How to Find Your Growth Mindset When Lost
“If at first you do not succeed, you are normal.”
When you go from a fixed mind-set to a growth mindset, a new world of opportunities opens. I am working with someone who is operating with a fixed mind-set. She is very competitive and expects to win. It is all about the results for her to bring in the revenue, profits, projects and programs, and clients including her personal relationship Endeavors.
She wants and expects to do and achieve it all. She does not step back to look at the big picture and see herself holistically, everything is in silo. She loves the praise. But if she misses a step, she mentally beats herself up, considers herself a failure and believes others consider her a failure. But failure is part of the human experience.
Telling yourself you are a failure is a lie! A fixed mind-set focuses only on the results. In life, no one always gets the results they want. But with a fixed mindset, you do not understand that. Instead, you feel embarrassed, and your inner peace is threatened. You feel you are bad, and you do not have nor can develop the skills that you need. You punish yourself by focusing on your failures and avoid building and showing your all of your skills and talent.
Too many adults and children have experienced or are experiencing this fixed mind-set which hinders their growth. Carol S. Dweck says the fixed mind-set is all about the outcome. If you fail or are not the best, all the work was wasted. What have you delivered on but did not get the acceptance you wanted feeling your time and energy was wasted?
How did you feel? How did you react? Are you still hanging on to that negative experience that is continuing to halt your growth to live your potential? Successful, happy people think differently. They have the growth mind-set with a habit of practice. Habits are required to help achieve their goals and outcomes through hard work, life’s impossibilities, and losses. The growth mind-set allows you to value what you are doing regardless of the outcome. The research, documentation, and communication about the project or program was meaningful even if not selected.
The relationship you pursued that did not work was meaningful even if rejected. To grow, you must continue to tackle problems, chart new courses, work on important issues, and establish new relationships. To be successful through a growth mind-set, you must believe in growth, ensure sustained effort, and know you can learn with a focus on what you can control to enjoy your work.
As a business owner, you know your craft, but you also must believe that you can learn the other aspects of running a business, like, marketing, finance, and accounting to help ensure your success.
What can you do to practice and set routines to ensure a consistent growth mind-set?
1. Know who you are, what you want, and why it excites you.
2. Immediately and constantly forgive yourself.
3. Be grateful for what you know now, what has been given to you, and what will be given to you to achieve your goals.
4. Accept your purpose and objective to be the best version of yourself and move towards it as your awareness grows. Focus on progress and growth, not perfection.
Everyone has both a fixed and growth mind-set. The problem is not knowing you are operating with a fixed mind-set, defining yourself by it, and having the behaviours that limit your outcomes. Once you become aware that your mind is fixed, you can make the switch to a growth mind-set and remind yourself that change is constant in you. You can navigate toward the life you want because you have and can get the skills required to make it happen. Results do matter. However, when results are not achieved, focus on the learning process, and show how hard work, good strategies, and good use of resources lead to better learning and growth.
“There are no failures, just discoveries.”
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