How to Develop a Growth Mindset: Benefits and Strategies

Growth Mindset: Meaning, Theory and Benefits

Instead of being limited by fixed abilities and goals, a growth mindset helps you to embrace changes, face challenges, persevere through setbacks and keep learning new things every day. People who embrace a growth mindset are those who make more progress in life, while those who hardly go beyond a certain level of accomplishment in life are mostly those who have fixed mindset.

What is growth mindset?

In a more comprehensive view, a growth mindset is the belief that our intelligent level, skills, talents, habits and other personal qualities can be developed through continuous learning and self- improvement. Fixed mindset on the other hand is based on the idea that personal skills and qualities are innate and static.

Most people with static mindset believe in predetermination and a system that has already being set and void of positive changes. Those that have growth mindsets believe in positive changes and are flexible in thinking; they are not fixated on static ways of doing things.

Understanding the Growth Mindset Theory 

The growth and fixed mindset theories were made popular by Carol Susan Dweck, a well-known American professor of psychology at Stanford University.  In one of her works, Mindset, Dweck stated,

“success comes from having the right mindset rather than intelligence, talent or education.”

It is true. Most successful people in life, especially the political leaders, are not necessarily the most intelligent people. Although intelligence can help one to succeed easily, so many other factors can impede the positive manifestation of an intelligent mind. It, therefore, takes someone with a growth mindset to harness the power of intelligence and skills for self-actualization.

Benefits of a Growth Mindset

• It helps you to embrace challenges: It is hard for one to experience growth without facing challenges. Challenges help one to make adjustment that lead to transformative processes which create opportunities for change. People with positive mindsets understand that the ability to overcome challenges is all they need to move forward. This is because overcoming challenges builds our experience and strengthen our capabilities.

 

• Building Greater Resilience: One needs a growth mindset to attain a high level of perseverance, agility and flexibility in life. People with growth mindsets can easily bounce back after facing tough times. They are not defeated by failure or stepping stones, instead, they become stronger after facing hard times.

 

• Lasting Motivation: People don’t give up because they didn’t have the strength but they could not hold to their strength. When you have a positive mindset and believe in your ability to improve your current potentials, you cannot lack motivation even when you fall down multiple times. Such determination will enable you to apply more time, energy and resources into personal growth and development while staying motivated in the process.

 

7 Strategies to Develop a Growth Mindset

There following are ways to build a growth mindset that can bring positive transformation in your life:

1. Identify and destroy every element of a fixed mindset:

What believe do you hold about your abilities, talents, skills and intelligence that are holding you back? Do you think that you are not good enough and cannot do it? Quickly destroy such mindset of self-demotion and negative self-talk. Let your mind be growth-oriented and always try to improve on the areas that you know that you are not very good at.

The human brain is the smartest thing in the universe. Your brain can learn billions of new things and still have space to learn more. It is only when you are ready to optimize your talents through positive mindset by destroying negative thoughts that you can move forward in life.

Related article: Simple activities and games to boost your brain performance

 

2. Take failure as an opportunity to learn:

You cannot run away from failure unless you don’t want to make progress in life. Failure is an integral part of our existence as humans. We learned to talk by trying and today we can talk fluently.

When it seems like you are going to fail, do not stop trying it. Even if it is not to get it done, try it for the experience you are about to gain. That is what a positive mindset is all about.

 

3. Learn and keep learning:

Information keep changing and increasing year-by-year. Most of what was written in text-books years ago have either been changed or improved upon. Therefore, continuous learning is the way towards building a positive mindset.

Seek out new challenges, learn new skills and engage in challenging projects and researches that can make you meet up the current trends in your area of endeavors. The most practical means to improve oneself and actualize a positive mindset is to keep learning.

 

4. Build a circle of growth-minded people: 

Friends can be very motivating and can as well be discouraging. When you are in a group of friends who are growth-oriented, you have a great chance of developing a growth mindset. Making good friends and building positive relationships can help you greatly in the process of developing a growth mindset.

Share your experiences and challenges with a few friends that you know are positive minded. Both of you can discuss about how to help yourselves grow together.

5. Change your choice of words:

What you say about yourself can affect your thoughts and behaviors. Begin to talk positive about yourself. We have left some positive self-proclamations that can help boost your positivity. Using positive affirmative words and assuring yourself that you can make it is a good step to build a growth mindset.

6.  Change your location:

Your environment can influence how you think. It can also limit the level of growth that you can accomplish. When you change your environment, you are bound to meet new people who can impact your life positively.

 

7. Read books for growth:

The best information in existence are written down in books and reading materials like this blog post. Try to develop a reading habit and ensure that you select the kind of materials you read. Reading positive and motivational materials can help you build a growth mindset that can help you grow. There are many books that can greatly transform your mind.

 

Conclusion:

Building a growth mindset is one of the best ways to see positive transformation in life. It helps you to overcome challenges and upgrade the inner power within you. You can build this growth mindset by engaging in activities like continuous learning that can help you improve yourself. Also bear in mind that believing in a static kind of life stops you from moving forward.