometimes, we even find some people relying solely on belief and confidence and lacking in ability, but somehow still achieving results even on naked self-confidence.
This speaks volumes about how important mindset truly is.
There’s a tendency to go against the grain in terms of achieving unique results, and you might find it cliche and rather low-effort to be focusing on mindset.
After all, believing in yourself is a truism heavily regurgitated in media and self-help circles, so a lot of us have the inclination to be skeptical of a positive mindset in the efforts to be realists.
However, it’s important to note all the instances belief and mindset were and are truly powerful factors of making changes and achieving results, or in some cases, not achieving anything.
Wars, religions, laws, and countries were all built and fought for thanks to a series of well-thought-out beliefs.
No matter how overused, mindset is truly important for your life and the results you want to achieve.
Recent research has recognized two distinct mindsets when it comes to people and has linked both mindsets to levels of achievement.
So, what are they?
The Fixed Mindset
Having a fixed mindset is a cocktail of different beliefs and biases, all pointing to a limited set of abilities.
The fixed mindset is believing that all of our skills and talents are pre-determined and that no matter what you do, you’re limited.
For example, a fixed mindset is believing you’re bad at math and never trying to see if you could improve simply because your belief is enough to negate you from trying harder.
The fixed mindset has a permanent residence in the comfort zone.
It knows what it can and can’t do and focuses on achievements in the areas that it’s good at.
This type of mindset employs extreme reluctance towards change and towards trying new things that may result in failure.
If you recognize yourself having this mindset, try to see why you think the way you do and if this has something to do with the way you were raised or if someone told you what you are and what you’re not and you took it to heart.
If you find this has been your mindset and you want to change, there’s an alternative.
The Growth Mindset
The growth mindset is being passionate about learning.
This comes with the acceptance of making a lot of mistakes.
Mistakes, after all are data.
People with the growth mindset use this data in order to become better.
They’re not worried about immediate validation and results.
Focused on learning, people with the growth mindset seek constant improvement and challenges even if that results in failure.
They trust the process and don’t crumble when meeting with failure.
Another key factor in the growth mindset is the belief in change and adaptability.
It’s not that you’re bad at math, it’s that you’ve never tried hard enough.
Growing is about making small steps, sometimes falling, sometimes stumbling, but persevering nonetheless.
Conclusion
We need to remember that there’s nothing wrong with the fixed mindset, and it doesn’t need to be antagonized.
There’s nothing wrong with building on a few select areas of your life.
There’s also the possibility to overextend yourself with the growth mindset and to set your sights too high.
It’s important to employ the right balance and embrace finding balance.
Being confident but not pigeonholing yourself inside a set of beliefs.
Humans are capable of a lot.
If you decide to delve further into your own mindset, remember to first focus on identifying your own biases and which camp you belong to, try getting some feedback from peers in terms of your strengths and weaknesses.
And most importantly, know that you can choose and change your mindset.
