Want to be a person with a Growth Mindset but don’t know how to create and develop a Growth Mindset for yourself?
If your head is full of impossible thoughts, lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes, it causes us to try to avoid any work that we see as difficult or work that we have never done, causing us to feel afraid and anxious in advance. This kind of symptom is caused by having a fixed mindset.
We all have a combination of Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset. It depends on which Mindset we have more of and what we have in it. But the good news is, no matter how much Fixed Mindset we have, we can always change it to Growth Mindset. Because creating and developing Growth Mindset for working people is something that we can create and develop.
Before we talk about how to build a Growth Mindset, let’s take a moment to understand the differences between a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset. What are the issues?
“A matter of level of effort”
When faced with a difficult task, people with a fixed mindset will try to avoid doing it. Or if they can’t avoid it, they will try to find a colleague who is more capable than them in that matter to help with the very difficult part. And for themselves, they will choose to do the easy part or the part that doesn’t require much effort instead.
Meanwhile, people with a Growth Mindset believe that good results must come from action. This group of people therefore places a high value on effort because they believe that even though they are not good at something today or are not yet skilled, if they have determination, try to learn, and practice continuously, the difficult work will become easy.
“It’s a matter of level of challenge.”
When faced with a challenging task, people with a fixed mindset are very afraid of making mistakes. As a result, they will act in a dodgy manner in order to avoid being noticed because they do not want to take responsibility for the task. People with a fixed mindset prefer easy, repetitive, and familiar tasks.
But if we have to do the same job repeatedly for ten years, will we get bored? And do we think we will have the opportunity to grow? The concept of people with a Growth Mindset believes that challenging work is an opportunity for them to grow, allowing them to gain additional skills and experience at the same time.
“About admitting mistakes and accepting criticism”
People with a fixed mindset don’t like making mistakes because they are addicted to perfection even though they may not be that perfect. But the reason they don’t like making mistakes is because they are embarrassed and don’t like being criticized by people around them. Being criticized for people with a fixed mindset will be seen as looking for trouble or finding fault with them rather than seeing it as advice to lead to improvement or further development.
While people with a growth mindset will see mistakes as lessons because they will encounter them anyway if they try to do something new. As for criticism, they see it as advice that will lead to corrections and improvements in the future.
So, if we are going to start by building a Growth Mindset, we need to increase our level of effort and start doing more difficult or challenging tasks, including being open to accepting mistakes and criticisms in order to lead us to growth and success in the future.
So how do we turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset, or how can we create and develop a growth mindset for working people?
This question may seem difficult, but if we don’t try, it will never be possible. We can gradually change, little by little, but please do it continuously. The mindset that used to believe that nothing is impossible will gradually change and we will see the path and opportunities ourselves. We can start changing as follows:
1. “Accept that no one is perfect.”
Everyone has both advantages and disadvantages, but that doesn’t mean that the disadvantages we have are disadvantages that cannot be fixed or that the advantages we have cannot be better. This is why it is important that we change our definition and thinking.
2. “Obstacles or problems that come in make us grow.”
Instead of running away from problems or blaming others for the cause of problems, let’s try to change our perspective on this issue. This is a challenge that comes to test our potential and ability. If we can pass it, we will have more experience, be more skilled, and may have the opportunity to encounter new opportunities or new, better jobs.
3. “A good goal is a goal that is set so that we can grow.”
Setting goals with a Growth Mindset is setting goals that make us seek new knowledge. A good goal must allow us to practice some new skills or gain new experiences. Importantly, this goal must be a challenging goal that we or most people may never have achieved before. And if it can be done, it must take us to a point that stands out and is different from others.
4. “Avoid negative words towards yourself or others.”
Negative words that come out of our mouths, whether they are about ourselves or about other people, all start from our negative thinking. And whenever we think negatively, our behavior and actions will also be negative. Therefore, we must be careful to filter our words, whether to ourselves or to others, to always be positive in order to escape from the Fixed Mindset Mode in our thoughts.
5. “It is not necessary to ask for opinions or advice from everyone on every matter.”
If we keep asking for advice from many people in many things that we will do, we will eventually lose our self-confidence, become someone who does not dare to make decisions, or if we have to make decisions, we will have to ask others to help us make decisions for us. This is also an important matter. If we are behaving like this, we must reduce, stop, and quit sometimes in order to turn back to build self-confidence and believe in our own potential again.
6. “Criticism is a gift.”
If we look at it from another perspective, people who dare to criticize us directly and honestly may mean well for us and really want us to improve (otherwise, why would they risk speaking directly to our face?). This is different from people who talk about us behind our backs or just gossip about us for fun. From experience, we have found that many times we may get good ideas from other people’s criticisms. Therefore, please see this as something good that other people have given us to improve.
7. “Don’t just learn from your own mistakes, learn from the mistakes of others.”
Learning from every mistake we make in order to improve and plan for the next time is a good thing because it will help us discover new methods that may yield better results than before. But wouldn’t it be better if we also learned from the mistakes of others? It will help us save time in trial and error. This approach may help us find the right method and achieve success faster.
8. “Never done it before doesn’t mean we can’t do it. Not having prior knowledge doesn’t mean we can’t really know about it.”
If we are not confident and have never done it before, it is because we just don’t know about it. If we learn with true determination, we will definitely be able to do it. Therefore, labeling ourselves as ignorant and therefore unable to do it is a hasty conclusion and cutting off our future too soon (thinking like this is a fixed mindset). Change your perspective. We can always learn from everything.
9. “Reward yourself for every effort and progress you make.”
Don’t set a goal that when you succeed or you have to achieve your goal exactly, you will reward yourself. Because doing this may create unnecessary pressure and stress for us. As a result, we may give up on continuing along the way. Therefore, we should be happy and reward every step that we pass each level. Give small rewards, but we should give every progress that occurs. Because this is a good encouragement that will make us move forward.
And all of these are 9 ways to create and develop a Growth Mindset for working people.
Many of these points are actually not as difficult as you think. But the hardest thing is, will we actually do it? And how long will we be determined to do it?
Don’t forget, a good mindset can always be created if we really want and intend to change ourselves. This is not for anyone, but for ourselves, for better opportunities and to have better choices in life.
More information :
The story of Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset comes from the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007) by Carol Dweck. There is a Thai version available at leading bookstores.
For more articles on Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset, please visit:
What are Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset? And How Do They Affect Us?
