Why A Growth Mindset Is What You Need For Life Success

One’s mindset is defined as the perception of achieving goals in both the professional and personal lives. In other words, a mindset helps define one’s personality. It reflects the way an individual views and acts toward life, how they perceive success and failure, as well as determining their emotional, cognitive, behavioural and neural responses to these experiences.

Interested in the concept of the human mindset and its impact on our lives, Carol Dweck, a Stanford University Professor of Psychology, decided to dig deeper into human motivation and explore the elements of success. Dweck synthesised her findings into the famous book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, in the book, Dweck coined the two terms “Fixed mindset” and “Growth mindset” indicating that our mindsets can predict our future success and achievements.

The Fixed mindset vs. the Growth mindset

Fixed mindset: Having a fixed mindset is believing that one’s capabilities, qualities and traits are permanent and cannot be developed through time. People with a fixed mindset believe that success is the result of mere talent, needless of additional effort. Therefore, they tend to strive for success, avoid failure at all cost, and are conservative as well as reluctant to incorporate changes and improvements. Someone with a fixed mindset would constantly look for ways to prove themselves as a way to affirm their inherent intelligence.

Growth mindset: On the other hand, a growth mindset is defined as someone who believes that they can learn and improve their basic abilities through effort and failures. People who possess a growth mindset will interpret failures and challenges as opportunities to grow and further cultivate their existing qualities and talents. They strive for self-improvement, are self-aware of their flaws and shortcomings, and hence, welcome new challenges and perceive failures positively.

Our beliefs can have impacts on our future success

According to Carol Dweck’s research, those who possess growth mindsets are more likely to be successful. It is because the growth mindset stimulates one’s drive, willingness, and overall foundation of belief to achieve bigger and better outcomes. Our beliefs, conscious or unconscious, can either push you to become better or hold you back from advancements and improvements.

However, although the benefits of cultivating a growth mindset are clear and significant, why do most people tend to default to a fixed mindset?

Most of the time, this is because of the fear of failing and insecurities. When dealing with setbacks, fixed mindset individuals tend to put the blame on others or negatively criticise themselves, which will eventually lead to unhappy, negative feelings and discourages all kinds of improvements. In the case of the growth-oriented individuals, they understand that the harder they work, the more tenacity they have, along with a positive view toward hardships, and the more successful they will be.

Fortunately, one’s behaviours are not static as long as you are aware of developing your personal growth and determined to change your mindset. Start with simple traits like changing your bad habits and focus on the process, not the results because sometimes the key to success is not giving up to a problem but to overcome it. 

*Source: blog.trginternational.com