“The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” Albert Einstein.

There’s a lot of talk about ‘mindset’ these days – but what is it and why is it important?

Essentially, our mindset comprises of our beliefs, attitudes and ‘mental filter’ through which we see, perceive and experience the world.

In Carol Dweck’s best-selling book ‘Mindset’, she argues that there are two types of mindsets – a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and that at any point in time, when you’re acting, behaving, or even thinking about something, you’re usually operating from one of these two mindsets.

We may demonstrate a growth mindset in certain areas of our lives, where we feel confident and empowered – and are led by curiosity, love of learning and gaining new insights and ideas. Yet in other areas, we have a fixed mindset, which is driven by fear – of how we’ll look, or what we’ll lose.

Experiencing setbacks and challenges is inevitable in the course of business and those with a growth mindset tend to look for the learning and opportunities, using the experience to stretch themselves, improve and become more resilient.

In contrast, with a fixed mindset, these experiences can typically reinforce beliefs of not being good enough, or confirm that you can’t succeed and lead to feeling stuck, or reluctant to try again.

How Intention Affects Mindset

At any point in time, each of our actions, choices and behaviours are motivated by an intention – and at it’s root, this is either an intention to learn and grow, or an intent to control and protect.

This will often be dependent upon the situation, as outlined above and often shaped by patterns that were created within us from childhood or adolescence. For example, someone who struggled with learning or grammar at school or in their formal education may avoid jobs or situations where writing or reading are key components if they still have a fear around this and want to protect themselves from humiliation or a perceived sense of failure. Yet others won’t let that define them if they have a growth mindset.

As evidence, there are many successful entrepreneurs who weren’t academic and didn’t perform well at school. Richard Branson and Jamie Oliver have both spoken publicly about their experience of struggling with dyslexia at school and how this proved very difficult for them. Yet it didn’t stop either of them going on to become public figures and massively successful entrepreneurs – infact, they’ve both attributed their dyslexia to being a great gift, helping them to think creatively and to focus their skills. Theo Paphitis and Lord Sugar are also famous figures with dyslexia (as was Steve Jobs). They each learned to harness their creativity and different way of thinking and to use it to their advantage.

Mindset affects every area of our lives – be it work, relationships, parenting, money or health.  Whatever our beliefs and attitudes are towards each of these areas, they will define and create our reality as our perception and beliefs inform and influence, how we show up, behave and take action and how we are ‘being’ in the world – and we tend to attract the results and outcomes that match those perceptions.

For example, if you have a subconscious belief that you’re unworthy or unsuccessful then your state of mind and the way that you then show up and behave often produce an outcome that mirrors that – as it reflects how you project yourself in the world and how you are perceived by others.  We all know what it’s like to be in the company of someone who ‘lights up’ a room and has positive energy and in contrast, we may try to avoid someone that complains a lot and who projects a lot of negativity.

If we have beliefs and perceptions that we are not good enough then our internal and external sense of self and energy will tend to attract experiences that are an ‘energetic match’ to confirm and reinforce those beliefs on some level. That’s unless we can change our perspective (by cultivating a growth mindset) and can explore new ways of thinking and being.

The latest research from leading neuroscientist and emotions researcher, Lisa Feldman Barrett, proposes that we ‘construct’ our emotions, based on exposure to a stimulus and the way that our brain and body then react and form an emotion, based on reference to previous, similar experiences. This can produce negative and positive emotional states and outcomes.  So sometimes we need to give our mind new instructions and create positive experience to update any outdated reference points.

THOUGHT + EMOTIONAL CHARGE + ACTION = OUTCOME

From the above equation we can see that if our thoughts are fearful – eg. I won’t succeed or I’ll mess this up” (fixed mindset) then this carries a fearful / negative emotional charge and you are then creating your reality from a fear perspective, as the actions you choose from a place of fear are going to reflect that fear.

This may take the form of passing up good opportunities that come your way or not promoting yourself, or procrastinating as you’re afraid that you won’t succeed so there is resistance to even trying anything new.

Your mindset tends to ‘run you’ – whatever you believe about yourself, life and others is what you will tend to attract and experience. So it’s beneficial to cultivate a growth mindset so that you can attract good opportunities and experiences into your life.

Leadership Mindsets

When Dweck and her colleagues consulted with executives at a top investment bank, they asked the executives to reflect on how their mindset influenced their leadership and communication abilities. The Managers realised that when they were leading from a fixed mindset they tended to use a top-down approach and were less open and encouraging with their staff. They feared being more authentic in case this showed any weakness or vulnerability which they felt would undermine their position of authority.

The resulting outcome was limited communication and less engagement by staff and management.

In contrast, the Managers were asked to reflect on occasions when they had come from a growth mindset. They were able to see that by being authentic, open minded and working more ‘collaboratively’ with their staff – that this then cultivated deeper connection, more respect from both sides and led to a more engaged and productive working relationship which benefited both Managers and their teams.

