TSSI #14 - Unlocking Success Through a Growth Mindset
Read Time: 4 minutes
Are you striving to excel in your career, sport, or personal development?
Then cultivating a growth mindset can make a profound difference in your journey towards success.
Research suggests that cultivating a growth mindset:
Increases performance levels
Reduces fear of failure
Increases resilience
Leads to attempting greater challenges
What is a Growth Mindset?
Growth mindset is the belief that your abilities can be developed through hard work, dedication, and learning.
It's the birth child of renowned psychologist Carol Dweck.
Dweck wrote a book called "Mindset: How we can learn to fulfill our potential" that covers this concept in great detail (must read).
The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, which is when you assume that your skills and talents are set in stone.
The Link Between Growth Mindset and High Performance
The connection between a growth mindset and high performance is a powerful one.
Individuals who adopt a growth mindset have several traits that contribute to their success:
1. Continuous learning:
High performers are often avid learners. They realize that by not growing and getting better, they're actually falling behind.
Having a hunger for new knowledge and skills is how the best athletes & entrepreneurs succeed.
Elon Musk: The visionary entrepreneur behind SpaceX and Tesla is known for his relentless pursuit of innovation.
Musk's growth mindset is evident in his willingness to tackle complex challenges and learn from both successes and failures.
2. Resilience:
When you believe that effort leads to improvement, setbacks become stepping stones.
A growth mindset leads to an increased tolerance for failure because it's seen as a challenge and a learning opportunity.
In contrast, those with a fixed mindset see it as their identity & self worth being destroyed.
“Individuals in a growth mindset don’t simply look for challenge, they blossom with it. The greater the challenge, the more they stretch.” — K. Orient
J.K. Rowling:
The author of the popular Harry Potter series faced numerous rejections before finding success.
Her perseverance and commitment to improving her writing skills reflect a growth mindset.
3. Adaptability:
In a rapidly changing world, adaptability is crucial for success.
Those with a growth mindset are more open to change. They see it as an opportunity to learn and evolve rather than a threat to their established abilities.
Be stubborn with your goals, but flexible in your approach.
There are always going to be better, and more advanced ways to achieve your goal. So it's important to stay open to change & learning.
A growth mindset helps with this. A fixed-mindset keeps you locked into your sub-par processes.
4. Effort and Grit:
A growth mindset promotes the belief that effort is the path to mastery.
High-performers are known for their hard work and dedication.
And a growth mindset provides the foundation for developing grit and putting in the necessary hours to excel.
Michael Jordan: Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Jordan's work ethic and determination were driven by a growth mindset.
He famously said, "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."
What does the research tell us?
Growth mindset, counterintuitively, is about distancing your identity from your performance. Instead, you should attach your identity to effort itself.
Praising intelligence, talent, labels & identity leads to a fixed-mindset. This results in taking fewer risks, choosing easier paths & less persistence. Fixed mindsets lead to decreases in performance & motivation.
Praising effort & persistence leads to increased performance because people challenge themselves more & persevere.
People who perform well at a task are actually most at risk of having a fixed mindset because their identity is as a 'talented athlete'. Which is a title to be protected.
Children who get 'intelligence praise' tend to lie/misrepresent their results in future tasks. This is because their identity is tied to good performance.
How can you develop growth mindset (and avoid a fixed-mindset)?
It's really about praise & feedback.
It's not only about how people feedback to you, but it's also how you feedback to yourself.
As an athlete or entrepreneur, I'd want to choose a coach or boss who praises effort, perseverance, grit & discipline. So be wise when choosing.
I'd also need to be aware of how I'm talking to myself. I need to ensure that my self-talk is tied to effort, not talent/ability. Self-reflection and self-awareness is important here.
As a coach or parent trying to help a child, I'd be very conscious to avoid praising them based on labels & intelligence.
"You're so talented" & "You're so smart" leads to protecting that label (a fixed mindset).
Instead, "You've worked so hard to achieve this", "Great effort out there", "Well done on sticking with it".
Here's an extensive list of effective examples of praise that cultivates a growth mindset.
Research also suggests that praising effort both before and after the task are effective.
Here are some questions that will help you self-reflect and might help shift your mindset to be more growth orientated...
What have I been told I’m really good at?
What have I been told that I’m really bad at?
What have I told myself I’m really good at?
What have I told myself I’m really bad at?
What am I good at and why? Did it come naturally? Or did I apply many years of effort to it?
Why am I not good at other things? Tried & had early failure? Have I used much effort to get better at it?
What you'll likely find is that the things that you have been told you're really good at have taken years and years of effort.
The thing's that you are bad at...you probably didn't enjoy, failed early on and stopped persisting.
Summarizing
Growth mindset is a mindset that improves your ability to respond to errors and failure.
It's about attaching your identity to effort itself - not performance.
It's cultivated through being praised for effort, hard work & persistence - not talent & intelligence.
Fixed-mindsets lead to reduced resilience & taking on less challenge to protect an identity.
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