When it comes to success, we have often been taught the value of IQ through test-taking and traditional education focus.
Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ.
Dweck focuses on two core attitudes: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
Fixed mindset – you believe you are who you are and cannot change. Often leaving you feeling hopeless and overwhelmed when faced with a challenge that is more than you believe you can handle.
Growth mindset – you believe you can improve with effort. With this attitude, most outperform because they embrace challenges and an opportunity to learn.
Many believe having an ability, like being smart, inspires confidence. It does, but only while the going is easy. The deciding factor in life is how you handle setbacks and challenges. People with a growth mindset embrace setbacks as learning opportunities.
According to Dweck, success in life is all about how you deal with failure. She describes the approach to failure of people with the growth mindset this way,
“Failure is information—we label it a failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, and I’m a problem solver, so I’ll try something else.'”
Thankfully, your mindset is something you can change and grow. Below are strategies that will help you do just that:
- Move beyond helpless. After a failure or being stuck, we can feel helpless. The key is how we react to that feeling. We can either learn from it and move forward or let it drag us down and stay stuck.
- Be passionate.What you lack in talent, you can make up for in passion – driving your unrelenting pursuit of excellence.
- Take action.This helps eliminate fear and anxiety which can be paralyzing and the best way to overcome them is to take action.
- Expect results. This keeps you motivated. If you don’t think you will succeed, you may become discourages or not even try.
- Be flexible.Embrace adversity as a means for improvement, as opposed to something that sets you back.
- Don’t complain when things don’t go your way.This can become a habit! A growth mindset looks for the opportunity.
What are some ways you encourage others (or yourself) to move from a fixed to a growth mindset?