The Growth Mindset

A growth mindset, as conceived by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and colleagues, is the belief that a person's capacities and talents can be improved over time. Basically if you believe you can learn or change your capabilities or talents you will. If you don’t believe you can grow then why can you learn a new game? Why can you remember new routes to locations you go to? Why can you with practice learn how to play an instrument? You simply need to believe in yourself and that you can change or learn anything you would like. You can pick up new good habits or put down old bad habits with time and work. For example my wife quit smoking when she became pregnant with our first child. She hasn’t touched a cigarette in over 20 years. She learned how to remove a bad habit. That proves that change is possible. People with a growth mindset are constantly striving to improve themselves and learn new things. They read books, listen to audiobooks, read magazines, and newspapers. They have a hunger for life and learning. They do not feel that they are stuck in a rut and cannot improve themselves. If this is the case how do you begin to change yourself to have a growth mindset. It’s simple, believe in yourself. Pick up a book or listen to an audiobook on motivation and start to live what you learn. Expand your mind to all the new things that are out there for you. It won’t happen overnight but with determination and discipline you will begin to grow in leaps and bounds. The benefits outweigh any negative belief you have. You’ll improve your life, your career, and your relationships when you start learning all you can about things like how to change your perceptions, how to improve yourself, and how to learn new skills for your job. It’s amazing what you can put your mind to when you believe in yourself. All successful people have this growth mindset in common and work hard to change who they are and what they know. The world is ever changing and new ideas and concepts are being developed all the time. The expanse of human knowledge is growing exponentially every day. You need to constantly improve and learn to keep up. So what have you got to lose?