Three mindsets to thrive: Growth, Benefit and 7 Mindsets
Posted on September 22, 2023 by Janet (Zsanett) Czifrus, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
Your mindset shapes the way you view the world and influences the way in which you engage in life. Here are three frameworks to expand your reality.
Why mindset matters?
Mindset determines your decisions, choices and actions, including how you relate to others and deal with situations. Your mindset shapes the way you view the world and influences the way in which you engage in life. Here are three frameworks about mindsets that can help you expand your reality.
1. Growth Mindset
Growth mindset is built on the ability of your brain to grow and change. Research on brain plasticity has shown how connectivity between neurons can change with experience. With practice, neural networks grow new connections, strengthen existing ones, and build insulation that speeds transmission of impulses. These neuroscientific discoveries have shown us that we can increase our neural growth by the actions we take, such as using good strategies, asking questions, practicing, and following good nutrition and sleep habits.
If you believe your brain can grow, you behave differently.
Growth mindset is the belief that skills and qualities can be improved through efforts, strategies and help from others. When you embrace a growth mindset challenges and new experiences become an opportunity to grow and change for the better. Mistakes are natural and do not signify your wrongness or show a negative picture about your abilities, rather they show that you’ve tried and you’re growing. Growth mindset is charachterized by flexibility, attention, and adaptiveness. If you’re not making progress with your effort, this doesn’t mean anything about your capability. It generally means you need to take a different approach or try a different strategy.
“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” – Carol S. Dweck
On the opposite, there is the fixed mindset. Fixed mindset stems from fear. It might be a fear of failure, a fear of looking stupid, or a fear of being judged, but fear is always what holds you back from reaching more of your potential (this is when the inner saboteur is present). When a person thinks like this, they perceive themselves and the world as static. When you make a mistake, you take it as a sign that it’s just not for you. “I’m not good at it.” – is a typical fixed mindset phrase. In her TED talk Carol Dweck offers a simple and wonderful trick to start moving toward growth mindset (it’s also worth reading her book, Mindset). Every time you catch yourself thinking that you can’t do something and are about to give it up, put the word ‘yet’ at the end of your your sentence. For example: “I can’t play on a guitar yet.” Watch how it changes your perception about yourself, your abilities and the world in which you live in!
We can have a fixed mindset in certain areas of life while applying a growth mindset in other areas. All of us have elements of both, and we’re all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets.
2. Benefit Mindset
A benefit mindset builds on a growth mindset, when we understand that our abilities can be developed – and we also understand we can transform towards a more caring, inclusive and interdependent perspective. When bringing forth your benefit mindset, you ask yourself the question: “Why do I do what I do?”
It is called the benefit mindset because it is concerned with the life-long process of learning how we can be the transformation and realize our unique potential in a way that serves the wellbeing of all.
Fulfilling our potential is about more than how smart, driven or growth oriented we are. More completely, it is about how well we are able to transform how we come to understand our place in the world, compassionately attend to our individual and collective shadows, and become partners in the wellbeing of all people and all living beings.
3. 7 Mindsets
The 7 Mindsets were developed based on extensive research and interviewing the world’s happiest and highest achieving individuals, including those who make the most lasting and positive impact on society. These mindsets provide the foundation for resilience, motivation, and meaning in life. The framework is based on the premise that success depends less on what you know, and much more significantly on how you think. By making small shifts in the way you view the world and your future in it, you help create a positive and sustainable transformation.
The 7 Mindsets are:
Everything is Possible: This Mindset embraces the positive power of dreaming big and maintaining positive expectations.
Passion First: This Mindset establishes the need for connecting your passion to your pursuits for making maximum progress.
We are Connected: This Mindset embraces and nurtures the value of empathy, community, and mutually supportive relationships.
100% Accountable: This Mindset empowers to have a sense of ownership of your own life, choices, and decisions.
Attitude of Gratitude: This Mindset helps students stay positive by appreciating what they already have and what is already working in their lives.
Live to Give: This Mindset fosters the value of making a positive difference in the life of others as a key component of living a happy, inwardly rich life of meaning and building mutually supportive relationships.
The Time is Now: This Mindset focuses on the vital importance of appreciation and making every moment count.
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Reflection questions:
What is your self-talk when making mistakes?
How do you react when fear is present?
What are the areas where you tend to have more fixed/growth mindsets?
Is there something you always wanted to do but you thought you’re just not good at? What would be the next small step to act from growth mindset and overcome it?
What can you do to bring out the best from your partner/colleagues/clients?
Where you’re not taking 100% accountability for your life? How could you change on that?
Who are the 5 people whom you spend the most time with? How is it shaping your thinking?
Which activity puts you into your zone? What will you do to spend more time with it?
