Having a fixed or growth mindset can change the way you think about yourself and your ability to shape your life. Your mindset can affect your ability to develop new skills and ultimately your success. Continue reading to learn what the difference between a fixed and growth mindset is and if you’re able to change it.
Growth mindset
A growth mindset simply means that people believe their intelligence and talents can be improved through effort and actions.
This kind of mindset sees ‘failings’ as temporary and changeable, and as such, a growth mindset is crucial for learning, resilience, motivation, and performance.
Fixed mindset
A fixed-minded person usually avoids challenges in life, gives up easily, and becomes intimidated or threatened by the success of other people. This is in part because a fixed mindset doesn’t see intelligence and talent as something you develop – it’s something you “are”.
Fixed mindsets can lead to negative thinking. For instance, a person with a fixed mindset might fail at a task and believe it’s because they aren’t smart enough to do it. Whereas a growth mindset person might fail at the same task and believe it’s because they need to spend more time practising.
Growth
- Believe intelligence can be improved
- Put in more effort to learn
- Believe failures are just temporary setbacks
- Willingly embraces challenges
- View others’ success as a source of inspiration
- View feedback as an opportunity to learn
Fixed
- Believe intelligence and talent are static
- Avoid challenges to avoid failure
- Feel threatened by the success of others
- Believes effort is worthless
- View feedback as personal criticism
- Give up easily
Developing a growth mindset
- You can develop a growth mindset, follow these tips.
- Realize that, you can improve
- Remove the ‘fixed mindset’ inner voice
- Reward the process
- Get feedback
- Get out of your comfort zone
- Accept failure as part of the process
Find out more
Want to learn more about growth and fixed mindsets? Watch this short YouTube video.
Final thoughts
Try and use the tips above shift to a growth mindset. It’ll take some time, but keep going and reach out for help.
Going further
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