Let us take a moment to talk about how to cultivate a growth mindset in order to achieve lasting changes in your life and improve your overall well-being.
Regardless of your age, change is hard. But, for somebody over 40, it can feel like climbing a never-ending staircase. Every step requires more effort than the last, more patience than the last, and a whole lot of self-belief. But, the key to lasting and meaningful change isn’t found in willpower alone. Instead, it lies in how you choose to think about the challenges, setbacks, and successes.
A growth mindset, after all, is the belief that your abilities, intelligence, and talents can be developed over time and effort. It is the opposite of what has become known as a fixed mindset. With a fixed mindset, you assume that you’re stuck with what you have, your strengths, weaknesses, and potential are all predetermined. And, fixed mindsets are not your friend. Change happens all the time, so it’s important to get on board before you get left behind.
Cultivating a growth mindset isn’t just a buzzword. It is transformative. It opens the doors to all new opportunities in life. And, it helps you bounce back from failure, empowers you to reach your full potential, and helps you to shift your perspective on life.
Understanding the Science Behind a Growth Mindset
Before we start talking about the individual strategies to help you improve your growth mindset, let’s take a quick trip to Brain Science 101. After all, understanding the why behind the growth mindset makes adopting it that much easier.
Neuroplasticity: The Brain’s Superpower
Our brains are more adaptable than most people think. The term neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to recognize itself by forming new connections throughout your life. It is how we learn things when her kids, and how we learn new things as we get older. It is proof that you actually can teach an old dog new tricks.
This means that our brains are adaptable, so that we are not stuck with our current skills or knowledge, but can expand them over time. By consistently practicing, learning, and challenging ourselves, we are able to rewire our brains to be better, faster, and stronger.
Beliefs Influence Behavior
It’s important to remember that the way you think about yourself influences how you actually behave. If you have been told all of your life that you’re bad at math, then you are more likely to avoid situations where you might have to use numbers. Over time, this reinforces the belief in creating a fixed mindset.
The other side of the coin asserts that if you believe in the effort and practice that you put towards improving your math skills, then you are more likely to see a real improvement over time. This strengthens your belief in your ability to grow and creates a growth mindset.
Practical Strategies for Developing a Growth Mindset
Okay, so now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. How do you actually create a growth mindset?
Embracing Challenges
We all know that challenges can be quite uncomfortable, but there are also opportunities. Think of them as workouts for your brain. Challenges are hard in the moment, but worth it in the long run.
Reframe Obstacles
When you face any new challenges, instead of thinking how terrible they are, reframe those obstacles in a positive light. When you reframe your obstacles positively, you are promoting a growth mindset.
Focus on the Process
Remember, success isn’t just the outcome. You need to focus on the process itself because it is what you learn and achieve along the way that counts the most. It has been often stated that we never learn from our successes, we learn from our failures. And this can be true with any challenge. When we focus on the process, we can learn from our mistakes along the way.
Example
If you have ever tried to learn a new language, you have probably found it pretty difficult. Especially when you’re an adult, you may find it very difficult to even understand and re-create some of the sounds in that language. Don’t beat yourself up for not becoming fluent right away. Instead, celebrate each little wind you make along the way.
Learning from Failure
Nobody likes to fail in life, but failure is not an end. It is the beginning of growth. If we succeed in everything we do, then we will never go further than the people before us, and we will never learn anything new. But, if we fail from time to time, we learn from those failures, and those failures allow us to go further than anyone else has before.
Normalize Setbacks
Failure is a crucial part of any journey. And, you need to remind yourself of this all the time. Even some of the most successful people in life have faced rejection and mistakes from time to time. How many times did Edison fail at making the incandescent bulb?
Find the Lesson
And, with each failure you need to ask yourself what you can learn from the experience. Remember, every failure holds valuable insights if you are actually willing to look for them. You need to think about failure as a bad first draft. It is messy, but this is where the magic starts.
Cultivating Curiosity
Some say that curiosity killed the cat. But I say that a curious mind is a growing mind. The more that you explore and question the world around you, the more opportunities you create for your own personal development.
