What Is a Growth Mindset? 8 Steps to Develop One for Success

With everyone from the Washington Post to Khan Academy talking about how to have a growth mindset, it’s time for you to jump on board the growth mindset train. And why wouldn’t you want to? Flashy phrase aside, it’s one of the key ways to develop adaptable, growth-oriented employees who are geared to fight the good fight in the dynamic modern workplace.

But what is a growth mindset? And why is a growth mindset important to people? In this article, we’ll be covering those two queries in more detail, plus providing you with steps on how to develop a growth mindset and tips on cultivating it into a helpful tool in your employability toolbox.

To understand how to have a growth mindset, we need to start with the basics: what is a growth mindset? Since there are misinterpretations of the growth mindset definition, let’s head over to Dr. Carol Dweck.

Stanford University professor and the pioneer of Growth Mindset as a field of interest, Dweck defines having a growth mindset in HBR as believing that your “talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others).” This includes your skills and personality, too.

In short, having a growth mindset supports continuous growth and learning, and not just in terms of career growth, since the benefits of growth mindset can be carried over into personal growth too.

But how do people with a growth mindset view and respond to challenges? Let’s take a look at the following growth mindset examples to answer this question.

• Adaptability: Adaptability is being comfortable finding alternative ways to handle, not necessarily resolve, a problem, which is exactly what having a growth mindset is all about!
• Resilience: So you messed up at work today. Big whoop. Having a growth mindset can help you acknowledge the mistake, accept the criticism that comes with it, and learn from this event to minimize its likelihood of happening again.
• Continuous improvement: Continuous improvement is king among growth mindset examples, as the desire to continuously grow comes with the motivation to continuously improve and achieve more. 
• Higher achievement: Even when factoring in potential challenges, continuous improvement still leads to a desire for higher achievement. In fact, it’s actually getting out of your comfort zone to try new things and pursue career goals effectively that is a prime example of people with a growth mindset.
• Positive work environment: Positivity is contagious when abundant, which is why it is a byproduct of workplace environments that collectively have a growth mindset.
• Increased productivity: Instead of getting caught into the rabbit hole of jealousy and envy for others' successes, those with a growth mindset are capable of turning the focus back onto their own work and their own success. As a result, employees that learn how to have a growth mindset often have increased productivity.
• Leadership: If you’re worried about how to be a good leader, taking the steps to develop a growth mindset will be beneficial for you. This is because leadership requires adaptability, creativity, and the ability to give constructive feedback when needed.
• Long-term success: The self-motivation for continuous learning derived from having a growth mindset can help you achieve long-term success. This is true whether you’re looking for personal growth or career development in your personal and professional lives. 

Now that we’re familiar with the growth mindset definition, it’s time to dive deeper into Dweck’s research, which brings us to the fixed mindset. Yes, every hero has its archnemesis, and in this case, it’s a growth mindset vs fixed mindset.

It’s a well-known truth that mindset influences behavior. It also influences your learning process and responses to challenges.

If the growth mindset was the Buzz Lightyear of adaptability, the fixed mindset is the Emperor Zurg of stubbornness. People with a fixed mindset tend to believe that their skills, intelligence, and personality are innate or ‘fixed.’ A common example is the “Oh, I can’t do math, so I’m not smart” conundrum. 

As a result, people with fixed mindsets tend not to try new things because failure is viewed as an example of what that they cannot achieve and a limit to how far they can go. This tends to make those with fixed mindsets plateau early on in their career as they’re not able to view obstacles as exciting challenges instead of gigantic brick walls.

Now let’s flip it to a growth mindset. People with Buzz Lightyear mindsets believe that our ‘inherent abilities’ can be changed, improved, and enhanced. For them, it’s all about the effort being put into the process, not just the outcome. A byproduct of this belief is that failure isn’t viewed in the traditional sense, but rather as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Which makes the winner in the growth mindset vs fixed mindset debate obvious: growth mindset all the way. 

Let’s take a look at the benefits of growth mindset to truly understand how to answer ‘why is a growth mindset important’, as opposed to a fixed mindset.

Having a growth mindset has become a crucial skill that employers seek in their employees. For job candidates, this skill also greatly increases their chances of securing employment. That’s because it brings the following benefits:

• Team collaboration: Individuals who have taken the time to develop a growth mindset are more likely to appreciate working with and learning from colleagues, rather than making themselves look smarter than others. This fuels effective team collaboration as a result.
• Improved problem-solving: Having a growth mindset means that you’re more open to new ways of thinking, encouraging greater critical thinking skills to identify and solve problems.
• Increased motivation: Employees with a growth mindset often feel more committed to their work and, thus more motivated to set higher goals and perform well.
  
