What's your MIndset: Fixed or Growth?
Do you know if you have a fixed or growth mindset? It's pretty easy to find out if you have either of this mindset. The way you react to this statement will show which mindset you have: “
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Feedback is criticism vs feedback is an opportunity for me to learn about where I can improve.”
Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset
If you believe feedback is a personal attack on your person, then you have a fixed mindset and it could hold you back from realizing your dreams.
Feedback is critical to your improvement. It’s like a mirror that points out your blind spots to you as a driver. Feedback helps to correct your mistakes.
If on the other hand, your idea of feedback is that it is an opportunity for you to learn about where you can improve and has little or nothing to do with your personality, you have a growth mindset.
Carol Dweck of Stanford University who came up with the concept has this to say of Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset:
“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence.”
What are the implications of a fixed mindset for our business?
The reality is that our talents and intelligence are not dormant but constantly evolving as we engage them. The more we use them, the better they get. A person with a fixed mindset will fail to use any of their abilities and pretend to know it all. Such a person will not be interested in the day to day process of learning but will be quick to look for results. Most people who have left Wealthy Affiliate in a huff belong to this mindset. They needed to see results even before doing the work. That is their way of validation.
A person with a fixed mindset does not want to get out of their comfort zone and so finds it difficult to try new things and take risks. Taking risks is an essential part of success. Affiliate marketing expects you to get outside your comfort zone and try new things you may not be familiar with. My Pastor in one of his sermons, reframed risk-taking and described it as” taking acts of faith” and that resonated well with me. So when I take a risk, I am taking an act of faith! So cool.
Because of their insatiable need for recognition, persons with a fixed mindset do not take it easily when the limelight is not shone on them. There is the constant tug to give recognition even when it is not earned. That can be exhausting.
How to go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset
The good thing is that one can go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset in online marketing writing, running, losing weight and any other field of human endeavor. The first thing to do is take your eyes off the results. Forget what the fake online gurus have told you about making easy money in Internet Marketing. It is just not true.
Do not walk into the Wealthy Affiliate portal with the mindset of making $300,000 in your first month of training or getting listed on the New York Best Sellers List after writing a couple of blogs. It’s like a man who trained for one week and is hoping to beat Usain Bolt to a poor second in a 100 meter dash!.He will be setting himself up for failure.
Instead of getting wide-eyed with results, get comfortable with the process. There are five levels to the Online Entrepreneur Certification. Go level by level with no level skipped. At the successful completion of each level, announce it in one of your WA blogs and celebrate it. The same thing with any earnings you may have made along the way. No matter how small it is.
There is something inexplicable about being grateful for small things that opens doors for bigger ones. When you are genuinely grateful for little trickles of income, they soon balloon into streams of earnings.
If you don’t start by thinking of results but get focused on the process, show grit and determination to succeed and are prepared to stay on for the long haul, results and self-confidence will come your way. Your thorough knowledge and implementation of the process will bring about both internal and external validation and remove fixed mindedness.
Recent Comments
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Wonderful blog Dada! Enjoyed reading it. I definitely have a growth mindset. I like to challenge my every mood, try to new things and even though it maybe uncomfortable at first, I have learned to come out of my comfort zone and try to master all my negatives and setbacks thereby promoting growth
Thanks for your great comment, Simone. New things make one uncomfortable but if you persist and refuse to give up, the discomfort disappears.
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Dada, love it. Excellent motivational blog. I'm saving this one.
Bux
That's very kind of you, Davebux. I so much appreciate that you are saving it up for future read!