Is It Better to Have a Growth or Fixed Mindset?

Having a fixed or growth mindset affects every single day of our lives. It determines whether you pursue a stretch assignment at work, ask your crush out on a date, or even try new foods when going out to eat. Having a growth mindset can provide a dazzling array of experiences to make your life richer while having a fixed mindset can be like living life in grey-scale.

Fixed vs Growth Mindset

Those with a fixed mindset believe their qualities are fixed traits and therefore cannot change. They document their intelligence and talents rather than working to develop and improve their skills. They also believe that talent alone leads to success.

Those with a growth mindset believe that their learning and intelligence can grow with experience and time. In the long run, people who have adopted a growth mindset can acquire any given ability provided they invest effort or practice.

The mindset preference can be seen in children as young as seven or eight years old. Carol S. Dweck is a leading researcher at Stanford University who studies this mindset psychological trait.

Dr. Dweck found that:

“The mastery-oriented (Growth mindset) children, when confronted with the difficult problems, did not begin to offer attributions for their failure. Indeed, they did not appear to think they were failing. Rather than viewing unsolved problems as failures that reflected on their ability, they appeared to view the unsolved problems as challenges to be mastered through effort.”– Carol S. Dweck

Think back to when you were in school. When you faced a tough math problem, how did you react? Was your automatic response “I am not good at math”, or was it “This is a tough problem, but I can solve it”? Your first reaction reveals where you fell on the spectrum.

On this spectrum, fixed vs growth mindset can even apply to individual skills.

For me, my fixed mindset fell on learning a foreign language. I got As in high-school Spanish, but fluency was out of the question. However, I have been practicing Spanish for two years consistently, and can proudly say que puedo hablar un poquito! It comes together slowly but it’s better to continue building this skill instead of letting a fixed mindset stall me forever in learning a second language.

The great news here is that we can change our mindset – but why would you want to change it?

The Benefits of a Growth Mindset

• Challenges are opportunities:  Viewing challenges as opportunities alleviates the frustration when faced with difficult tasks. It also makes the obstacles more fun. Obstacles are a problem to be solved, not roadblocks to stop all your progress.
• Less stress:  With a fixed mindset you need to constantly prove yourself. If an ability is set in stone, whatever you demonstrate is the limit of your ability. If you can’t run a five-minute mile the first time, you never will. That’s stressful and unforgiving. Even in failure, with a growth mindset, you are taking away information to improve for the next time. There is less stress in trying to be perfect 100% of the time; especially when you are still learning.
• It is easier to celebrate and learn from the success of others: Those with a growth mindset try to emulate what successful people have done before. Those with a fixed mindset see other’s success as a threat to themselves because talent is a limited-resource. This strains relationships and shrinks learning opportunities. Having a growth mindset also makes it easier to maintain relationships through the practice of gratitude.
• Relationships can improve:  Mindset also affects personal relationships. People with a fixed mindset believe compatibility with someone (romantic or otherwise) should come naturally. Those with a growth mindset believe lasting relationship comes from the effort of working through the inevitable differences.
• Find variety and new passions in life:  Those with a fixed mindset stick to what they know to keep their confidence high. Those with a growth mindset keep their confidence by expanding their comfort zone into the unfamiliar and make sure they are always learning. Because of this, they can find new passions they never would have ventured to otherwise discover – possibly even stumbling into a career they enjoy.

Where is a Growth Mindset Beneficial?

The growth mindset is all about your life’s outlook. A growth mindset prioritizes learning.

Trying and failing is part of the process. Skill-building is more important than natural talent, and life is all about being a life-long learner. The growth mindset can be applied to every area of life – in work, school, relationships, hobbies, healthy habit building, physical activity, sports, foreign languages, and many many others.

Instead of viewing themselves as fixed in place, people with a growth mindset know that everything in life is a skill that can be cultivated.

In building the skills you want, it is the journey that matters; not the destination. Stumbling and failing at first is great because it provides immediate feedback. With consistent effort, any skill can be mastered and applied to daily life.

How to cultivate a growth mindset

1. Find Joy in the Journey

The results are nice but studies show that judging success by the outcome leads to lower levels of life satisfaction, and can even hinder decision-making abilities for the future.

When engaging with the material, focus on the process involved getting to that goal. Pay particular attention to where improvements can be made.

The result will come naturally; might as well enjoy the process of getting there too.

2. View setbacks for what they are

“In the fixed mindset, setbacks label you,” explains Dweck. “You’re terrified of losing and performing badly, because to you, you are your performance. When you perform badly, you’re devastated, because you, by association, are now no longer valuable or special.”

When things go badly, do not view them as a reflection of yourself. See them as learning opportunities. All failure is temporary, and failure provides useful feedback that can be used to make improvements for the next attempt.

3. Give yourself time to shift your mindset

It is easy to mess up something and think, “I am not any good at this”, especially if a fixed mindset is your default mode.

It is not the first thought that counts but the second one. Counter the “I am not any good at this” thinking with something like, “that is my fixed mindset talking. I am not where I want to be right now, let’s see where I can improve” and then enjoy the slow (sometimes agonizingly slow) process of improving your skills.

Main Take-Aways:

• Mindset affects everyday life.
  • With a fixed mindset, everything is set in stone. You are defined by your success and failures.
  • With a growth mindset, everything is fluid and can change. With hard work and persistence, any skill can be learned and developed.
• Life is one big marathon. Having a growth mindset will make the race more enjoyable and will leave room for development in any area to happen along your way.

Action item

Pick an activity you’ve always wanted to learn to do and set 10 minutes each day to work on it this week. Focus on keeping your growth mindset throughout your time experimenting with this new hobby or skill.