"8 strategies to grow personally every day".

Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance. Her most recent study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ.

Dweck noted that you can divide people's basic attitudes into two categories: those with a fixed mindset or those with a growth mindset.

People with a fixed mindset think that you are just the way you are and that you cannot change. This leads to problems when you start to be challenged, because everything seems to be more than you can handle and therefore you start to feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve if they make an effort. They can perform better than those with a fixed mindset, even if they have a lower IQ. This has to do with the fact that they actually enjoy challenges and see it as an opportunity to learn something new.

The deciding factor in life is how you deal with setbacks and challenges. People with a growth mindset welcome setbacks with open arms.

According to Dweck, having success in life, has everything to do with how you handle failure. She describes the approach to "failure" of people with a growth mindset this way;

” Failure is information - we put the label failed on it, but it's more like, 'This didn't work, I'm going to fix it in a different way. I'm going to try something else until it does work “.

Whichever side of the chart you fall on, you can make changes and develop a growth mindset. Below are some strategies that will fine tune your mindset so you can align it with your way of thinking and help you enable growth.

Do not remain helpless

We all have moments when we feel helpless. The key test is how we respond to that feeling. We can learn from it and move forward or we can get carried away by it and enter a negative spiral.

There are countless successful people who would never have achieved what they have achieved now if they had succumbed to the feeling of hopelessness: Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because he had too little imagination and no good ideas. Oprah Winfrey was fired as a TV presenter because she was too emotional and too involved in the stories she presented. Henry Ford had two failed car companies prior to his success with Ford. Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC Cinematic Arts School multiple times. Thomas Edison had no less than 10,000 failed designs before the light bulb we know today was created. J.K. Rowling, when she was a single mother, had a lot of trouble finding a publisher for her Harry Potter books.

Imagine what would have happened if any of these people had had a fixed mindset. They would have given up hope! People with a growth mindset don't feel helpless. They know that if you want to be successful you have to be willing to fall hard and then get back up and try again.

Be passionate

People with a growth mindset have a relentless passion. There will always be someone with more natural talent than yourself, but what you lack in talent, you can more than make up for with your passion. Passion is what drives them.

According to Warren Buffet, you discover your true passion using, what he calls, the 5/25 technique: Write down 25 things you care about most. Then cross out the last 20. The remaining five are your true passions. Everything else is just a distraction.

Taking action

It's not that people with a growth mindset are able to overcome their fears because they are braver than the rest of us. It's simply because they know that fear and anxiety are crippling emotions and the best way to overcome them is to take action. People with a growth mindset are confident, and confident people know that there is no such thing as a truly perfect moment to take action. So why wait for such a moment? Taking immediate action converts all your worries and concerns about failure into positive and focused energy.

Take that extra step (or two)

People with a growth mindset always give their all, even on their worst days. They are always going the extra mile. If you always set limits on what you can do, physically or anything else, that will be your attitude for the rest of your life. It affects you in your work, in your own morals, in your whole person and in your whole life! There are no boundaries. There are steps, but you must not stay there. You have to go beyond the step where you are now. A person must be constantly working to get to that other level.

If you're not getting a little better every day, chances are you're getting worse, and what kind of life is that?

Expected Result

People with a growth mindset know that sometimes things don't go right and can therefore fail, but they never lose sight of the result to be achieved. Setting goals and measuring results keeps you motivated and boosts self-confidence. And say it yourself, if you already think you can't do it, why would you do it?

Be flexible

Everyone encounters unexpected setbacks. Take for example the COVID crisis we have been in for almost a year now. People with a growth mindset embrace adversity as a means of improvement or change rather than something that holds them back. When an unexpected situation arises, they flex until they get the results they want. In recent months, there have been numerous creative new initiatives created by entrepreneurs and people with a growth mindset.

Don't complain when things don't go your way

Complaining is a sure sign of a fixed mindset. A growth mindset looks for opportunities everywhere, in everything, so there is no room for complaining.

Bring it all together

By keeping track of how you react to different situations, you can work on keeping yourself on the right side of the above picture every day.

Good luck!

Hylke ter Beest

Source: Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Dr. Travis Bradberry