A Change in Mindset is What It Will Take for a Better Year Ahead — Part 1

What is a mindset? The term gets thrown around a lot, especially in the past few years. Carol Dweck authored an excellent book on the subject and also presented at TEDTalks. It has since become more mainstream. In its simplest form, mindset is a way of thinking. Specifically, your way of thinking.

Dweck placed the idea of mindset into two forms, a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. The growth mindset is looking for ways to expand, grow, learn new things. It is open to innovative thinking and change. The process by which things are done is in many ways more important than just the outcome itself. The fixed mindset leans heavily towards believing that many things cannot be changed. When thinking about oneself, a fixed mindset believes that things are innate, and we are born with our talents or do not have them. We have certain abilities, or we do not. There is less room for learning new things and skill-building. Finally, a fixed mindset concentrates on the results more than anything. You either achieve the result, or you do not.

If we use these perspectives to think about the world and where we stand today, a fixed mindset individual may say that 2020 was meant to happen, and there is little we can do to change that. What has happened is the outcome we must accept, and we can only move on from here with that same pattern of thinking. On the flip side, we can look at 2020 as a learning year. How can we take what happened over the past ten months and make changes that lead to new outcomes? It comes from a belief that something different from what we have right now is possible. This is not to say that fixed mindset people are all pessimists or that they only resign themselves to the fate that is upon them. It just means they are more likely to look at the results and work to change them as a primary activity, versus looking at all the options, the processes, the activities they can take to make change occur outside its natural path.

My guess is that if you are more of a growth mindset individual, explaining what someone with a fixed mindset sees may seem impossible. How could anyone not want to change the patterns we are currently in? The fixed mindset individual would likely think that the growth mindset individual is a Pollyanna and that they live in an overly positive world that will not come to fruition. Neither is right, neither is wrong. And in both cases, I do not believe those individuals will merely settle for the current experiences. Both mindsets will work to find new results; they will simply go about it in alternative ways.

Here, I do not want to get too caught up in these two different mindsets specifically. I would rather look at what we can do to shift the thinking in our own minds and, just as importantly, what we can do to help those around us. In the second part of this article, I will provide some ideas on how you might go about achieving that forward movement.

Before we wrap up this first article about applying an open mindset to the future, think about a mindset that is working towards something. Use a perspective more about a ‘not yet’ approach to things versus believing it must happen ‘right now.’ Dweck speaks to this approach as part of her wildly popular TEDTalk from 2007. In the studies she references, she speaks about how much improvement is seen from students that are taught in a ‘not yet’ way versus concentrating on the grade being acceptable right now. In a word where instant gratification is prevalent, ‘right now’ is always on our minds. That can cause people to taken very different approaches to how they set out to achieve new things.

If success is measured on a ‘right now’ basis, how likely are you to try new things that may result in unknown outcomes? People will tend to stay on the safe side of things and control the outcomes they get to ensure success ‘right now.’ On the other hand, if we are encouraged to find new ways and recognized for the process and resilience of getting to a new point, we are more willing to innovate and stay engaged longer.

Mindset is more than just another term for attitude. The two are related and even inter-woven, but there is a difference. Mindset, in many cases, will drive your attitude. If we control our attitude (and I believe we do), then we can also control our mindset (especially over time). I came across a good article on Why Mindset Matters for Your Success which I would encourage you to read ahead of part-two of this series on mindset for the new year. We can shift our mindset, and in the next article, I will begin looking at how.

How can you begin to think about more of a ‘not yet’ thought process versus ‘right now’?

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