• Innovation and creativity: People with a growth mindset tend to be adaptive and open to new ideas and methods, meaning that they have more opportunities to foster innovation and creativity. 
• Organizational success: It’s not just individuals who can feel the benefits of growth mindset behaviors. Organizational success is a common consequence of growth mindset in the workplace, as a more creative, adaptive, and diligent environment tends to produce a higher-quality output.
• Sales and customer service: Having a growth mindset leads to diligence and adaptability, two very important skills to have in sales and customer service, thus benefiting employees and employers, in this field.
• Project manager: Project Management roles can bask in the benefits of growth mindset behavior with the creativity and diligence to work through and overcome challenges, leading to higher achievement in their projects. 
• Management roles: Research in The Washington Post suggests that organizations with fixed mindsets often lead to a suppression of individuals with growth mindsets. Likewise, if you’re a manager with a growth mindset, it is likely that this will trickle down to your employees, leading to greater communication, collaboration, and success under your command.
• Artists, designers, and other creative professionals: Creativity and flexibility are two of the most prominent skills required for professions within the arts, design, and creative industry, and they also happen to be benefits of growth mindset behavior.
• Entrepreneurs: The benefits of growth mindset behavior are vast for entrepreneurs, a few of which allow them to see problems from different angles, adapt to unexpected challenges, and come up with creative solutions.

While there is no one-size-fits-all formula to develop a growth mindset since it’s a personal journey, there are tips for how to have a growth mindset, such as

Embracing challenges

Finding yourself in a challenging situation is when you will experience the most productive steps toward developing a growth mindset. Therefore, even if it feels daunting, you should try to embrace challenges, knowing that it’s okay to make a mistake and that you’ll learn from it.

Persistence and effort

Just saying that you have a growth mindset is not enough. In other words, you need to do your homework…and stick with it, too. It can help to make notes of your progress, especially in areas that you may be struggling in.

Learning from failure

Those with a growth mindset learn to bounce back more effectively from failure because they never really view it as such. Instead, ‘failure’ is seen as a learning event, giving them the chance to adjust their methods and look for different ways to solve the problem. Train your brain to react this way in difficult situations to develop a growth mindset. 

Seeking feedback

Seeking constructive feedback is a great aid in replicating behavior that acknowledges the effort put into the process. Where approval is linked to validation, constructive feedback, such as “You did a good job presenting today; your explanations were really clear and easy to understand”, helps you know the specifics about your performance rather than just the result.

Changing negative self-talk

Negative self-talk is the champion of the fixed mindset. You can change that internal voice by acknowledging the challenge and still persevering. For example, just because you struggle in math doesn’t mean you can’t pursue an economics degree. Sure, there will be math involved, but you’re going to be given the resources to overcome those challenges.

Cultivating a love for learning

The focus of a growth mindset is on continuous learning, which means that you will need to cultivate a love for learning in order to grow and develop and to take you further and higher.

Role models and mentorship

Spending time with like-minded growth mindset people that you can look up to, and ask for feedback and guidance from, is a good way to encourage your own development of a growth mindset.

Consistency and patience

It takes consistency and patience to develop your growth mindset, and it’s not going to happen overnight. Practice reacting to situations with a growth mindset, like being nice to yourself with a positive and proactive inner voice, even when the task seems daunting.

Besides these tips to develop a growth mindset in the workplace, there are a whole host of resources online to help you cultivate and maintain a growth mindset. Here are a few growth mindset activities to kick you off:

• Listen to a podcast from the lady herself with Carol Dweck’s inspirational TED talk on “The power of believing you can improve”.
• Alternatively, read the book that started it all with Carol S. Dweck’s ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’. You can also get the gist of the book from Harvard Business Review’s 2014 review.
• Another book to consider is ‘The Mountain is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Mastery’, by Brianna Wiest. Linking to that negative inner voice with the fixed mindset, this book sets about making you aware of all the ways that you could be holding yourself back from basking in the benefits of a freer growth mindset. 
• Looking for growth mindset activities on how to have a growth mindset? ‘The Growth Mindset’ course on Coursera leads learners through the basics and uncovers the ‘roadblocks’ hindering growth mindset development. The course also features a deep dive into how a growth mindset can contribute to organization and efficiency. 
• Looking for growth mindset activities for children and educational purposes? Khan Academy has creative lesson plans for teachers aimed at children and high schoolers.

Key Takeaways

Having a growth mindset means that you know that your skills and behaviors are not etched in stone like a fixed mindset and that failure does not mean the end of the journey. Rather, ‘failure’ is merely a diversion that could lead to a plethora of creative potential, higher achievements, and a more positive workplace. But, like all good things, developing a growth mindset takes time and effort.

Looking for more ways to kickstart your career development? Cake is the best resource for employees and managers, offering hundreds of articles and guides to enhance your professional potential and make navigating the workplace a piece of cake!

— Originally written by Eva O’Mara —