The Right Mindset for Success

What sets those who accomplish great things apart from those who fail to realize their ambitions? You might guess intelligence, appetite for risk, or even creativity. In actuality, the best predictor of success is your mindset. Those who achieve great things generally believe they can improve and grow as people. This is called a “growth mindset.” Those who are frustrated in their attempts to realize their dreams tend to believe their abilities and talents are static, otherwise known as a “fixed mindset.”

Challenge of the week:

Pay attention to your thoughts this week and try the five following strategies to change how you think about success:

1. Think of your mindset as a voice – How does a mindset manifest itself? It controls the ways you talk to yourself in the privacy of your own head. Recognizing this fact is the first step to achieving a growth mindset. As you approach a challenge, that voice might say to you, “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent” or “What if you fail? You’ll be a failure.”  As you hit a setback, the voice might say, “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.” 

Pay attention to your thoughts and see if you frequently tell yourself anything similar. If so, you’ve spotted the fixed mindset at work, undermining your potential for success.

2. Choose growth – Recognize that you aren’t stuck with the thoughts you currently have. How you interpret challenges, setbacks and criticism is your choice. You can interpret them in a fixed mindset as signs that your fixed talents or abilities are lacking. Or you can interpret them in a growth mindset as signs that you need to ramp up your strategies and effort, stretch yourself, and expand your abilities. 

3. Talk back – When it comes to that limiting voice in your head, feel free to be as sassy as you would like in response. Tell that voice exactly what’s wrong with how it’s framing situations, and actively reformulate your approach to challenges and setbacks to reflect a belief in personal growth.

• The fixed mindset says, “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.”
• The growth mindset answers, “I’m not sure I can do it now, but I think I can learn to do this with time and effort.
• Fixed mindset: “What if you fail? You’ll be a failure.”
• Growth mindset: “Most successful people had failures along the way.”

4. Act – Changing the script in your head is a huge step, but the whole point of doing so is to change not just your thoughts, but your actions as well. Don’t content yourself with a remodeled inner voice. Get out there and practice what you’re preaching to yourself.

5. Add this three letter word – Want to boost your motivation? Use the word “yet.” So if you are telling yourself, “I’m not a director—yet;” or “I can’t do this—yet” – it puts your fixed mindset statement into a growth mindset context of learning over time.