Mindset
Do Your Actions Support a Strong Mindset?
It’s clear that life doesn’t divide up all good things evenly among all people. You can tell that just by people watching. Some people are better looking than others. Then there are people who are richer than their peers.
There are people who come from a good background. They have a great education. They’re intelligent, well liked, and it appears the world is theirs for the taking. Then, there are people who are average in looks. They don’t have all of the money they need, much less all that they want. They come from backgrounds full of various struggles. They may not have attended a prestigious college or even any college at all.
Yet, so many times, it’s this second group of people who end up far more successful and enjoying more personal satisfaction than the first group. The reason for this is mindset.
Mindsets are not just important for learning new skills. They can affect the way that we think about everything. For example, a growth mindset can help you recover from illness because you believe that you can do something about the illness. They can help you achieve in sport, at work and can also help you grow and develop in relationships. Cultivating a growth mindset could be the single most important thing you ever do to help you achieve success.
Remember that someone who seems to have it all doesn’t always stay that way. And what you see on the outside – the nice car, the fancy clothes – doesn’t necessarily reflect inner happiness.
It’s not enough to wake up every day and tell yourself positive things. That’s a great start, but mindset isn’t enough to change your life. You have to have an active role in taking action to leverage mindset into a new existence for you.
Understanding Mindset
It’s not your lot in life that determines what you can or can’t achieve. Being successful in life is something that can happen for anyone because the key to success in business or in your personal life is having the right state of mind to carry you forward.
There are two kinds of mindsets. One of these appears successful – but in the end, that success will stall out. The other mindset will pave the way to a life full of personal accomplishments, business achievements and deep inner satisfaction.
The first mindset is called a Fixed Mindset. This is what people have who rely on what they know, what they’re born with and what they believe they’re currently capable of to succeed.
They believe that they have everything they need within themselves. That sounds positive, and in some ways – it is. But they run into obstacles and because they sometimes don’t see anything they currently have to handle it, they hesitate and fail.
But with people who have a Growth Mindset, they believe that anyone can work hard. They don’t have quitter’s attitude toward achieving success. This attitude causes them to strive while others coast by and get stopped by roadblocks.
The two differences can be compared to the race between the turtle and the rabbit. This was a race between unequals. If anyone were to bet on success between these two opponents, they would have bet on the rabbit.
From the outside, he had everything. He was faster because biology guaranteed that. Surely, he would finish the race with success because he started out equipped to win. But as everyone knows, the story didn’t end up like that. The turtle was the victor because he wasn’t afraid to keep on going although the odds weren’t in his favor.
He didn’t have the speed or talent the rabbit had, but he was willing to stay in the race because he knew what the rabbit didn’t. He knew that while he didn’t have the ability to run that fast, he had the ability to go at his own pace and cross the finish line.
That race all boiled down to mindset. The rabbit also got complacent and didn’t even try to create a strategy because he, too, assumed it was a given that he would win.
These two different beliefs lead to different behaviour, and also to different results. For example, students with a growth mindset were shown to increase their grades over time. Those who believed that their intelligence was fixed or ingrained did not; in fact, their grades got worse. Having a growth mindset – the belief that you are in control of your own ability, and can learn and improve – is the key to success.
Yes, hard work, effort, and persistence are all important, but not as important as having that underlying belief that you are in control of your own destiny. This is why you should never praise children by talking about their ability, but instead describe the effort that they put in, and how much they have learned and developed their ability through the activity.
Don’t say: ‘Well done. You’re really good at maths.’
Do say: ‘That’s great. You tried really hard, and look how well you’ve done.’
It is important to praise the process, not the talent or ability.
People with these two mindsets actually think differently and also react to information differently. In particular, they respond differently to information about performance:
•In people with a fixed mindset, the brain is most active when they are being given information about how well they have done, for example, test results or grades.
•In people with a growth mindset, the brain is most active when they are being told what they could do to improve.
It’s a very different approach: from ‘How did I do?’ to ‘What can I do better next time?’
One is about how they are perceived, and one is about how they can learn. You can see which one is likely to lead to better results in future.
Your mindset has three parts that make it work – your IQ, the behavioral patterns you’ve learned, and your abilities. In those with a fixed mindset, they think that they have the talent and behavioral patterns they were given – and it’s set in stone.
They believe this guarantees them success because of their talents. And if there ever happens to be something they can’t do, they don’t attempt to push it because they don’t believe they’re capable of doing more than they currently can. Although people with a fixed mindset can achieve some success, the level of success has a ceiling. The kind of breakout success that they want always seems to escape them.
And it always will, because they keep on doing what they’ve always done – relying on themselves and foregoing any chance to grow so they’ll know how to be the successful person they want to be.
But in people who have a growth mindset, it means that they’re highly teachable. They’re willing to learn what they don’t know. They believe that they might have some natural ability or talent in an area, but that it needs to be cultivated. They realize that they can always improve on what they already know. They’re not afraid to try and fail because they understand it’s a common part of learning and achieving.
People with growth mindsets are willing to put whatever effort is needed to achieve success. They’re willing to take action that will propel them toward their goals and their dreams.
Look back on the past three months of your life. Think about whether you’ve had limited self talk that convinces you that you can’t go after something ‘out of your league.’ Have you quit on a project or partnership because you felt it was simply too much for you to handle? That’s a sign that your actions aren’t aligned with the positive mindset you’ve adopted over time.
Obstructs to Having a Positive Mindset
Do you want to be happy? Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe in your purpose of life? What are you here on this planet for? Do you love people? Do you like those around you? Do you like your children, parents, wife/husband, neighbors, and colleagues? If the answer is ‘yes’ then you are probably