woman flexing bicep to symbolise her Growth Mindset

Your mindset is the characteristic way you face challenge, adversity and even failure. It is a mental attitude that shapes your experiences of life by impacting what you think and feel, and how you respond to these interpretations of events and situations. But what you think, feel and how you behave will also influence your mindset at different times and situations in your life. Tending to this reciprocal process is an on-going life endeavour if we want to be mentally healthy and reduce the chance of mental illness.

Do you talk to yourself in ways that are limiting, such as “I can’t do that because…”, or do you give yourself a possibility by saying “I’d like to try that because…”? Do you avoid challenges due to fears and failure, or do you accept a challenge with a determination to learn from it?

Seeing life’s difficulties and challenges as opportunities to grow, believing you can learn new things and improve intelligence and talent, is what Carol Dweck called a ‘growth’ mindset. Retreating to safety, being wary of failing and changing, that you are what you are ‘now and always’ (your intelligence and talent is fixed), she called a ‘fixed’ mindset, and this stifles learning, creativity and innovation.

Just as tending to your physical health requires you to set aside time to keep supple and strong with reduced chance of physical illness, cultivating a strong yet flexible mindset requires time and regular application. At the heart of this is raising self-awareness.

When you understand and nurture your mindset, you can turn your wishes and dreams into action because the fear of failing does not put you off. By understanding your beliefs and attitudes, you can opt for change and aim to do the things that really motivate and inspire you. When we ‘do’ a new thing enough, we create a different neuronal path, which hardwires this into a new healthy habit; neurons that fire together wire together, wiring in permanent learning. This neuroplasticity of the brain means that we all have an ability to learn, and when we know we can improve through effort, this is more powerful.

At 87% we advocate that raising self-awareness provides the opportunities to move towards a growth mindset, stepping outside your comfort zone, daring to dream, but with the emotional wellbeing and emotional intelligence to understand the process and manage the feelings that may arise.

Try these tips to develop a growth mindset:

Embrace life long learning
Put effort in to learn – practise physical skills and revise mental skills
Believe that effort leads to mastery
Believe failures are temporary and necessary
View feedback as information that helps you grow and try not to feel criticised
See the success of others as inspirational and that it makes it possible for you too

Practice the self-talk of a growth mindset

“This task is really hard because I am still learning about this new area of my job”
“If I am struggling, it means I must be learning something”
“I’m not good at working with data/words/numbers – yet!“
“I didn’t do very well in that task/game but I don’t have to get it perfect, I just need more time and understanding”
“Instead of asking “why me?” or “what’s the use?” Ask yourself how you can make the most of a challenging situation?”
“It’s important that my boss helps me see where I can improve”

Make a move towards developing your growth mindset by keeping these tips in mind and practising them this week.