How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset

The mind is a powerful thing. The view you adopt for yourself has profound effects on the way you lead your life. Your mindset can determine whether you become the person you always want to be or it can obstruct your own development. This is the power of mindset. Either you achieve the things you value or you don’t reach your full potential in life. This post is perfect for you if you want to dig deeper into:

The differences between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset

A growth mindset is based on the belief that everyone can change and grow through efforts and experience. Everyone is capable of doing things and you can get through obstacles. While a fixed mindset is believing that your creativity is limited and you cannot change in a meaningful way. Now, when you enter a mind, it’s a new world you can fill with anything. You can either develop a growth mindset or fixed depending on you and your environment.

I learned how to adopt a growth mindset when I moved to a foreign country and I want to share how I did it. Cultivating a growth mindset is a process and definitely something you can work on. But I assure you, everyone can adopt a growth mindset and make the impossible possible. This doesn’t mean though that everyone can be Bill Gates or Beethoven, and that you can achieve anything. It means it’s just impossible to foresee what can you achieve in years of passion experience, and training.

FIXED MINDSET VS GROWTH MINDSET

People with a fixed mindset avoid challenges because they think failure will break them. While people with a growth mindset are open to life trials and they embrace change. They understand that they can grow through these challenges. A fixed mindset sees failure as the end of everything and failures are evidence of unintelligence. A growth mindset, however, sees failure as an opportunity to stretch the existing skills that they have. People with this mindset see failure as a learning ground to improve themselves.

The sky is the limit when it comes to life possibilities for people who have a growth mindset. Also, they ask for honest opinions on things, however inconvenient or hurtful the truth may be. They are keen on information that will help them improve and expand their existing knowledge.

People with a fixed mindset, on the other hand, tune out information that could help them learn and improve. They block constructive criticisms and see them as unsupportive. Which of these two mindsets will likely succeed and accomplish great things in life?

Which mindset would you rather have? The growth mindset right? Who wouldn’t want to? But cultivating it can be difficult for some people so here are successful ways of doing it.

Change your mindset by finding the right community

What factors determine whether a person has a positive or a negative mindset? The environment is a big factor and it plays a huge role in adopting a growth mindset. The people around you determine whether you maintain the desire to learn and grow so find the right community for you.

Surround yourself with people who have similar goals, desires, and dreams as you. Find your tribe so that they can support you with your dreams and push you to achieve your goals. If you surround yourself with people who have a growth mindset, you will likely have the same.

Find groups on Facebook or YouTube that focus on personal growth. I created a group on Facebook that aims to spread inspiration. Join us here. Connect with like-minded people and get inspiration from them.

1.1 Follow inspiring people

One of the best ways to cultivate a growth mindset is to find a role model and follow their steps. Be inspired and empowered by people who do great things. If you look at the life of successful people, they definitely have a growth mindset.

They’ve had setbacks too but they bounce back stronger every time. Rather than finding excuses and faults, they navigate their ways to transform their setbacks into victories. They take advice from other people and evaluate their weaknesses. If you follow successful people’s journeys, you too can develop a growth mindset like them.

1.2 Unfollow people that make you feel bad

When you scroll at your social media, what do you see? How do you feel about those posts that other people put out on the internet? Do you feel deflated? You are not alone. A few years ago, social media affected my mood so much and how I feel about myself.

Related Article: How to be Body Positive

All those bronzed and slim bodies, luxurious holidays, and new gadgets made a negative impact on my self-esteem and confidence. They made me hate my body and pushed me to compare my life to others. If this is true to you, go ahead and unfollow people like I did to avoid creating a negative mindset. And remember that Instagram is not real. These photos shared online have nothing to do with your worth as a person.

2. Learn from your mistakes to adopt a growth mindset

A failure is not a failure when you learn from it. This is so true that it’s been my mantra for years. A failure is not evidenced that you are not enough, it’s not an indication that your journey has ended. Instead, it’s an opportunity to evaluate yourself. It’s your chance to better yourself, look for things that didn’t go well, and get better by trying again.

If you have a fixed mindset, you see mistakes as finished products. This results in losing interest, cheating, looking away, or giving up. But when you learn from your mistakes, you can transform defeats into victories. You see yourself as a continual process and you will strive for betterment.

3. Focus on what you can control -not what you can’t

When life gets overwhelming and life stressors kick in, we often get caught in things we have no control. This leads to worrying and losing sight of the things we value. We can easily develop a negative mindset but by reminding ourselves to focus only on what we can change, we can shift our focus and mindset. Examples of what we cannot control that eat away at us and consume so much of our time are social media, the past, change, and what people say about us.

Stop focusing on these things and drift your energy away from them. Instead, here are the things you can control. The food you eat, how much body movement you do, reading self-help books, affirmations, and how much investment you give to yourself.

Related Article: 7 Gifts I am Giving Myself Today

4. Stop trying to be perfect, embrace your imperfections instead

Perfectionism is the greatest enemy of cultivating a growth mindset because it is very limiting. Perfect doesn’t leave any room for growth. You were not born perfect so there’s no need to chase perfection as you grow up. If you keep perfection as your goal, then it’s gonna be a moving target. It’s like waiting for a bus in an ocean, the bus will never come because perfection is a myth.

Imagine how exhausting your life will be if you are constantly aiming for perfection. Instead, embrace your imperfections and strive for progress. Once you accepted yourself, you can develop a growth mindset and be open to possibilities. Once you notice the good things about yourself, positive things like confidence and self-esteem start to kick in.

5. Invest in yourself and add value to your life

Investing in yourself is what I am most passionate about. When you invest in yourself successfully, you reap the benefits of self-growth, success and big results. Investing in myself is my thing and I am obsessed with it. I started investing in self-help books in 2017 and it pushed me to shift from having a fixed mindset to having a growth mindset.

Reading books opened me to different perspectives on life and forced me to make a change in my life. I cannot recommend investing in yourself enough. Add value to your life by gaining new skills, connecting with people, and doing meaningful activities.

Our mindset shapes whether we believe we can learn or grow or not. Which one will you pursue? A fixed mindset which seeks approval from other people or a growth mindset which prioritizes learning and growth. Remember that anyone can adopt a growth mindset.

Choose your community and grow with it. Follow inspiring people and learn from them. Ditch perfectionism and live the most authentic life you can have. Lastly, invest in yourself successfully and achieve results.

About the Author

Ali is the 26 year old the creator of Share to Inspire Blog who’s passionate about self-growth, building confidence, ditching fear and living the life she designed. She created this platform to share her passion with high hopes to inspire and empower women. She left her chaotic life in the Philippines to teach English in Japan.

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This Village Girl

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