I was at a conference recently. The list of speakers was gilded and impressive, from Bob Iger to Jon Acuff. All were seasoned experts & very successful in their domain. Some of the speakers were professional-on-the-circuit types, with lots of showmanship and entertaining insights. All good stuff, if a little ra-ra.
Then Dr Heidi Grant spoke. She opened with a simple sentence…“Of everything you hear today, this is the single biggest thing you can do to propel your growth, leadership, and career. It’s called having a growth mindset. And the science proves it”.
She was the one who got my attention.
WINK: It’s Not That I’m Smart.
The fundamental shift successful people make to drive their lives, is moving away from proving they are good at what they do, to improving what they do. Someone once said, “It’s not that I’m smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer”.
Let’s dig into that.
WINK: Growth Mindset Vs Fixed Mindset
A fixed mindset is a mind that compares itself to others. We all do it, especially in corporations. We’re focused on proving our worth and what we know because that’s how we believe we get ahead and recognized. And when things don’t go well, we doubt our ability and swim in the cloudy pool of performance anxiety where we can’t see anything clearly.
We say to ourselves, “I’m just not the sort of person who can do this”, or “I can’t do that well” or worse, “I knew I wasn't capable of this”. Ouch!
A growth mindset takes exactly the same situation and turns it into something far more valuable. This mindset doesn't think about proving their ability, instead, it’s focused on improving their ability. They know that they have to develop skills, not demonstrate them.
Dr. Heidi’s research from Columbia Business School is crystal clear: when we operate with a growth mindset, we increase our enjoyment of ALL challenges put in front of us, we think deeper about the problem, act more creatively and become more gritty and resilient.
I have to admit, although I intellectually knew this all made sense, I was struck by how much the fixed side of me threw curve balls when things got rough.
So I spent two weeks after hearing Dr. Heidi speak, kicking that mindset into touch. I followed her three strategies to the letter.
I can hand-on-heart say that they worked like magic. Here they are;
JOLT: 3 Strategies To Create A Growth Mindset
NOTICE: It sounds obvious when I say this: the key to changing your mindset is to notice when you’re operating in the fixed zone. I remember just last night while working on a project, I was telling myself, “this is not working”. As I spoke those words, I saw Dr. Heidi raise her red flag (not literally, that would be weird). She told tell me to insert the word “Yet”.
“This is not working - yet”.
The first thing this does is lift a burden of tension from your shoulders. It reorients you to growth. One word. After I added the word “Yet”, I asked myself what I now needed to do to make it work. It was the first thing I tackled this morning.
LANGUAGE: I’ve often written about the power of words. We use them flippantly in everyday conversation, but they have a deep impact on our state of mind when we use them to describe ourselves.
Every day, we’re bombarded by comparables; someone promoted, a friend driving a really nice car, people who have dropped 90lbs in 2 months. A fixed mindset compares and says, “I want to drop 90lbs too!”, or “I want to be a VP as well!”.
What the growth mind does, is tweak those sentences with primers for growth…I want to grow, develop, become, progress…over time. For example;
“I want to drop 90bs” becomes, “I want to develop healthy habits to drop 90lbs”
“I want to be a VP” becomes, “I want to become a successful leader”.
It’s a small tweak to our inner story, but remarkably powerful. It creates habits, and as you all know, habits will change your life.
PROGRESS: in a world where we all feel judged by our last presentation, financial result, product launch, or social media post, we often fail to see how far we’ve actually come. We think in snapshots and soundbites, and judge ourselves through a very narrow lens. Dr. Heidi cautions us all against this.
Instead of thinking of our lives as a snapshot, she suggests asking three questions:
1. Where was I a year ago?
2. Where am I now?
3. Where do I want to be in a year from now?
From personal experience, when I launched my new venture, snapshot thinking could have gotten the better of me. But when I stepped back and looked at the transformation from one year ago to today, and then viewed it through the lens of what I’m capable of doing a year from now, I was in a very different place.
Closing Thoughts
As you motor through life, remember that a fixed mindset creates a fixed mindset. Habits work in both directions. Bad habits fuel bad outcomes. Good habits fuel good outcomes.
Instead, put growth front and center: celebrate improvements. Terrible to OK is good! Draw attention to your own mistakes, and share your past challenges with others.
When you do this, you help create a growth mindset in you, as well as the people you lead or love. It’s especially powerful with children.
I’ll leave you with a simple thing I do. Every time I hit a challenge, I say “Growth” to myself and take a beat. It helps me quickly re-frame my brain.
With love & growth,
The Jolt.