How can I develop a growth mindset? This page outlines key strategies for personal growth, including learning styles, commitment, and mastering emotions.
To learn, you first need to believe that there is something you can learn—that something is learnable. This is the essence of having a growth mindset. When you have this mindset, you apply many learning styles, rather than one. Important ones include:
- Imagining: generating creative ideas and possibilities.
- Reflecting: exploring and gaining a deeper understanding of the ideas you have imagined.
- Analysing: organising the ideas you have learned. Developing strategic plans to act on these ideas.
- Deciding: choosing a single direction or approach to pursue a specific idea.
- Acting: taking tangible steps to bring your chosen idea to life.
- Experiencing: gaining insights through real-world interactions by collaborating, experimenting, creating, and failing.
Most of us have a growth mindset for the learning styles we are good at. However, for things we are not comfortable with, we adopt a fixed mindset. We believe we can get better at what we are good at, but we cannot get better at something we cannot yet do. When you do not believe you can learn something, you actually can’t. You will keep navigating toward environments that demand the learning style you are most comfortable with.
Committing fully and completely
When you commit to learning, you commit to changing. When you are committed 100%, hesitation and doubt vanish. It brings clarity, focus, and freedom from distractions.
To commit completely, you need to surpass a ‘point of no return.’ Beyond this point, it becomes easier to move toward your goals than away from them. You can create a point of no return by investing—having your skin in the game. You need to invest in your goal to the extent that you cannot afford not to achieve it.
Seek high exposure environments
The next step is to become completely comfortable with uncertain situations. This entails strategically developing a tolerance for one’s fears, i.e. systematic desensitization. You can do so by exposing yourself over and over to the thing you are fearful for.
You should not do this gradually, e.g. shifting your wake-up time half an hour over the course of a month. By doing so, you are delaying and compounding the pain. You are overly focusing on and extending it. When you jump right into the pool, you compress the shock and transition into a small amount of time. Yes, this approach is emotionally extreme. But you acclimate to your new environment extremely fast and instinctively.
The anticipation of an event is almost always more emotionally charged than the event itself. If you will just act, the pain will be far less severe and over before you know it.
Master your emotions and fears
With this radical approach, you need to be able to handle your fears and emotions.
The load, the challenge, and the opposition create true fulfillment and accomplishment. Delayed gratification, discomfort, frustration, dissatisfaction, pain, tragedy, awkwardness, embarrassment, uncertainty… The avoidance of these feelings is stopping you from your greatest life.
Developing a positive attitude toward difficult emotions is the key to a fulfilling life. The more difficult the emotion, the greater the treasure at the end of the path.