Adopting a Growth Mindset
I’m currently reading the book ‘Mindset’, a fantastic piece of work by Dr. Carol Dweck, and it has really got me thinking about the subject of perception and how, I believe, we all have such a personal battle with it.
To add some context to this, I have recently had the life-changing experience of becoming a father for the first time, which seems to have had the effect of making me a little more philosophical, and a lot less bothered about other people’s perception of me!
As all you parents out there will know, having a child changes your life completely. The easiest way I can describe it is this: I think we all subconsciously have a mental list of what is important in our lives, typically family, friends, sport, food, money and so on… when your child enters into the world, everything in that list pales into insignificance, your child and your partner become the only things that matter. Once things settle down, your ‘priority list’ starts to take shape again, but there’s a new item permanently fixed at the top of it… your baby. That makes absolutely everything else in your world a slightly lower priority than it was before, which when you think about it is a hugely significant change in your life and one that will never be reversed.
I digress… so back to my point about adopting a Growth Mindset.
The whole book is excellent, very thought-provoking, and I encourage everybody to read it, however, a particular point really came through to me: Babies are born with a Growth Mindset.
They don’t understand success & failure, they don’t care if people think they’ve won or lost, done well or badly, all they want to do is learn. My son is just starting to sit up by himself, he falls over constantly, but he doesn’t get embarrassed or give up trying, he just gives me a cheeky grin and tries again. He tries to stand up using his own strength even though his legs won’t hold him yet, so he constantly collapses, but he just gets up and tries again. He has no idea why his bouncer makes funny noises, but rather than leaving it because he doesn’t understand it, he keeps playing and trying to figure it out. He’ll undoubtedly fall down a thousand times when he starts trying to walk, but he’ll get up and try again…
As adults we learn to avoid doing things we aren’t good at or don’t understand, we veer away from things that don’t come naturally to us and we shy away from challenges through fear of being found out or embarrassed, but why? We weren’t born like that, so what happens? I think it’s because we become so conscious of what people think of us, the perception of us from the outside world, that we don’t view these experiences as learning, but instead, we view them as failures.
I really believe that switching this mindset can help not just in business but in life, the less you worry about what other people think about you and your perceived ‘failures’, the more you’ll learn and grow. This is a battle we all will face but one we shouldn’t be scared of tackling head-on. There are countless memes and quotes out there: ‘you have to fail to succeed’ … ‘learn from your mistakes’ … but I think the trick is to not view them as ‘failures’ or ‘mistakes’, we need to start viewing them as ‘experiences’ and ‘learning’, just like our children do.
Albert Einstein, Michael Jordan, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and The Beatles were all considered ‘failures’ early in their careers… I think that says it all!