Expand Your Knowledge
Start by expanding your personal knowledge. Sign up for a workshop, pick up a book, or even watch a documentary about something you’ve always wondered about. Even if it has nothing to do with anything you are attempting to do in life at the moment, enjoy any experience that allows you to expand your knowledge.
Seek Mentorship
You can also try learning from others who walked in similar paths. Mentors can provide you with valuable insights and inspiration. They can show you the failures that they’ve had over the years, which will help you become a more successful you. You’ll still have failures of your own, but these will allow you to continue pushing forward.
Adopting Positive Self-Talk
Then we have our inner dialogues. This dialogue has a huge impact on your mindset. I like to call my inner dialogue a librarian. It’s responsible for storing all of my memories, and retrieving them whenever they are needed. If I were to constantly tell that inner dialogue that I can’t do something, it would start to believe, and store that information into my memory banks. And, it will form that belief like a muscle memory.
Catch Negative Thoughts
The moment you notice negative thoughts starting to pop up in your head, you need to challenge it. You may hear yourself asserting that you’ll never get it right, but you need to push back and say that you’re getting closer with each new attempt. Never let the negative thoughts become part of your mindset.
Practice Affirmations
This is why affirmations are so crucial. Remind yourself all the time that you are capable of growth. Consistently remind yourself that you are resilient. And, over time you can actually shift your perspective. This is because the way that you speak to yourself actually matters. Try to be kinder and more encouraging to yourself in the future.
Incorporating Mindset Work Into Daily Life
Unfortunately, shifting to a growth mindset isn’t a one-and-done deal. Like anything in life, it will take consistent effort. It requires you to follow a continuous improvement methodology in your daily routine.
Journaling Progress and Reflections
Start by writing things down. Journaling is very powerful as it allows you to track your growth, reflect on the challenges you face, and celebrate the winds along the way.
Daily Prompts
Every day, you should write about at least one thing that you learned, one challenge that you faced, and one step forward that you took. If you can’t think of any, then on the next day, you should try to put yourself into a situation that requires you to face a challenge, learn something new, or take another step forward.
Review Regularly
Take the time to look back on your entries to see how you come. By reviewing your journal regularly, it can help to motivate you. Remember, yesterday’s failures are today’s successes.
Celebrating Effort Over Outcomes
Granted, it’s easy to focus solely on results. But you need to remember that when it comes to a growth mindset, the effort itself deserves recognition too. Every little win along the way is like reaching a mini goal that helps you stay motivated and invigorated about the experience.
Reward the Process
If you are starting a new habit, then treat yourself for sticking with it. Or, if you’re trying something new outside of your comfort zone, regardless of whether you were successful or you feel better, treat yourself for at least making the attempt. Little tiny participation metals go a long way.
Share Your Wins
When possible, share your wins with friends or family members. Tell someone you know about your progress, because that will help to reinforce your growth mindset. It also feels great to let the world know that you succeeded at something.
Surrounding Yourself with Growth-Oriented Individuals
If you haven’t had the opportunity to read it, you should still pick up a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. The book talks about who you spend time with influences your mindset. And, if you want to build a growth mindset, then you need to surround yourself with growth-oriented individuals.
Find Supportive People
You always need to find supportive people in your life. Chances are, your own spouse may put you down from time to time when you come up with new ideas that you want to try. If that’s the case, then why not try joining groups or communities that encourage growth? Whether it’s fitness, learning, or professional development, there are groups and communities out there who can help support you in your endeavor.
Distance from Negativity
Try to minimize the time that you spend with people who bring you down. This may not always be easy, because sometimes the people who discourage our efforts are right in our own homes. Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that your environment will play a huge role in shaping your personal mindset. So, you need to control it wisely.
Conclusion
A growth mindset isn’t just another tool for helping you achieve your goals. Instead, it’s an entire way of life. I growth mindset will help you embrace change, bounce back from any number of possible setbacks, and discover all new possibilities. Best of all, it helps you do this every single day. But, to get there, start small, pick one strategy, and run with it. Over time, those small ships will begin to add up to very big changes in your life.
