You may well ask how can I choose a growth mindset? It doesn’t take a genius to work out that someone with a negative, defeatist mindset is going to find it pretty hard to achieve any success in life. We all know someone like that don’t we? – someone full of scepticism; someone who second guesses absolutely everything and does nothing but criticise everyone and everything around them.
A negative mindset will dampen anything productive before it can ignite. How would a person like this even recognise their success? Or new opportunities in front of them?
Exactly. They wouldn’t, because they put a negative spin on everything. These are not good people to be around, particularly if your mindset has a tendency to lean towards the negative at times.
Listening to someone bitch and moan constantly about how terrible everything is isn’t good for our own state of mind; doubts about our own abilities and successes can come creeping in, and before we know it we are thinking like them: everything is bad, nothing will go right for us, we won’t succeed.
Having a positive mindset is crucial if you want to achieve your life goals and, luckily, you can cultivate this mindset yourself – as long as you’re ready to open your mind up to new ways of thinking.
So, how can you put your mind on the path of success?
1 – Choose A Growth Mindset
Having a growth mindset is probably the biggest favour you can do yourself if you want to achieve your dreams – it’s the mindset that will let you really push the boundaries of your ideas and take them to the next level.
Unlike the negative Nancy’s I was talking about earlier, don’t judge your experiences in terms of failures or successes. Recognise that everything your experience in life can help you to grow; sure, there might be challenges and obstacles along the way, but if you frame everything in a positive light, you can use these experiences to enhance your life.
People who have a growth mindset push themselves, and ‘go for it’, they’re not worried about making a mistake and looking stupid, they are constantly growing and challenging themselves. A growth mindset means that you believe that you can develop your talents and abilities over time, either through experience or by learning from others. It’s easy to see why it’s those who have this mindset that are the ones who succeed in life; these are the people who don’t give up at the first hurdle and who look for the opportunity in every situation.
If you don’t have a growth mindset then you probably have a fixed one. Someone with a fixed mindset believes that they only have a certain amount of intelligence, talents and abilities – that they are just fixed traits that can’t be changed. You can imagine how limiting that mindset is. People with a fixed mindset don’t push themselves or try to overcome things that are in their way, and ultimately this will stop them being able to reach their goals and achieve new things.
2 – Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Being in our comfort zone is, well, comfortable…but we all know what happens when we become too comfortable; we become lethargic and lazy.
Doing something that is out of our comfort zone will stop us ending up with a rigid mindset, our minds will become more nimble and we’ll be able to reach new heights of success. Not taking risks halts our progress, and eventually all that ambition and those dreams will fizzle out.
The main reason that people won’t get out of their comfort zones or push themselves is because they’re scared of making mistakes and ruining their image, and as a result they just end up stuck in one spot instead of taking a chance and progressing.
3 – Embrace Your Mistakes
Don’t hide from your mistakes or make excuses; embrace them for what they are – a chance to learn from the experience and go forward. Being a doom monger and going all ‘woe is me’ isn’t going to help you achieve anything, so don’t wallow – set a new target and goal and keep moving on.
Getting out of your comfort zone and taking risks goes hand-in-hand with making mistakes. They’re gonna happen – the key to surviving them is to use your growth mindset to see blunders as jumping off points to new opportunities or a different direction, rather than as a disaster.
4 – Keep Thirsting For More
Learning should be something that we never stop – it should be the thirst that cannot be quenched – and whatever our level of education there is always more to learn. One of the keys to staying in a growth mindset is staying curious, as soon as we stop trying to find out more we just stop. Full stop.
In order to grow; our businesses, our relationships, or as people, we have to constantly be striving to discover what we are capable of. Nothing is out of our reach if we keep learning and reaching to achieve our goals and dreams. Having a fixed mindset will keep us fixed in one place, not believing that we are capable of progressing because we think that our abilities are limited – and that includes our ability to learn more.
5 – Be Happy For Other People
Negative people are just the sort to not be happy for other people – in fact they probably feel bitter and resentful of those who have achieved success – even jealous. They might feel that the success isn’t deserved – ‘Why are others doing well when I’m not?’
Celebrating the success of others will help you to feel gratitude for your own accomplishments. Being upset about someone else’s success will ultimately lead to you being unable to achieve any of your own. Other people succeeding should inspire you and spur you on; what can you learn from their success? Has it taught you to do things differently, or given you ideas of how you can succeed yourself? Learn lessons, keep a growth mindset, and take positive steps to achieve your own goals.
6 – Feed The Positive
It’s important to fuel our minds with positive messages and information every day in order to keep negativity at bay. It’s said that we reflect the characteristics of the people we surround ourselves with, so start hanging out with positive influences!
Distance yourself from negative people – especially those who put you down or who don’t celebrate your achievements. If you’re constantly hearing negative messages from those around you they will pervade your mind and you’ll soon find yourself believing those messages and spiralling into negativity yourself.
To keep a growth mindset you need to spend your time with like-minded people who will feed your positivity.
7 – Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
Don’t underestimate the power having a healthy body can have on a healthy mind – and vice versa!
Staying fit and healthy will give you energy and a zest for life. You’ll find your mind and body are flooded with feel-good hormones, and your creativity and positivity will be fuelled. This will give you the motivation to achieve your goals.
Which leads us to…
8 – Stay High Energy
When our energy is low, our enthusiasm and positivity soon follows suit, allowing negativity to creep in and take hold….before you know it, that growth mindset has up and left along with your motivation.
When we are feeling negative we stop attracting positive things into our lives; people, opportunities and ideas. Energy and momentum are particularly important in business, enabling us to feel driven enough to get through each task.
Your mindset can help you to achieve anything – as long as it’s a growth one. Think positive in order to attract positivity, and get rid of any negative influences in your life that are holding you back from achieving your goals.
Come on!