When I was a kid in school you were either in the A class or the B class, which to us meant either the smart class or the dumb class and there was not much you could do to move up once you had been categorised. If you were deemed a smart kid it was considered cool not to have to try too hard to achieve good results, because if you could get by with little effort you must be really smart. The thing is that if you grow up with that attitude it is inevitable that you hit a point at which you struggle to handle the next challenge in your professional or personal life. IQ as a fixed measurement does not build mental toughness, or creative thinking. Failure becomes a judgement of your whole being.
If we hit mid-life and have achieved a certain level of success it is easy to believe that this is because we are smart or have certain talents so that when things get hard we think perhaps this is the natural order of things and we are destined not to climb any higher. We succumb to the thoughts such as “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough”. This usually goes hand in hand with the tendency to judge people by the outcomes they achieve rather than the efforts they put in. We dread being found out as an imposter, and don’t like to admit to mistakes because they show us to be not as good / smart / talented as we hoped and we don’t believe that there is anything we can do about that. This can also lead to an increased fear of failure around new roles and opportunities because of the chance that we will be discovered.
This attitude is known as a “fixed mindset” in the research of Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, who has found that the belief in your ability to improve your abilities is more important than your belief in the abilities themselves.
Dweck identifies the alternative as a “growth mindset”. Educators have been talking about a growth mindset for some time now, since Dweck published her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success in 2006, and my teenage kids are sick of hearing about it, but in my corporate life I feel that too many of us are either not aware of the concept or have not fully grasped its consequences.
"By changing the definition, success and impact of failure, you change the deepest meaning of effort." Carol Dweck
With a growth mindset we believe we can continue to improve all of our talents, creative abilities and intelligence with effort, and we also see that possibility in others, which fundamentally changes how we lead and interact with those with whom we work. It enables us to see beyond our current situation and our present limitations, and challenges us to find new ways to reach our goals. Failure now becomes a way to learn and grow.
This understanding of growth is supported by the developments in neuroscience which are showing the plasticity which exists in our brains right through our lives rather than just in the early years as previously thought. Learning something new at any age will charge up synapses and connect neurons, which have previously lain dormant.
Now most of us will adopt different mind-sets in different areas of our lives depending upon previous experiences but what can you do if you think this is you and you are stuck in a fixed mindset?
Dweck proposes four steps to shift from a fixed to growth mindset:
Step 1: Learn to hear your fixed mindset voice
When you find yourself telling yourself you are not smart enough to apply for that new, or when you react to criticism by either getting defensive and snapping back, or by curling up in a ball and accepting that this is proof you are no good.
Step 2: Recognise you have a choice
Once you have identified that fixed mindset voice you have a choice how you react to it. You can choose to see challenges and criticism as an opportunity to ramp up your efforts and revise your strategies for moving forward.
Step 3: Talk back to yourself using a growth mindset voice
Tell yourself that if you are committed and want to learn you can find the way. New skills take time to develop but if you are prepared to practice and work hard you will make progress, and being open to feedback, both positive and negative, will allow you to grow.
Step 4: Take the growth mindset action
Thoughts do not help without action so be prepared to act on the growth mindset voice and embrace the new challenge wholeheartedly. Nothing happens without a first step, and the more you act on your growth mindset voice the more you will listen to it automatically. Then if you hit another set-back you will be prepared to keep trying.
Once you shift your attitude to being one of a growth mindset you open yourself up to far more opportunities, as you remain sensitive to both positive and negative feedback but see them as ways to learn and grow. A setback no longer means that you are a failure or that you lack ability, it means you need to find another way to progress.
Often a setback may signify that you have reached a stage where you need to dig deeper and consider how important a particular goal is, or how best to draw on your strengths to reach that goal in new way. In my coaching work this is an area I will spend a lot of time with clients as they explore their values, prioritise their goals and assess their strengths so as to determine their way forward, but it all starts with a growth mindset.
If you would like support in re-assessing your strengths and how to make the changes you seek in your life please contact me at [email protected]
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