Fostering a Growth Mindset

Depending on your background, you may or may not have heard of growth vs fixed mindset before. If you haven't, you may think it sounds a bit cliché, but I didn't make it up; so, don't blame me.

I first learned about this concept several years ago (yes, in my 30s!), and I realized that, like most things, it's not really a new concept; but it was certainly re-branded and popularized in the last ~10-12 years, particularly in corporate America.

The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset--the idea that my abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and skillsets are "hardwired" or "fixed" into me at birth; thus, I "am who I am." Or as it's more commonly stated, "That's just who I am."

Image source: https://kcparent.com/parenting/growth-mindset/

So, what is a growth mindset?

I recommend reading the opinion of Carol Dweck writing for Harvard Business Review. It's a good synopsis of growth mindsets and how the term can also be misused.

In my words, a growth mindset is believing that, regardless of how much (or little) experience or knowledge I have in an area, I can move towards a development goal if I choose to.

Let's list some skillsets, abilities, and strengths that people have: public speaking, organization, mathematics, writing, languages, science, engineering, music, painting, kickboxing, swimming, etc.

Now let's imagine that someone asks me if I am good at one of these skills.

What do I say?

I might say, "No, I'm not good at [skillset]."

But what if the person says, "Would you like to be good at [skillset]?"

Then what do I say?

Do I say, "Well, yeah, but I don't think I can be very good at [skillset]"?

I may have just unknowingly limited myself with a fixed mindset. I extrapolated my current perspective out into the future and mixed it with some of the negative things I've heard or thought about myself, and boom! I'm "fixed" or "stuck" and likely will not pursue development in that area. I have accepted that not being good at that is just the way it is.

But what if I say this instead?

"Well, yeah, I'm not trained/educated in that area yet, but I think I can learn it."

That's a growth mindset--assuming that I can learn it if I want/need to.

Key Characteristics of Growth Mindset

1) Be okay with making mistakes (humility).

Perhaps you've heard the saying that an expert is someone who has made all the mistakes, learned from them, and now knows how not to make them again. 

There's a lot of truth in that idea. 

Mistakes and failure will happen if you're trying new things. 

But if I'm terrified of being wrong or making a mistake, it will be nearly impossible for me to grow into a new field/area/department.

I can't just flip a switch and change how I feel about mistakes and failure!

True. Some people have very deep emotional reactions to this, and I'm not disregarding that. It's not easy for any of us, but I admit it's harder for some than others.

The reason to be humble enough to make mistakes is so that you can benefit from the rewards of progress and growth. I'm not proposing that you to do something hard for nothing. 

2) Accept and appreciate feedback.

Even if you didn't make a mistake or do something "wrong," there's still a possibility that you could have done it better than what you did. Be willing to accept that too. 

But you might say, "The person giving me the feedback is/isn't _________ [fill in the blank], so I don't think the feedback is meaningful or true."

Maybe. 

Here's the thing: Just because you can identify 20%, or 50%, or even 80% of what the person said as being untrue, biased, or just plain dumb (irrelevant), that does not mean there is no truth in the feedback. 

Even in the garbage heap that is sometimes career/job feedback, there can be nuggets of gold for you to mine out and use. So, take a closer look.

Feedback from others is the only way you can truly know how you are perceived by the world (people) around you. It's incredibly valuable to show you your blind spots, and we ALL have those!

3) Try new things (that interest you).

The rubber on the tire must contact the road, or there will be no forward motion! I can have a great set of tires, but if they are suspended in mid-air, the engine and transmission become meaningless.

Similarly, if I have a textbook growth mindset in place but never try something new, it won't do me much good, will it?

In my career, I have changed lanes several times; and each time brought some anxiety, stress, and struggle, but it also brought reward, growth, and satisfaction.

One example of this is when I transitioned from basic medical (lab) research into cGMP manufacturing in 2014. cGMP was all incredibly new to me. I had to Google terms in the job description because I had never heard them before! But I was given the opportunity to learn, and I took it. That particular transition changed the course of my career for the better.

4) Don't allow failure or criticism to stop you.

Failure hurts. I know. 

And so does criticism. 

It's easy and natural to avoid that kind of pain again; and the simplest way to do that is to quit and never return to that thing that caused the pain.

Let's take each of these separately:

• Self-criticism can be the hardest to overcome because that voice is always there. 

To illustrate, let me share some lyrics with you from The Search, by NF.

Just think about it for a second, if you look at your face
Every day when you get up and think you'll never be great
You'll never be great, not because you're not, but the hate
Will always find a way to cut you up and murder your faith

Overcoming self-criticism is manageable under normal circumstances; but if a person struggle with emotional or cognitive disorders, this may require professional intervention.

• Criticism (external) can also be tough to swallow, especially if it comes from someone that we love, respect, or admire.

Whether the person criticizing me is doing it to help me or not (regardless of their intentions), my responsibility is to control my response to it. In other words, I cannot control what other people say, but I can control my reaction to it.

Undoubtedly there will be people who will come to this website or my social media pages and tell me I'm an idiot, or worse, call me "typical" (is 3 star review worse than 1?).

Learn from the criticism (refer back to #2 - Accept & Appreciate Feedback) as much as you can. If it's truly useless criticism, then truly disregard it.

• Failure is rarely complete failure. It's usually a portion of the effort that got dropped or messed up. But in either case, it's always an opportunity to reflect and learn.

My employers have sometimes required me to reflect on mistakes and failures and come up with written plans for reducing the likelihood of that same thing happening again. In the manufacturing world, these are called Corrective Actions & Preventative Actions (CAPAs). These are usually captured in a company's Quality Management System (QMS). If you have this or something similar in place in your line of work, then you're already doing this by necessity.

But if your job does not require this, you may need to do it yourself.

Outro 

I hope I've convinced you that a growth mindset is critical to our success and wellbeing whether someone works at a company, is a business owner, leads a non-profit, crushes the stay-at-home parent role, or is a high school student that doesn't know what to do after graduation.

It has helped me personally, and it has given me a new perspective to help my children achieve their goals (see this article). 

If you enjoyed this article, please share it with someone you know.

If you want to discuss more about a growth mindset with me, let's connect online (see 'Connect' section on left sidebar).