Growth Mindset

Life is full of opportunities to learn and grow or to maintain the status quo; opportunities to take chances or to play it safe. How you react to those opportunities and to the circumstances you find yourself in and the possibilities presented to you depends largely upon the mindset you use to approach life. There are two basic attitudes or mindsets you can use to approach the challenges in your life – growth mindset and fixed mindset.

Growth Mindset

When you adopt a growth mindset, you are open to change and to challenge. You believe in your power to grow, learn, and adapt. You see the unknown as an opportunity rather than as a threat. You believe less in your innate gifts and more in your ability to hone new skills. You use your mistakes and feedback from others to improve. You are focused on the process of learning, growing, improving and putting forth your best effort. You step into the future with faith rather than fear. You are confident and self-assured.

Fixed Mindset

When you adopt a fixed mindset, changes and challenges feel like a threat. If you do not succeed without much effort on your first attempt, you assume that you cannot succeed. Setbacks make you doubt your innate abilities and worth. You rely on the abilities which come naturally to you and allow them to limit what you will try to do. If you have to work too hard at something, you retreat and go back to doing the things which come easily to you. You are focused on outcomes and on proving to others that you are smart, talented and successful. You have little faith in your ability to expand your skill set. You believe that the things you can already do well and do easily are the only things that you will ever be able to do. When something is hard, you shy away, get defensive and shut down. When you make a mistake, you give up and try something else at which you are sure you can succeed instead.

What is your mindset?

Did you decide to attend college because you already knew everything or because you wanted to learn more? Did you arrive here thinking that you would leave four years later as the same person or that you would change and grow? Do you find new ideas stimulating or threatening? Your responses to these questions will be defined by your tendency toward a growth mindset or a fixed mindset.

None of us have a 100% fixed mindset or a 100% growth mindset. Your mindset can change based on your mood, the people you are surrounded with, the type of challenge you are presented with and your intention to approach a situation with one mindset or the other.

Learning to shift your mindset from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is helpful when you are asked to learn new things, face challenges, implement feedback and push yourself to be the best version of yourself you can be.

Shifting your mindset

When you are faced with a challenge, with learning something new, with a task you aren’t sure you can complete successfully or with constructive feedback from someone – listen to the voice inside your head. What are you telling yourself about the situation and about your ability to cope with it? Here are some ideas of ways to change the things you are saying to yourself to shift your self-talk from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

Using affirmations

In conjunction with the growth mindset statement above, use the affirmations below to cement your new growth mindset attitude. Repeat these to yourself when you are facing a new challenge or when you need a boost. The more often you use an affirmation, the more you will believe it!

• This is new for me and it is going to be hard, but I know I can do it.

• I can’t do this yet, but if I keep working at it, I know I will get it eventually.

• I put in a really good effort today. I learned from my mistakes and that is progress.

• Learning new things takes time and effort, I am moving in the right direction and I won’t give up until I succeed.

• I can accomplish anything I put my mind to if I work hard enough at it.

• Effort doesn’t mean that I’m dumb. It means that I am getting smarter.

You can (and should) also develop your own affirmations which address the specific self-talk challenges which are holding you back.

Moving forward with curiosity

When you are faced with a new challenge or an opportunity to learn and change or when you are feeling down on yourself in the middle of a new endeavor, ask yourself:

• What can I learn from this challenge? What can I learn from this specific attempt to address this challenge?

• Have I faced a similar challenge before? What strategies did I learn then which I could use now?

• What did I do today which helped me succeed? What did I do today which hindered my ability to master this challenge?

• What different strategy could I use tomorrow which would be even better?

• How did I encourage myself to keep trying when things were hard today? What did I say or do to motivate myself?

• Did I approach this challenge with a growth mindset? What beliefs do I have about myself and my abilities which caused me to fall into a fixed mindset?

• What can I learn from others who appear to have mastered this challenge?

Being more aware of your current mindset and how it is impacting your behavior and willingness to take on new challenges is a great first step toward developing a stronger growth mindset. As you track your self-talk and replace fixed thoughts with growth thoughts, you will become more confident and better equipped to take the risks which will help you achieve your full potential.