A Growth Mindset vs. A Fixed Mindset, How To Change It.
In this article, you're going to learn how to tell if you have a growth or a fixed mindset, and you're going to learn how to develop a growth mindset regarding mental health. You'll also learn how having a growth mindset can completely change how you feel about your mental health.
Why Is Boredom Such A Difficult Experience For People?
It's because we all have an innate drive for growth and knowledge through new experiences. When we make our lives about growth, almost any difficulty can benefit us. But so often, we get stuck in our growth because we develop a fixed mindset. "In a growth mindset, people believe their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work.
Brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment." The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, a belief that you were either born talented or you were born defective, that your skills are due more to luck or chance than effort. So with a fixed mindset, you may say things like "Oh, I'm just bad at math" or "I'm depressed and there's nothing I can do about it." Or if you see an amazing artist, you say "She's so talented." Now, for an artist to make beautiful art, they have to spend hundreds of hours sketching and practicing. Art is not just a talent, right? With a fixed mindset, feedback is seen as a personal attack, and you often fall into all-or-nothing thinking, right? You think "Oh, I can either do it, like math or art, or I can't." Um with a fixed mindset, you often care a lot about appearances, right? "I need to look smart, or I need to look like I've got it all put together," you know.
You're not going to raise your hand in class and ask a question, because that could help you learn, but it's too embarrassing because you need to look a certain way with a fixed mindset. And with a fixed mindset with mental health, you know, a lot of the things I hear are things like "I'm never going to get better. I just have to cope. I just want to feel better," right? When it comes to mental health, having a growth mindset is essential.
Now, because of so much bad pop psychology out there and some misunderstandings of the research, people often believe that if they experience anxiety or depression it is 100% biological, that it is a brain chemistry defect or some innate problem with them, with their identity, and that there's nothing they can do to change themselves. But the truth is most people feel stuck because they just don't know how many options they have, or how many skills they can develop to improve their mental health. Most people have never received any formal education about how to process emotions or how to improve their mental health. I really believe there are about 500 skills to try or resources to use when it comes to treating depression and anxiety, and you shouldn't say change is hopeless unless you've tried a good number of them.
Now, just to be clear, depression anxiety, and other mental health conditions do have biological contributing factors, right? Your biology influences your mental health. But it only influences it to a degree and there's a whole lot of other things you can do that can also influence your mental health. If you think about problems as an opportunity to learn, it gives you the flexibility to develop new skills to solve old problems. A growth mindset can change the nature of all difficulties. So instead of painful emotions being negative, they're seen as an opportunity for growth.
Understanding Growth Mindset And Fixed Mindset.
So a growth mindset says "What can I learn from this? A growth mindset says "What resources can I reach out to?" It says "If I put in effort, I can get better at this." So instead of just saying "Oh, I'm bad at math. I'm a not-talented artist," whatever like that, right, you say "Oh, I haven't learned that math skill yet. I haven't learned that art skill yet." And you say "If I put in effort, if I ask the right people and get the right skills, I can get better at this. With the growth mindset, feedback is seen as an opportunity to grow. With a growth mindset, "You say, "Oh, I can show my emotions because learning is more important to me than looking good." Uh with a growth mindset, you say "Oh, I haven't learned how to do that yet." You just say "Not yet." I'm not there yet, but I'll keep trying." Now sometimes I experience huge, intense, overwhelming emotions, but when I take a step back from the situation and say "Well, what can I learn from this?" suddenly everything changes. As you work to develop a growth mindset in your life, every single problem, every painful emotion, or difficulty that comes up can become a learning opportunity. This is a chance to learn a new skill, an opportunity to try to see things differently or to change your perspective. When you see difficulties and imperfections as an opportunity to grow, suddenly how you feel about problems changes, and how you feel about painful emotions changes. So if you feel anxiety and you say "Oh, this is so terrible. Why am I such an anxious person? This will never go away." Thinking that way is going to leave you feeling stuck, and it shuts down any options to improve. Now if on the other hand, you feel anxiety about a situation, you say "Well, this is not fun. This is uncomfortable. What can I learn from this? I wonder if there's a skill I can develop that will help with this? I I can learn new things," then your experience changes. Maybe the anxiety doesn't go away but you see it as an opportunity to learn something new about yourself. Or maybe you see your anxiety as a chance to gain more empathy for others who also experience anxiety. Looking at emotions with a growth mindset also says "Is there something I can learn that may change this for me? So you may ask "Hmm, maybe maybe I can try to learn the skill of biofeedback or sleep hygiene, or maybe I can talk with a doctor about my medical options.
Growth Mindset
So a growth mindset leaves you open to improve and progress instead of stagnating and wallowing. You can develop a growth mindset. This is a skill that you can learn. And here's a few ways to do this, right? Instead of believing that your emotions are either good or bad or that you are either a good or a bad person, just consider yourself as a work in progress. These emotions and these experiences are an opportunity to learn and grow and, you know, little skills practice daily add up to big improvements over time. So instead of waiting for your circumstances to change or wishing your depression or your anxiety would go away, you can actively seek to create a fulfilling life through growth. If you believe that you or the way you feel is unchangeable, that belief will undermine your ability to succeed in this course. Your brain has an incredible capacity to learn and grow throughout its lifetime. It's called neuroplasticity. So, kids who play the violin for a year, have the music section of their brain physically expand. People who meditate get thicker wiring in the emotion regulation part of their brains. We all have an immense ability to learn and grow, but if you believe that it's just luck or talent, then you won't be able to get much out of things. And see if you have more of a growth or a fixed mindset. Here are a few things you can do to develop a growth mindset: embrace imperfections. Don't hide them. See them as an opportunity to grow. Focus on progress, not perfection. Replace the word "failure" with "not yet," as in "I haven't figured out how to be a good listener yet." Try different learning opportunities.
Fixed Mindset
A fixed mindset says "Well, I tried it once, so it's never going to work," and the growth mindset says "Well, I tried it once. That didn't work. Let's try something else." Okay. Also, focus more on your values, and the kind of person you want to be, rather than on approval from others. Get good at asking for and receiving feedback, and give yourself credit for the effort you put in, not just the outcome. And this applies to kids too. So if you have kids and you're thinking about them, there are some really important ways to apply a growth mindset to how you help your kids with their challenges. So instead of just trying to make emotions go away or considering yourself a failure, just identify the challenge and see what you can learn from it. When you see an emotion with a growth mindset, you can transform your whole experience into one of growth and positivity.
