Embracing a Growth Mindset
Introduction
People with a growth mindset believe they can change their story, change their lives, and do, have, and be exactly what they wish. They are willing to improve their skills and knowledge in order to gain new abilities or increase their intelligence. They believe their basic qualities are things they can cultivate through their efforts. They understand that their view of themselves determines every decision that they take in their lives.
My Brief Life History
My dreams and aspirations are valid. In me is the passionate effort and desire to learn something every day and to help someone learn something from me that will improve or ultimately change their lives. When someone says to me teacher, you taught me how to manage patients better, your teaching style makes learning enjoyable and informative, I am filled with joy knowing with contribution to the society was fruitful.
In my young life, I possessed a relentless spirit and a fervent desire to learn and grow despite the many challenges that surrounded me. Born into a humble family with meager resources, my determination still burned bright like a beacon of hope in the dim corridors of adversity.
My days were filled with different chores including helping my parents to tend to our farm, caring for my younger siblings being the firstborn and taking care of the few goats my father had. Yet, amidst this hustling life, I had a boundless curiosity and unwavering faith in my ability to one day, just one day be a leader in my community and contribute in making someone smile from my help. I believed I had the capacity to succeed in anything I put my energies to with perseverance and hard work.
Being brought up in such a true rural village, meant it was tricky to find a mentor and someone who would guide me in terms of professional careers. The only professional individual that people aspired to be like, was a public health technician commonly referred to as ‘healthy’. Other emulated persons were those who had a pickup car, a village shop or had a son who lived in whichever town. Deep in me was a desire to be among those recognized in the village and so I worked hard to actualize this dream, ha-ha! Of being recognized in the village.
Embracing a Growth Mindset
Since the available ways to improve yourself was to do manual jobs and specifically working in the farms, I devoted myself to being one of the best and fastest in finishing to till a predetermined size of land that usually measured 20 meters by 20 meters for $4 then. With this I was rich enough to long for Sunday and buy some clothes and a second hand shoes.
All along during my primary education, I demonstrated abilities of a leader both in church and in school. My mind was occasionally ignited to dream of a happy life in the film industry especially due to going through the old newspapers that had adverts under the ‘Nation Classified’.
While my environment failed to nurture my growth the way I would have loved to, my faith in God, I believe played a key role in shaping my dreams. I got leadership positions , in primary school and in high school. Miraculously I got admitted in a medical College to study medicine and there too got the opportunity to serve as Christian Union Chairman.
These and many other opportunities in my life proved that in me there was real capacity to great and just a slight ignition was required to unlock my full potential.
I purposed to believe in my ability to venture into anything I put my mind into without being limited by my history or current situation.
Today my positive mindset helps me venture into multiple industries through the skills I learn every day.
Today my story is different from the village boy who had very average aspirations. I am professional leader working to get my position in the global space. I wake up early every day to improve my skills and knowledge to gain new abilities and cultivate my qualities through my efforts. This is do because I know how I view myself determines everything.
A growth mindset imply refers to that belief that a person’s abilities and intelligence can be developed or improved over time. This can be achieved through effort, learning and dedication. It’s about the attitude one has in addressing challenges, processing failures or setbacks and how they adopt a culture of learning from any feedback.
A growth mindset believe that intelligence can be developed and this leads to a desire to learn new things. With commitment to learn every day and determination to succeed in life, one is ready to face challenges without the option of giving up. Individuals with such a mindset make room for persistence in the face of setbacks as they believe their efforts will lead to the mastery of their success. This also means when faced with criticism, they use it as an opportunity to learn what to adjust in a positive way. Another notable trait of people with a growth mindset is that they draw lessons and inspirations from others who are successful or are better than them.
On the other hand people with a fixed mindset don’t work to improve themselves much as they believe their innate traits and abilities are already predetermined. Whenever they fail in a task, they give up very easily, feel unintelligent, inadequate and dread trying again lest they fail. They also tend to factor other people’s perceptions about their failure ending up abandoning their goals. They tend to ignore the useful negative feedback they receive from others as they feel it will not make any difference. The success of others around them tend to threaten their positions and may blame for their failures in life. As a result they almost always achieve less than their full potential.
This powerful perspective was
Embracing a growth mindset thus means accepting challenges, persisting through obstacles, learning from negative feedback or criticism, and are motivated by the successes of others. Cultivating a growth mindset is critical as it fosters resilience, encourages viewing challenges as opportunities, facilitates learning and its crucial in succeeding in your life.
Resilience is the ability to pick yourself back up and move forward after a tragedy or a setback. Its deciding not to quit believing that even if that even if the worst happens you will still be okay. Notice how children are not born resilient but this has to be built and developed over time. A growth mindset is the cornerstone of resilience. Adopting a mindset shifts and practice help develop resilience together with healthy habits. When your level of resilience is high, inflation and unmet expectations in life will not deter you from moving forward in life. You will be able to navigate the complexities of life with greater confidence.
I once had a friend who always associated every challenge with others not wanting them to succeed. He believed everyone was out there to ensure they failed in their efforts. A growth mindset will position you to see an opportunity to learn and grow in every challenge. It is not an opportunity to blame yourself as inadequate or a failure or to accentuate the defeatist mentality. Through challenges you can learn to push yourself to think more critically, aim for better results and maximize what you are capable of doing.
This can be done through taking up more challenging tasks, things that are a little outside your comfort zone but lead you to learn , grow and develop in order to achieve them. Stop just playing it safe.
In the stressful and competitive world we are in today, our success is dependent adopting a growth mindset that will unlock the hidden potential to help you thrive in all spheres of your life.
With a growth mindset one becomes less limited to the only thing that they know or the skills they have acquired in the past but foster a desire for continuous learning, improving your skills and even learning new ones. This helps you to adapt to changing circumstances and seize opportunities for growth and self-improvement.
The kind of dreams and goals you set are related to the capacity you believe you have or you can have. With a growth mindset you will set ambitious goals, bigger than what you have ever imagined and still believe you can achieve them whether there will be difficulties on the way or not.
Conclusion
When one has a growth mindset, they see feedback as a valuable source of information and guidance and not a criticism or judgement. One is ready to learn from their own mistakes and seek constructive feedback in order to improve in their performance. Feedback helps pick out your strengths and areas of improvement providing very specific suggestions to improve achievement of goals. How you process feedback is crucial as it determines whether it will be beneficial or not for your progress. Defensive behavior and emotional responses after a feedback hinders room for review and evaluation comparing with own self-assessment. Being open and responsive to feedback is a crucial leadership trait. A growth mindset acts on a feedback and implement changes and improvements needed.
No comment yet, add your voice below!