Why You Need a Growth Mindset and How You Can Get It

It is said that you have a growth mindset if you are one of those people who believe that—by investing enough time, effort and study—you will be able to acquire any ability. If you believe abilities are innate and that, simply, there is no way of doing that for what you were not born, then you have a fixed mindset.

Those with a fixed mindset are very afraid of failure because they see it as a sign of weakness or lack of ability in a given field. People with a growth mindset don’t care much about failure because they know that they can learn from it and therefore improve their performance.

Carol Dweck, Ph.D. in Psychology and professor at Standford University, has studied how these types of mindsets influence peoples’ lives. She has concluded that people with growth mentality are more successful in every aspect of their lives and live with lower stress levels (you can read the outcome of her research in her book of 2006, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success).

Someone with a fixed mindset sees effort as something unnecessary. They will tend to avoid challenges, surrender when obstacles appear, ignore criticisms and feel threaten with someone else’s success. As a consequence, they will become stagnant and will never reach their potential.

Someone with a growth mindset perceives effort as the necessary path to mastery. They will accept challenges despite the risk, fight against adversities, learn from criticisms and find inspiration in someone else’s success.

Good news is that it’s possible to work on a fixed mindset and transform it into a growth one. The best way to achieve this is through deliberate practice. You have to take active part, and take some steps which are against your beliefs. It’s your daily actions the ones that change the perception of yourself.

For example, if you have given up doing sports because you think it’s not your thing, try to run only one kilometer at a pace you feel comfortable with. Do it again another day, and another… and another. In a few days you will be easily running two kilometers and in some weeks, five. As months go by you will see that you can even increase your speed little by little and achieve decent times. Contrary to what you believe, your identity could end up including the word “athlete”.

If you think that “being organized” is not for you and that you are a natural procrastinator, then you are limiting very much your personal development and you’ll waste a good part of your life just by not trying to improve. Start by practicing the steps that will make you more productive. Concentrate on the process, not on the final outcome (it will come later), and the transformation will happen.