The Benefits of Cultivating a Growth Mindset

Developing a growth mindset means that you can turn setbacks and failures into sources of personal power if you use them to grow your strength and wisdom.  You find out what works for you or not and then if it doesn’t go well, rather than that forming a disempowering belief on an ‘identity’ level, instead, you just get curious and ask insightful questions of how it could have gone better and what can you now do to move forwards in a more empowering way.

In today’s economy and job market, where there’s often a lot of uncertainty and change, embracing a growth mindset can be really valuable and a necessity if you want to feel like you’re not at the mercy of external circumstances and want to steer and navigate the ship of your own life and feel that you’re able to make your own choices.

“People believe….their talents and abilities can be developed through passion, education and persistence.
For them….it’s about a commitment to learning – taking informed risks and learning from the results, surrounding yourself with people who will challenge you to grow, looking frankly at your deficiencies and seeking to remedy them”

Carol Dweck talking about a Growth Mindset

Ways to Cultivate a Growth Mindset

–  Learning about your skills and strengths and assessing how you can use these in your work and your life to best benefit is a good starting point.  Self-awareness is power and the starting point for moving out of a fixed mindset and working out what limits and stops you or keeps you stagnating and not moving forwards.  The VIA Character Strengths Survey is a free online test developed by leading personality and positive psychology experts which helps you to identify your particular make-up of 24 character strengths that fall under six broad virtue categories: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. Your top strengths will be those that you excel at – where your natural ability and confidence already produces results and where you’re most likely to be operating with a growth mindset, rather than being driven by fear.

–  Reflect on those times of your life when you felt like you were genuinely engaged and absorbed in an experience or activity and were in ‘flow’ (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s groundbreaking book ‘Flow: The Psychology of Happiness’ and his other related books describe what happens when we’re operating at peak performance and truly engaged in an experience). Think about what was going on in your thinking during those times – what was different? Were you feeling more confident and free? Did you have help and support? If you can pinpoint what helps you get into a state of ‘flow’ (where you’ll be operating from a growth mindset), you can also question whether you can replicate that in other areas of your life which you find more challenging.  This may require cultivating a new habit or making a change to your circumstances that you know was a key factor in helping you to achieve flow and feel engaged. Expanding your range of options and challenging your ‘normal’ way of doing things will open you up to growth and learning.

– Try to do something new every day – take time to experiment!  Most of us are living on auto-pilot – our alarm clock goes off and we get out of bed the same side and go straight into the same routine and there is often no space for change or transformation or anything new to come into our lives unless we disrupt those well-worn routines and patterns in some way.  Our brains form neural networks and whenever we regularly repeat or engage in the same routine or activity, our neurons are firing together and wiring these neural networks into well-formed grooves. If we want to break a habit or establish a new pattern, we need to rewire these neural networks and stop the old neurons firing together and wiring together (which keeps us in a fixed way of thinking) and weaken the pull of the old and familiar to create something new.

– Set growth mindset goals – to build our growth mindset muscle, we need to continuously practice a new pattern to form a new neural network in our brain and let go of the old, fearful ways.  Make a conscious decision to experiment and try and approach this with an attitude of curiosity and playfulness, rather than going for ‘absolutes’ – ie – it has to be like this or that and nothing in between. If we approach with more of an attitude of ‘what would it be like if I did this?’ or ‘how can I incorporate more of this activity into my day?’ and be curious or interested in feedback, rather than making it mean something about ourselves, then that will help let go of the old way of thinking and fixed mindset and open us up to growth and learning instead.

– Practice “not yet” –  next time you’re facing a challenge or find yourself in the middle of failure, listen out for what the voice inside your head is saying.  Is it telling you that you’re not good enough, and now everyone will know that you’re not as smart or capable as they once thought?  If yes, show yourself some self-compassion and acknowledge that you’re still learning and none of us ever stops learning – until we die!  Instead of “I can’t”, “I’m no good”, or “I failed” try reframing this to “not yet”.

– Try not to take others behaviour personally and learn to reinterpret criticism – rather than shutting down or not wanting to listen if someone points out areas where you could have done better or where there’s room for improvement – instead see this as a valuable opportunity to learn more about yourself and others.  Ask for some extra guidance or mentoring and value the opportunity to improve your understanding and performance. Instead of feeling envious of other people who are doing better than you, ask them for some tips and see if you can learn from them – use this to inspire you of what you yourself can achieve.

If you’d like help and support to review your own mindset (or your team or organisation’s mindset) and explore what’s working or not and what you’d like to change or have more of in your life, let’s have a chat of how MindFlame can support you, or your team in this area.  For more details, please see Coaching and Mentoring Services, Consultancy Services and Training and Development Services.

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