A Growth Mindset Can Help You Reach Your Goals

No one is born able to walk

I can clearly remember sitting at my desk on the first day of third grade with my very 90s red dress and two pigtails thinking, “Third grade is too hard! I can’t do it!”

According to my mom, I said that same thing on every first day of school starting in kindergarten. Who thinks kindergarten is too hard? This 5-year-old, that’s who. And even as a lawyer, I find myself thinking sometimes, “Can I do it? Is it too hard?” It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve successfully done it before.

I didn’t know it then, but that was my fixed mindset talking.

In an effort to achieve my goals, I’m working on throwing out that old fixed mindset and adopting a fresh new perspective — a growth mindset. Read on to find out why a growth mindset is key to achieving your goals and three things you can start doing right now to adopt a growth mindset.

What are growth and fixed mindsets?

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck first introduced the concept of fixed and growth mindsets in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Someone with a fixed mindset believes their identity is concrete. They are who they are and not much can change them.

They believe they’re born with an intrinsic amount of smarts or talent that doesn’t change. They are more likely to think their success is because of how smart they are rather than due to their effort.

On the flip side, when they don’t succeed they are more likely to think that there is nothing that can be done to improve and are more likely to give up.

Someone with a growth mindset believes that identity isn’t a fixed construct. That a person can change, grow, and better themselves.

They believe despite their initial talents, interests, or temperaments, anyone can change and grow with effort and experience. Because of this belief, when they fail, they are more likely to learn from their mistakes and try again.

People with a growth mindset are more likely to achieve more because they believe whatever they don’t know or can’t do can be learned.

“In one world, effort is a bad thing. It, like failure, means you’re not smart or talented. If you were, you wouldn’t need effort. In the other world, effort is what makes you smart or talented.”

Carol Dweck

How do growth and fixed mindsets affect our behavior?

Other than making us doubt our abilities in third grade, what’s the big deal about having a fixed mindset? According to Dr. Dweck’s study and numerous others, a fixed mindset can affect not just our behavior but even the physiology of our brain.

Dr. Dweck’s study found that students with a growth mindset increased their grades over time while students with a fixed mindset did not. The only difference between the two groups of students was their differing perspectives on intelligence.

Children who understood their abilities could grow with hard work were more likely to succeed — more likely to overcome failure, accept a challenge, and embrace failure.

But children with a fixed mindset were more likely to cheat on a test after doing poorly, to run from difficulty, and were afraid of trying new things for fear of failure.

Fixed mindset children lose interest or withdraw when hit with a setback (sometimes mistaken for lack of motivation) while growth mindset children will find a way around the setback.

“The moment we believe that success is determined by an ingrained level of ability, we will be brittle in the face of adversity.” Josh Waitzkin

A growth mindset even changes how our brain is wired. In her Ted Talk, Dr. Dweck explains that every time we step outside our comfort zone to learn something hard and we stick to it, the neurons in our brain can form new, stronger connections which over time can make us smarter.

And brain scans show that in people with a fixed mindset the brain is most active when receiving information about a grade or result. But in people with a growth mindset, the brain is most active when receiving information about what they could do better next time.

Simply put, people with a fixed mindset worry most about how they’re judged while those with a growth mindset focus most on learning.

If we want to fulfill our potential, we have to realize that we aren’t chained to our current capabilities. Our brains are amazing. Neuroscience shows us that the brain changes and becomes more capable when we work hard to improve ourselves.

How to adopt a growth mindset

While the concept of a growth mindset was first introduced in the context of children, mindset affects all of us. So here are three habits we can adopt to help build a growth mindset in ourselves.

1. Get in tune with your fixed mindset voice

Just like most people have both introvert and extrovert traits and aren’t all one thing, most of us aren’t going to have only a growth mindset or only a fixed mindset. We will be on a spectrum and have a bit of each.

Listen to your fixed mindset voice

The first step to getting in tune with your fixed mindset voice is to listen to it. Recognize it. Become aware of when your fixed mindset voice comes out and what it’s saying. What we say to ourselves and about ourselves matters.

To get in tune with your fixed mindset voice, pay attention to the things you say about yourself particularly when talking to other people. Do you say things like “I can’t do that” or “I’m not good at that”?

Be careful. You can talk your identity into existence.

When you speak out loud about who you are and claim your identity know that your subconscious is listening and is making choices consistent with that identity. Shoutout to George J. Ziogas for explaining it so well.

Teach your fixed mindset voice the power of “yet”

Dr. Dweck’s work talks about adding the word “yet” to your vocabulary. Recognize that if you can’t do something or don’t know something today you can always learn it and become better at it tomorrow. So instead of saying “I don’t know how to do that,” say, “I don’t know how to do that yet.”

It may seem like a small thing but how we talk to ourselves matters. When you say to yourself or others that you don’t know something or can’t do something then your subconscious may work to affirm your belief by behaving in ways that are consistent with your belief.

“They are able who think they are able.” Virgil

Take those beliefs you have about yourself (for example, I’m disorganized) and turn it into an empowering statement (for example, I’m not organized yet but I’m working on it).

2. Redefine failure

So much of what we think — which ultimately affects how we feel and behave — comes down to what we choose to think. So choose to redefine what failure means to you and view your defeat not as a failure but as a learning opportunity.

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. This time more intelligently.” Henry Ford

The founder of Spanx, Sara Blakely, a self-made billionaire, shared how her dad taught her to think of failure.

She says that her dad used to ask her and her brothers to share their failures while sitting around the dinner table. Instead of being disappointed, he would celebrate their effort.

“What it did was reframe my definition of failure. Failure for me became not trying, versus the outcome.” Sara Blakely

Those with a growth mindset don’t fail to act out of fear of failure like so many of us, myself included. They simply acknowledge the defeats, reflect on the lessons, and work to do better next time.

Failure does not mean losing, not getting it right, or being rejected. Just ask Michael Jordan who didn’t make his high school varsity basketball team on his first try, or J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, who was rejected by 12 publishers. Failure means giving up altogether instead of growing from your mistakes.

3. Practice growing through small changes

Having a growth mindset is nothing more than a habit that takes consistent practice. Find ways to practice having a growth mindset.

Find something small you want to improve on and work on that — like keeping your house clean, drinking more water, or writing for ten minutes every day.

Once you start gaining wins you’ll begin to trust that you can grow and improve. The more you succeed at even the smallest challenges, the more likely it is you will believe you can do more.

The goal is to build up the belief that you are a person who can grow and change and will act in a way consistent with that belief.

If I could go back and tell my third grade self one thing it would be to know that I can do absolutely anything I want as long as I put in the work. Also, lose the pigtails.