How to Develop a Growth Mindset

Do you want to be a better person but keep on getting frustrated with yourself? Do you have big dreams but are scared to pursue them? Have you ever felt jealous of other people’s natural talents? Agreeing to all of these is one of the reasons why you may not be succeeding. It is your mindset that is pulling you down. In this blog post, we’ll talk about how to develop a growth mindset so you can set yourself up for success.

First of all, what is it to have a growth mindset?  It’s a belief that a person can still improve, that talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and input from others. It basically means we can still grow to be better than our current selves. This is actually introduced by Carol Dweck Ph.D., the author of Review of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

It might be easier to understand it if we compare it to its opposite, “fixed mindset”. With this mindset, one believes that talents are innate and it is given to us since we are born. Yes, genes have a HUGE impact on our lives but remember that how we deal with our environment, or how we nurture our talents can totally influence us too, and this is scientifically proven.  

We know that our mindset is a huge contributing factor to our success. Just imagine if we develop a growth mindset. We will be able to improve so much and might reach our highest potential!

9 Tips on how to develop a growth mindset.

By developing a growth mindset, we set ourselves up for success, and here are 9 ways we can do so:

1. Reflect and accept yourself.

Growing starts with self-awareness. We should look into ourselves, and ask ourselves who we want to be and how far are we from this “visioned self”. By doing so, we will be able to assess how much work we need to do, and what may hinder us from growing or our failures. 

After self-reflection, we have to accept ourselves for whoever we are. This includes embracing our flaws and imperfections. We won’t be able to cultivate a growth mindset if we won’t accept that we lack something and that we should improve this.

You may want to read this – First Steps to Achieve Your Goals: Reflect and Visualize.

2. Be open to constructive criticism.

There are times when we’ve been doing things the “perfect” way but we still fail. There must be something that we are doing wrong but we can’t really recognize it.

When we are stuck, we can always ask our peers, friends, or even a coach for constructive criticisms. This will help us find new perspectives on how to improve ourselves. Note that constructive criticism is there to help us be better so we should not take it personally. 

Of course, there are others who just love to criticize and be mean.  We can ignore them and just focus on our growth.

3. Get out of your comfort zone.

I know that it is nice to stay in our comfort zones. But, humans have this innate feeling that hates staying in one place and wants to see what else is out there. It is nice to stay in our comfort zones but it gets boring. To grow, we need to get out of our comfort zones and face challenges! 

Do you know that when a plant is transferred to a bigger pot, it also grows bigger? Our growth is just like this. We have to be repotted once we’ve grown out of our current pot.

It is definitely scary but let’s take the challenges we face in our journey as opportunities to grow more. It is like some adventure we need to pass so we can proceed to another level.

4. Work hard and persevere.

Improving ourselves and developing talents are not easy tasks. There will be many obstacles in this journey. We can only overcome these if we continue to work hard and persevere for our growth. 

To grow, we have to constantly work on ourselves and at the same time, not give up when things get tough.

5. Widen your knowledge and experience.

Being mature is not related to our age. It’s more about our knowledge and experience. With this, knowing and experiencing more is also equivalent to growing.

Our current knowledge and experience can always be expanded. By expanding these two, we will be able to learn so much more compared to our current situation. This will allow us to see different perspectives and also be more aware of ourselves and our surroundings.

6. Learn from your mistakes.

Our harshest but most effective teachers are our mistakes and failures. There are just times that we have to stumble down first before succeeding in something. This is normal and all we can really do is acknowledge these mistakes, and learn from them. 

I just want to reiterate that we need to learn from these mistakes and do something about them. This is very different from acknowledging them and still doing them repeatedly, okay? 

Also, this doesn’t just apply to our own mistakes. We can also learn from others!

7. Mind your attitude.

Our attitude or the way we think has a huge impact on who we are as a person. To develop a growth mindset, we have to pay attention to what we feed our minds.  

A negative attitude doesn’t do anything good for us. It just sabotages us. Whenever we think negatively, we can change it into a positive one. As a result, this can uplift us to continue working on our growth. When we feel like hating ourselves, we can change this to a more loving one.  

You may want to read this – How to Improve Yourself: Start with these 10 Habits.

8. Use “yet”.

“Yet” is a very positive word in our growth journey. Whenever we are struggling with something, or maybe we feel like we are so far from our goal, there is still hope. “We haven’t reached our goal yet.” “I am not good at this yet.”

By adding “yet”, we are shifting it to a more positive note that we are still working towards developing our growth mindset. This is very helpful when we tend to think about negative things about ourselves.

9. Effort over result.

As we are still growing, we should not obsess over the result. The most important thing here is our effort or our every step in this process. If we only focus on the result, we might get frustrated and quit immediately. 

We have to remember that improving ourselves is a process that cannot be rushed. All we can do is do our best and trust the process.

You may want to read this – 5 Tips on How to Start Your Self Improvement Journey.

You are a work in progress. 

We may be struggling right now, or maybe we are not where we want to be. It sucks and we can’t do anything but do our best, face these challenges, persevere and endure hardships, and love ourselves. 

Basically, we are a work in progress and have so much more room to grow. Someday, we will be whoever we envision ourselves with one step at a time. With a growth mindset, this becomes more attainable and I hope the tips listed above can help.

As always, rooting for you,

Blaise ♥️