Have you ever encountered a situation where you thought someone outdid you, and you assumed they were smarter or more talented? It’s 1000% okay if you don’t want to say. Trust me; I get it. I have done this before. This usually would occur when I would be experiencing a little bit of comparisonitis. I’m wondering if you’ve ever felt that way before. I can honestly say that when I did encounter a situation where I thought someone performed better or benefited from something, I rarely considered that they might’ve used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, or worked through obstacles. And guess what? 

 I know I can do those things now if I want to. That type of thinking no longer cripples me. If you’re anything like me, you understand that sometimes reframing your thoughts can be difficult.  

According to Harvard Business School, someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. On the other hand, someone with a fixed mindset views those same traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time. I found their example as aspiring entrepreneurs to be spot on! Here is what they said. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you need basic finance skills to create your business’s budget and prepare its financial statements. If you have a fixed mindset, you may think, “I’ve never been good with math, let alone financial statements. I’m not cut out to run my own business.”

Now imagine you approach the situation with a growth mindset. You might think, “I don’t have a background in finance, but I can learn and practice those skills until I feel capable.”

Can you see the difference? I know, I can. 

In her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, psychologist Carol Dweck coined the concept of growth and fixed mindsets.

According to Dweck, challenging situations can be catastrophic for those with fixed mindsets because of the implication that if they don’t already have the skills or intelligence to complete a task, there’s no chance of improvement.

When you have a growth mindset, you believe you can gain the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed, which makes every challenge a learning opportunity. 

So my question to you is, how do you embrace challenges? If you’re not sure, no sweat. I have some questions and suggestions to get you going. 

Growth Mindset Hacks

If you want a growth mindset, here are some things you can do that instantly shift your perspective. 

1. Acknowledge the imperfection in yourself and others. 

2. Embrace the qualities or flaws that you don’t like. It is because of our imperfections that we are all truly unique. 

3. Switch the negative voice in your head from “no” and “can’t” to “yet” or “why not me?” 

I thought these other suggestions based on Carol Dweck’s book were amazingly true and, if I’m being honest, a tad annoying at how true they were. 

4. Make a new goal for every goal you’ve accomplished.  

•  Growth-minded people know how to create new goals to keep themselves stimulated constantly.

5. Think realistically about time and effort. It takes time to learn.

• Replace the word “failing” with the term “learning.”When you make a mistake or fall short of a goal, you haven’t failed; you’ve learned. 
• The brain isn’t fixed; the mind shouldn’t be, either. 

This post was just the tip of the iceberg; there is soooo much information about mindset. I encourage you to think about your mindset and how it will help you in the future. If you’re stuck and unsure where to begin, ask someone you trust what they think of your mindset and see where the conversation leads you. 

I’m cheering for you and sending you all the sunshine. 

-Sharlis