Do you have a desire to learn new things, embrace challenges and see failure as an opportunity to grow? When you have a growth mindset, you’re aware of your skills and talents, as well as your flaws, imperfections and weaknesses, but you don’t let what you don’t know hinder your progress. You keep moving forward with excitement to learn!
Growth Mindset v. Fixed Mindset
The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset. This is when you feel your skills, qualities and abilities are at a plateau, that there’s nothing more to learn or improve on. You either got it or you don’t. You don’t try to overcome challenges because you think you don’t have what it takes to succeed or you resist trying new things because you fear failure.
Familiar with the ego? This is your ego stepping in and getting in the way. The ego helps you exude self confidence and it’s for this exact reason you fear hurting the ego. It tries to protect and defend you to avoid anxiety and discomfort, so it kicks in when you make a mistake or don’t feel confident in your abilities. Therefore, preventing you from taking chances and achieving things you thought were impossible. Awareness of the ego and embracing challenges is a good start to fostering a growth mindset.
Stanford professor, Dr. Carol S. Dweck introduced the concept of a growth and fixed mindset and it seems that we all have a combination of the two. There are some things we feel really open to learning more about–even if we are not naturally good at it–and other things we feel very resistant to learning more about because we have the belief that we’re just not good at it and never can be. In my personal experience I find that the things I’m not good at or confident about are actually skills or things that are important for me to overcome so I can thrive and live to my highest potential. It may take time, dedication and perseverance but once I achieve a new level of mastery, it’s really gratifying.
5 tips for achieving a growth mindset
Maintain a Positive Outlook by
- Learning from your experiences
- Accepting feedback
- Creative problem solving
- Creating methods for improving
- Staying Motivated
- Being Persistent
- Stepping out of your comfort zone
Practice Self Awareness of Negative Self Talk/Core Beliefs
(Learn more about negative core beliefs here, and how to practice self awareness in this post.)
- “I can’t do this.”
- “This is too hard.”
- “I don’t know enough.”
- “I’m not good at that.”
- “I’m a failure.”
- “I’ll never be good at that.”
Transform Negative Self Talk into Positive Affirmations:
- “When I don’t succeed, I try again.”
- “Challenges help me grow.”
- “I am a problem solver.”
- “I try new things.”
- “I am learning from my mistakes.”
- “I am improving my skills and abilities.”
Try Bach Flower Therapy
This is one of the healing modalities I use to help my clients get to the root cause of negative emotions and limiting beliefs.
If you’re having a difficult time with fostering a growth mindset, these Bach flowers may help support you:
- Gentian can be helpful for setbacks
- Rock Water can be helpful for fixed ideas
- Larch can be helpful for boosting Self Confidence
I also offer 1:1 sessions, but the Bach Flower Remedies were created as a self help system so anyone can access and use them with ease. Learn more about individual remedies on my YouTube Channel. Don’t know what Bach Flower Remedies are? Check out my 8 minute video What are Bach Flower Remedies?
Transpersonal Energy Healing
This is another one of the healing modalities I use to help my clients. It’s a combination of Body Mind Counseling and Hands on healing. Helping to nurture self-awareness, uncover negative core beliefs, release stored emotions in the body and balance and relax the energy and nervous systems.
A growth mindset is not necessarily something we’re born with, it’s something that is learned either from our caretakers when we’re children or as a conscious choice when we’re adults. Having a growth mindset allows you to achieve your goals in every area of your life helping you advance, evolve, progress, expand and improve.
“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” – Carol S. Dweck
