You may have heard it mentioned, so we are here to answer the question the best we can.
‘What is growth mindset and why is it important?’ I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Mindset is Everything”. Guess what, it’s pretty darn important!
It can make or break any situation, and you along with it. Do you want to bask in sunshine, happiness, bliss & joy? Well you’ll need to get comfortable with the storms, sadness, despair and melancholy too!
It all comes down to the mindset.
Long story short, you are your mindset.
So… what IS a growth mindset?
Growth mindset is a thought process that makes you limitless.
It is to look at the opportunities and lessons that a situation or life event is teaching you, good AND bad. Viewing failures, mistakes, learnings, criticisms, and ideas as a learning curve necessary to grow, and to develop and move forward. We need to accept our negatives and failures as as integral and important as our positive feelings and happenings.
A growth mindset is all about possibilities. We don’t see failure as impossible or negative, or only focus on success all the time. It’s accepting the situation as it is, no sugar coating and no berating ourselves for feeling sad/mad/down, it’s choosing acceptance of our full spectrum of human emotions and processes and choosing to see the bigger picture.
By having a growth mindset, you learn to see the necessity of ALL emotions and failures, and in turn this helps to move through the negative emotions much more smoothly, instead of getting stuck in a negative thinking spiral.
I want to quickly remind you not to confuse the growth mindset with toxic positivity. A growth mindset is being fully aware that ALL human emotions are worthy and valid, and each has a place in teaching us.
Growth vs Fixed Mindset
A growth Mindset is about facing challenges and driving through setbacks. Having a growth mindset is not always easy, especially during difficult times. But that’s the best time to bring what you’re learning into practice.
It helps you to accept what is, and release the inbuilt stress & pressure.
A fixed mindset would see failure as bad. Then they would feel bad. They would then feel bad for failing, and feel worse. They may then feel like they should give up at the thing they failed at, instead of seeing this as a lesson. They would feel bad because they spent so much time feeling bad, and get stuck in a negative thinking cycle.
For so long we have been taught to ‘stay positive’ no matter the cost. It is not humanly possible to stay positive no matter what.
It’s okay to feel bad. It’s okay to fail. If we allow ourselves this, we can move through it quicker, and accept a lesson from each failure.
This quote comes to my mind: What if I fall, but darling what if you fly? One of the best examples to show the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset. A growth mindset offers you the freedom to shape your future. While on the other hand, a fixed mindset potentially holds you back, believing you’re not good enough.
Benefits of Growth Mindset
- It helps us to face challenges and hardships, by accepting them as necessary.
- Makes us aware without feeling personally attacked, where we could make improvements when learning.
- Can help to prevent panicking.
- Can help to make us more self-aware and confident.
- The Growth mindset is progressive and helps in business, work, and other areas of life such as dealing with emotions.
- It helps you to focus on individual actions.
The bulk of it is…
Growth mindset is about accepting the process, bad equally as much as good, and just focusing on a perfect result. It influences our overall life performance in various areas. The right mindset helps to ease the challenging times and enjoy the fruits better.
For our list of Growth Mindset Books for Adults, click here.
If you have children, then The Heaton Family have a Growth Mindset Books for Children post.