There are different types of mind-sets, which can either help or hurt your well-being. A growth
mind-set is the belief that our basic abilities can be developed and improved through dedication
and hard work. It offers more freedom to reach your full potential and allows you to stay aligned
with your values instead of being held back by limiting beliefs. With a growth mind-set,
we can break through the state of being stuck in one place and achieve the long term goals
we desire in all aspects of our lives. So how does one develop it? Below are a couple of ways.
1. Believe in yourself
The first step towards having a growth mind-set is believing in yourself.
The moment you do, your eyes are opened to a whole new world of possibilities.
But as simple as this might seem, a lot of people still struggle with this.
If you’re having a hard time believing in yourself,
chances are you’re focusing on the mistakes you might have made in the past.
The Association for Psychological Science studied the brain activity of participants
when they made mistakes. They observed the reaction when the participants made a mistake
and when they were able to fix it. They found that those who believed they could learn from
their mistakes improved their performance on tasks they completed after they made an error.
And this is known as the growth mindset, which is part of believing in yourself.
When you know that you can learn something from mistakes you’re much more willing to make them.
So you must believe that you can do it. Whatever it is you seek to change or achieve, you have to
remind yourself that it’s attainable. It might take a lot of work to convince yourself of this,
but by reminding yourself of the payoff, which is growth and accomplishment, you’ll without a
doubt be able to do it. In predicting success, it doesn’t matter whether someone is gifted or not.
What matters is a person’s belief that they can succeed and prevail.
2. Don’t blame others for your circumstances or shortcomings
We sometimes like to blame others for the things that go wrong in our lives.
Everyone does it. But that doesn’t mean you should too. Reason being, no good ever comes from it.
Don’t act as if you’re a victim because you aren’t. Blaming others takes you nowhere. By
complaining about your situation or blaming someone else for it,
you’re not taking accountability for your situation, you’re making someone else be
accountable. Fact is you can’t really shift responsibility for your own life to someone
else. By doing so, you’re only misleading yourself and preventing yourself form moving forward.
If you don’t get the results you want or expected, ask yourself what you’ve done to get the results
you were seeking. Then ask yourself what you can change and get a much better outcome.
You and only you are responsible for your own future and for making the most out of
your talents and abilities. So whenever you find yourself blaming someone or something,
take a step back, own up to it, pick the lesson from the situation and move on.
3. Be curious Someone who’s seeking change has to be curious.
Forget for a second what you know and marvel at all the things you don’t know. Get used to the
feeling. Not knowing shouldn’t make you feel shameful or fearful, but rather excited. Be
prepared to ask follow up questions and seek more information when an opportunity presents itself.
And if you already think you’re curious, you need to become even more curious about everything.
Because curiosity is the best teacher for us all.
Whenever you’re faced with difficulty in life, curiosity will take you out of it.
Successful people are always curious, and they’re constantly looking for new ways to succeed.
Albeit Einstein said that he had no special talent, but that he was only passionately curious.
Curiosity grants you a growth mindset because it allows you to learn new things and grow every day.
The moment you choose to be curious about the things going around you,
that’s when you’ll begin to find the answers that most people struggle to find.
4. Allow yourself to fail Failure is something we try so hard to avoid,
but as disappointing and uncomfortable as it may be, it’s essential that you try and fail, and
try and fail again. Every failure you encounter is yet another stepping stone on the path to success.
A lot of people fail at first, but always continue to learn and grow and become very successful.
The fear of failing is so deeply rooted in human psychology that we sometimes neglect our careers,
relationships, hobbies and dreams because of it. Although there are some who are able to go after
what they want after constantly facing failure and rejection, not all of us are able to have critique
thrown at us. It’s often scary, difficult and even painful to put ourselves out there.
But do not despair for there’s a way to embrace the process, the feelings and
to overcome the fear of failure simply by using the power of cognitive psychology.
Some say that the way we handle failure is more important than how we handle success.
Failure is inevitable for all of us, and our attitude about that failure is what determines
whether we’ll fall hard or get back up. Success is often attributed to hard work,
but in truth, the mind-set is what makes all the difference. Carol Dweck,
an American Psychologist and Professor of Psychology at Stanford University,
known for her work on mind-set said that having a growth mindset is what enables us to see
failure as opportunity, and not allowing it to stop us on our journey to success.
Those with a growth mindset believe that their learning and intelligence can grow
with time and experience. Whenever someone believes they can be smarter or do better,
they come to the realisation that their effort really does have an effect on their success,
so they evidently put in more time, which leads to greater achievement. People with growth mindsets
allow challenges to make them stronger and find opportunity to grow through failure.
