Chapter 5: Developing Your Growth Mindset
The process of actually developing your growth mindset takes time, patience, and practice. This process is ongoing. You have to wake up every day and make a conscious decision to have a growth mindset and then work towards developing it every single day. The more you face it as a day-to-day experience and embrace the process, the more success you are going to have with the entire process. Be patient, love yourself, and accept anything that comes up along the way. This will ensure that you have success with your growth mindset. The following techniques and strategies will help ensure that you can successfully develop your growth mindset with very specific and intentional behavioral patterns.
Embrace Imperfection
Perfectionism is a trait that is particularly common in those with a fixed mindset. This is also the trait that tends to hold them back from learning anything new. If you want to foster a growth mindset, you need to be willing to acknowledge your imperfections and embrace them. Recognize that not a single person is perfect in any way. Even people who are good at things are not perfect at them because “perfect” does not truly exist. There is no such thing as being truly perfect at something.
Understand that there are going to be mistakes along the way and that you will face challenges and obstacles. Learn to view these as opportunities and lessons, and embrace your own imperfect experiences along the way. The more you can embrace this part of reality, the more you will be truly fostering the growth mindset mentality.
Reframe Your Perceptions
Many times we have a false perception that a mistake or a missed opportunity should be viewed as a “failure” or a “final ending” for something. We see them as the end of the world and think there is no possible way we could move forward or carry on towards our goals after a mistake or missed opportunity. This is a key symptom of a fixed mindset.
If you want to have a growth mindset, you need to learn to reframe your perceptions. You can do this by saying “What can I learn from this?” or “What is the lesson here?” whenever something does not go your way. Changing your perception to view setbacks and challenges as opportunities and lessons instead of failures is the best way to ensure that you always see the learning opportunities in life and that you aren’t holding yourself back through self-limiting beliefs.
Learn New Things Often
Whether you think a new skill is necessary or not, practice learning new things often. No matter how large or small it is, make a conscious effort to learn something new every day. Work towards building skills and put effort towards the process every single day. Make sure that you are regularly building new skills and learning new things. This is what will develop new neural pathways in your brain, which is a large part of what growth mindset is all about.
Avoid Seeking Approval
One reason why many people find themselves in a fixed mindset is that they are obsessed with seeking the approval of others and of themselves. This obsession results in them being afraid to look foolish, silly, or incompetent in front of anyone because this might mean that they would not be able to get approval. They also tend to frequently mistake people’s reactions for disapproval when, in reality, their reaction is typically not related to approval or disapproval at all, but rather related to a single isolated event.
People who attempt to seek the approval of others often fail to take action because they are afraid of losing the approval of others, or of themselves. If you want to master growth mindset and take advantage of it in your own life, you need to break up with the idea that you are going to be able to get the approval of anyone. Approval should not matter: experiences and processes should.
Value the Process More
Those who are focused on growth mindset heavily value the process. This is where the learning, the lessons, and the life experience all come from. The process of learning is where memories are made, experiences are had, and new skills are born. Individuals who foster a growth mindset recognize this, and they are more likely to value the process over the reward. While the reward is certainly a benefit, it is rarely the primary focus of their actions or efforts. Valuing the process and investing genuine time and effort into it is where you are going to find the opportunities to increase your joy, purpose, and quality of life.
Those with a fixed mindset are often fearful of this part, but this happens to be the most important and fulfilling part of the entire process of learning anything. When you reject the need of approval and place value and importance on the process, you will likely notice a significant improvement in the amount of joy and purpose you experience in life, meaning you will have a greater quality of life overall.
Own Your Purpose
Your purpose is unlikely to be the same as anyone else’s, which is why it is so important that you do not place value on the approval of others, or even the approval of yourself. When you own your purpose, and you work towards it, you are more likely to experience approval of yourself, and therefore you will have a greater sense of purpose in life overall. Therefore, the more you own your purpose, the greater it becomes. Owning your purpose is an extremely important part of fostering a growth mindset. It tends to be the driving factor behind the growth, so place importance and emphasis on this part of the entire process.
Emphasize on Your Growth
Especially when you are first transitioning from fixed mindset to growth mindset, you might find yourself putting a lot of emphasis on speed. “How fast can I do this?” might be your thought, often. This is because fixed mindset people are more focused on the rewards than the process. If you want to have a growth mindset, you need to transition your emphasis from the reward to the growth itself. Focus on the growth. Instead, ask yourself “How much can I grow from this?” and “How can I maximize my growth from this experience?” When you do this, you successfully transition to a growth mindset and place your emphasis on the growth. This will increase your ability to grow which, as you know, is the entire purpose of a growth mindset.
Reflect Regularly
Reflection is the best time to recognize whether you are making the progress you want to make, or if you are not growing as much as you could be. Take time to reflect so that you can see how far you have come and where your strengths and weaknesses are. This is a great time to identify any fixed mindset patterns that are still existing within’ you and work towards healing them.
Abandon the “Ideal Image”
The “ideal image” of whom people are supposed to be and what we are supposed to be like tends to be where fixed mindset and perfectionism are rooted. If you want to abandon fixed mindset and foster growth mindset, you need to be willing to abandon the ideal image and pay attention to whom you want to be and what your ideal sense of self is. Then, work towards the growth that will get you there.
Consistently Set New Goals
Goals tend to be major motivators for growth mindset folks. If you are willing to embrace your goals and work towards them on a regular basis, then you can almost guarantee that you are going to learn new things. If you are not, you are not setting your goals high enough. You should be willing to set new goals and work towards them consistently. Every time you reach a goal, set a new one. Have a few on the go at any given time so that you consistently have something to work towards. If you do not know how many is enough, focus on working on one short-term goal, one mid-term goal and one long-term goal at all times. This ensures that you are regularly focusing on learning new things of all sizes.
Be Realistic
People who are growth mindset oriented are realistic about life. They know one mistake, setback, or challenge is not going to keep them off course from the bigger picture. They know people are not going to remember one minor mistake or one minor thing that happened that may have been embarrassing or uncomfortable for them. Instead, they recognize life for what it is, they put things into perspective, and they stay realistic about their perspective. They do not let anything come in the way of their dreams or their growth because they know nothing is as big as their growth. Therefore, nothing is big enough to derail their growth.
The process of developing growth mindset takes time, and it is a constant practice. You will find that sometimes you find it easier to foster growth mindset, and other times it is harder. Typically, during those harder times is when you need to practice most as this is when the most growth is available to you. Take your time, stay focused, and practice often and you will have success in establishing your own growth mindset.