A Growth Mindset is such a valuable asset to have in this fast changing and challenging world. We all start out life with a growth mindset. Otherwise, we would never have got off our backsides and would still be crawling around on the floor. As young rug rats, we were determined, even if it meant knocking off all your parent's precious china off the side table, to stand up and eventually we succeeded. Some earlier than others.
However, somewhere between our early years and adulthood, that growth mindset evaporates in some, for a multitude of reasons. Interestingly research has shown that adversity in our early lives can give us that determination and growth mindset in later life.
One of the workshops I run every year is always exciting when we get onto the subject of Mindset. The audience is post school, undergraduate and post graduate. This whole topic of Fixed over Growth is hotly challenged by them every time. My observation is that they have been significantly blinkered by the strict rigid and slightly Victorian ways of school life.
For some, they are already fixed in their minds on how intelligent they are and they are not prepared to change their views. It is sombre. At least what we do is open their eyes to the real word and show them how the growth mindset is the winning strategy.
Take time to reflect and listen to yourself speaking. Are you all cynical and negative or upbeat and positive?
People like being with and working with positive people. Why? Because they have a growth mindset?
We must realize that the path to becoming an expert at something requires dedicated, incremental growth and is key to understanding the power of having a growth mindset. This requires you to focus on what your goal is, practice at it incessantly, seek out feedback on how you’re doing, formulate a plan to get to the next level, and repeat over, and over, and over again. The reality is that we only become experts at what we dedicate ourselves to over long periods of time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-olsen/why-mastering-a-growth-mi_b_11634694.html