5. Leave your comfort zone The comfort zone is a place of refuge,
somewhere to be free from challenges, for many of us. But this simply translates to
being free from growth. But for one to grow, they need to push themselves.
It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone and into the unknown.
It can make you anxious knowing there isn’t a clear and direct roadmap of previous experiences
from which you can refer to. But if you hold on long enough, you step into the zone of learning,
where you gain new skills and deal with challenges the best way possible.
And before you know it, a new comfort zone is created, where you expand your ability
to reach even greater heights. And you can safely say you’ve reached the zone of growth.
Leaving the comfort zone allows you to develop a growth mind-set. While the fixed mindset
traps us with the fear of failure, a growth mindset makes the impossible seem possible.
It encourages us to take healthy risks and learn, which leads to positive outcomes throughout life.
6. Don’t put too much emphasis on results It’s true that results are important,
but you shouldn’t forget to reward yourself for the effort you put in.
Well-earned self-praise for a courageous attempt can sustain you over the long haul.
It’s easy to think that one needs to focus on results and use them to measure progress in order
to attain success. However, such a mentality is far from optimal. There is more to success than
just looking at results without understanding that it all comes down to how consistent you are
and the process involved in getting the job done. When you focus more of your attention and energy
on the process or techniques involved rather than the results, you realise that you learn faster,
are more successful and even happier with the outcome. All in all, you gain more when you focus
on the process instead of the results. 7. Pay attention to your own words
There are tons of reasons why sticking to good habits or developing new skills can be hard.
But usually the biggest challenge is situated between your ears.
The mind is a very powerful thing, and the stories you tell yourself and the things you believe
to be true about yourself can either prevent change or create room for new skills to bloom.
There seems to be a connection between what we believe and our behaviour.
So people who have a growth mind set are more likely to maximize their potential.
Instead of ignoring criticism they learn from it, rather than avoid challenges they overcome them,
and find inspiration in the success of others rather than feel threatened.
To build a growth mind-set, replace the negative thoughts with ones that are more positive.
Replace hate with compassion. Judgement with acceptance.
If you’re constantly disrespecting yourself or lowering your ethical standards,
the result of your decisions and their consequences will reflect that.
Start paying attention to the words you say about yourself, even those that you only think about.
If your words are dark or negative, the outcome just might be the same. So always watch
yourself. Listen to what you say and think. 8. Stop seeking other people’s approval
Trying to please other people means seeking approval from outside sources. Whenever we
reach for something from the outside world that we should be giving ourselves, we’re only setting
ourselves up for disappointment. We set out to live a life that fits with other people’s
expectation of us only to seek their approval. Little do we know that approval is obtained at
the expense of knowing who we are and what we want. We miss out on opportunities to learn how
to approve of ourselves, even if others don’t. That’s why you need to cultivate self-acceptance
and self-approval. Learn to trust yourself. Seeking approval from others only prevents
you from having a growth mind-set. Remember you’re the only person who will be there for
you throughout your life, so if you look at it you are the only person you need to impress.
9. Be realistic It’s easy to think that you
can accomplish anything. That the things you hope for can be achieved overnight. But in the world
we live in, we sometimes forget to be realistic. It takes a lot of time to learn a new skill like
learning to play an instrument or learning a new language, or how to become a better
doctor or lawyer. Keeping this in mind can help you cultivate a growth mind-set.
People with a growth mindset are aware that once one goal is down,
they have others lined up to pursue. Create clear, realistic goals based
on your passion and purpose. And be sure to give yourself enough time to conquer them thoroughly.
10. Learn from the mistakes of others If you can learn from people’s mistakes,
then you just might be able to make few of them. At times this helps lessen the
fear of trying something new which is a key aspect of building a growth mindset.
It’s been said that you learn more from your mistakes than successes.
However, since no one has the time to make all the mistakes on their own,
you should learn from the mistakes of others too. When a friend, family member, colleague
or anyone else gets something wrong, take time to think about the lesson you can get from it.
A growth mindset means embracing challenges,
being persistent in the face of setbacks, taking responsibility for your words and actions,
and acknowledging that effort is the path toward mastery. It’s basically why practice
makes perfect. By choosing to make the extra effort to build a growth mindset, you increase
the likelihood of getting the results you’re looking for and live the life you want to live.
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have a great day and I’ll see you all in the next one.