If you’re wondering how to get a growth mindset, you’re probably a person who wants to improve your effectiveness while maintaining a good work-life balance.
You may be going through a situation that is causing you to struggle and you are looking for a way to move forward in the way you would like to.
Whatever your situation, you can create a growth mindset if you implement some effective strategies.
But before we get to the tips, I think it’s important to define what a growth mindset is.
This concept was defined by psychologist Carol Dweck and is based on the idea that we all have the capacity to grow and improve our skills, knowledge and abilities.
This means that we can always look at problems as opportunities to learn something new. More recently, Dweck has further clarified the concept of the growth mindset.
Now that this concept is clear, I suggest we move on to the first tip.
How to get a growth mindset?
1 – Understand that failure is not an option
People who are able to build a growth mindset do not consider failure as a real option.
If you think failure is an option, then you will never try anything new and will limit yourself to staying in your comfort zone.
You will only do what you are comfortable doing. And when you fail, you will give up.
In reality, failing from time to time is part of being successful. In fact, it’s expected. However, if you fail constantly, you will eventually stop trying.
So how can you stop seeing failure as an option and take the actions that are essential to your success?
I suggest you explore two options.
The first option is to give failure a different meaning by considering it as a temporary result and not as an end outcome.
Failure is in fact just an ingredient in our lives that is necessary for us to evolve both professionally and personally.
To develop a growth mindset, you must learn to associate pleasure with failure because the more you test ideas that don’t work without getting discouraged, the faster you will be able to find alternatives that allow you to reach your goals.
The second option is to accept to face small discomforts in order to discover what you are really capable of.
Instead of trying to implement massive changes right away, limit yourself to taking regular steps that allow you to take slightly difficult actions every day.
If you repeat these actions enough you will begin to develop a new habit. This will allow you to create new opportunities and enjoy new and very rewarding experiences.
In summary, if you give a different meaning to the word failure and if you regularly take slightly difficult actions, you will progress in the right direction.
Now, I suggest you move on to the next tip which is to learn from your mistakes.
2 – Learn from your mistakes
What is the real purpose of our past?
I believe that the purpose of the past is to allow us to use what we have learned over the years to live a better present.
We can learn from our failures and therefore from our mistakes.
Instead of giving up after a failed attempt, learn from your mistakes.
How to do this?
I suggest you keep track of these learnings. If you are auditory like me, I recommend that you keep track of these life lessons by recording with your smartphone what you have learned. You can also write what you have learned in your journal.
The important thing is to create a space that you can access at any time to make better decisions in your present.
To take this tip a step further, you can write down how you would like to act the next time you find yourself in a similar situation.
Doing this will allow you to:
- avoid making the same mistakes
- save time
- act more efficiently
Now, I suggest you move on to the next tip, which is to take risks.
3 – Be willing to take risks
If you want to achieve something important to you, you should take risks.
You need to try new things and fail sometimes. This is how you learn and improve.
And this is also how you can progress faster and achieve your goals.
I am not saying that you should take too many risks that could affect your life or the lives of others.
Instead, I am inviting you to take calculated risks to test new ideas and opportunities in your life.
But doing this requires making the decision to face your fears.
We all have fears that prevent us from creating a more fulfilling life.
But before you can learn to deal with a fear, it’s essential to become aware of its existence.
To achieve this, you can benefit from the expertise of a business coach if you want to grow your business or a life coach if you want to enhance the quality of your personal life.
The good news is that facing our fears does not require exposing ourselves to risks that have real consequences in our lives.
It is our brain that in order to protect us can create catastrophic scenarios.
But if we get into the habit of questioning these interpretations of reality, we often understand that we can expose ourselves to these risks.
These risks are often related either to aspects of our personality or to our desire to be liked or appreciated by others.
For example, some people are overly perfectionist and would rather do nothing than produce unsatisfactory work.
Others worry about the reaction and judgments of others and also prefer to remain inactive.
But if you can focus on factors that motivate you to take action, then you will be willing to push your limits one more time.
Now, I suggest you move on to the next tip, which is to focus on actions rather than results.
4 – Focus on process rather than results
To be successful at anything in your life, you should focus on processes rather than outcomes.
This means focusing on what you do rather than what you accomplish.
Why?
Simply because you have control over the actions you decide to take all the time.
However, you have very little control over the outcome.
As long as psychological research shows that when the sense of control over events increases, so does motivation, then you will be better able to take enough actions to maximize your chances of success.
If we take into account time management and priorities, it is probably easier to organize your time by scheduling tasks to be done.
These activities should be organized according to your priorities and your chronotype, i.e. your predisposition to perform better at a specific time of the day.
So next time you set a goal, define it correctly using the principles outlined in my article on how to achieve goals.
Then, identify, list, plan and execute the activities that will help you achieve your goal.
Then, readjust your actions and strategy according to the distance between you and your goal.
Now, I suggest you move on to the next tip which is to embrace change.
5 – Embrace and facilitate change
If you want to grow your business or improve the quality of your personal life, you must embrace change.
To do this, you need to understand that change is another essential ingredient to your success and satisfaction in life.
You must learn to adapt to new situations and environments.
But dealing with change is not always easy, especially when there is a drop in motivation.
In order to facilitate the change process, you can use different strategies such as:
- the implementation of contextual factors
- implementation intentions
- mental contrast
Contextual factors are elements that facilitate the implementation of a behavior that you want to reinforce, for example, in order to transform it into a new habit.
Implementation intentions are if-then sentences that act as a kind of instruction to behave in a given way. They are intended to create new and more productive behavioral alternatives for the person who wants to change a given behavior.
Mental contrast consists of identifying all the obstacles to the implementation of a given behavior and identifying in advance solutions to better manage them.
Now, I suggest you move on to the next tip, which is to learn from the success of others.
6 – Learn from the success of others
You are not limited by your experience to acquire and develop a growth mindset.
You can do this by learning from people who have already had results that you would like to duplicate.
This is not difficult to do if you take the time to study the actions of others.
By learning from others, you can achieve satisfactory results quicker and with less stress.
But you should not be in a hurry because some actions need to be repeated for a sufficient time to bring good results.
You will also need to select the winning strategies of others in order to apply the ones that are adapted to your situation and character.
In fact, just because a strategy has worked for one person it doesn’t mean it will work for you.
But having several alternatives from the start is still a huge advantage.
This strategy requires you to be humble enough to be willing to learn from others.
If you are, this may be the most effective strategy for quickly developing a growth mindset.
Now, I suggest you check out the next tip, which is to practice mindfulness.
Bonus tip for strengthening the growth mindset
Orosz & al. (2020) show that by combining mindfulness practice with programs that strengthen growth mindset, people are better able to be less judgmental of themselves and to ruminate less on their failures.
Conclusion on how to acquire a growth mindset
In this article, I provided you with 7 tips on how to create and develop a growth mindset in your professional and personal life.
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This article is also available in other languages
Français : Comment acquérir un état d’esprit de croissance : 7 secrets
Italiano: Come sviluppare una mentalità di crescita: 7 segreti del growth mindset