Do you have it?

Hi friends!

Welcome back to the blog! Today’s topic is Growth Mindset and whether you and I live a life driven by a growth mindset. But first, what is a growth mindset?

Psychologist Carol Dweck developed the concept of Growth Mindset. It refers to the belief that our human abilities and capacities can be improved over time with work and dedication to the purpose personal growth. This is excellent news! We can GROW our skills-thinking, working, feeling, and doing all the things that will lead us to live a life we dream of living. This means we don’t have to feel stuck where we are because we are able to grow and get out of this place.

The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset. You and I both have certain things we believe that (right now) we don’t think we will ever change or believe differently. I will never like drinking beer (just a simple example). I will always love listening to music. I will never like skydiving (can I just leave it at that and not challenge this idea? lol) I will always love playing tennis. These are simple examples of a fixed mindset that appear (and most likely are) harmless on the surface. Now let’s look at a few examples of a fixed mindset that are actually harmful to us.

-I will never be a fit person.

-I will never learn to dance or feel confident enough to enjoy dancing.

-I will never get a better job.

-I can’t learn (a new skill) at my age. That’s crazy.

-I can never bring myself to talk to her ever again.

-I can’t be alone. I have to always be with a companion to enjoy life.

These and MANY others dominate our thoughts and beliefs-and we aren’t even aware of them most of the time. That to me is the saddest part of this story. We aren’t aware that a story we are telling ourselves is painting the life we are living (which we may or may not like at the moment).

So HOW do we develop a growth mindset? How can we cultivate a mindset that is the opposite of a fixed mindset? Here are a few tips:

+Be willing to learn new things.

+Reframe failure as lessons.

+Show compassion to yourself in the learning process.

+Understand that it takes time for the Titanic to stop. You cannot stop your current mindset immediately. It takes time to stop and turn it around. And that’s okay. That’s part of the process.

+Feel your feelings and avoid toxic positivity. You don’t need to replace negative feelings the minute they show up in your body. Feel them. Allow them to be present. Allow them to PASS through you otherwise they will stay stored in your body and come back to haunt you later. (Example-The anger you feel when you think back to that one time someone said something to you, that’s still present because you didn’t process is-feel it and release it.)

+Gratitude HAS to be your Attitude. There is no other way. Showing yourself love and giving thanks for every step of your journey has to be a big part of your journey or else you will not go very far down the road before you turn around and come back to your current fixed mindset.

+Be curious about your results. Don’t criticize them. Curiosity invites solutions. Criticism shuts all the solutions down in a dark room in the basement and puts a lock on it. Be curious instead.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to invite you to take my Mindset Reset Course + Coaching and hit the reset button before you actually begin working on your goals. You get me as your coach and we will work together to plan out the entire journey before you start walking the path. I can’t wait to walk the journey with you!

Let’s get on a consultation call to discuss how I can help you as your life coach.

With Love,

Nilo