5 tips to build an elite mindset
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Now, onto Issue 06.
Today’s Issue
Carol Dweck is an American psychologist and professor.
She’s one of the world’s most respected voices on the subject of mindset.
Her book, “Mindset,” has more than 2 million copies in print.
Today, we’re going to explore 5 tips from Dweck’s book that will help you build an elite mindset in business, athletics and life.
Let’s dive in.
5 tips to build an elite mindset
What is mindset?
In simple terms, it’s how you view and process the world.
Our mindset impacts us every minute of every day, whether we’re conscious of it or not.
Mindset isn’t just important for elite athletes and “high-performers.”
It’s critical for all of us.
Carol Dweck wrote one of the best books on mindset I’ve ever read.
Here are 5 actionable tips you can begin implementing today:
1. Challenge your beliefs
Mindset is rooted in beliefs.
What you believe about:
your talent
your abilities
your potential
others around you
A fixed mindset believes basic qualities are set in stone.
A growth mindset believes these qualities can improve over time.
How can you tell which mindset someone favors?
Listen for their beliefs.
Examples of fixed mindset beliefs:
Your talent is whatever you were born with
You’re intelligent or not — it doesn’t change
You’re “wired that way” and “it is what it is”
Examples of growth mindset beliefs:
Your talent can be cultivated with practice
Your intelligence can be improved with study
You can choose new behaviors that better serve you
Action: examine your beliefs
Where do they align with a fixed mindset?
Where do they align with a growth mindset?
Building an elite mindset begins with believing you can change your mindset.
2. Nurture a love of learning
“I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. I divide the world into the learners and non-learners.”
Benjamin Barber
If you have kids — or are ever around kids — watch how quickly they learn.
Our youngest daughter is two months old, and she changes daily.
This is true for all babies. Each one is born with a drive to learn.
But somewhere along the journey between childhood and adulthood, that drive to learn is too often extinguished.
We stop being concerned with learning and start worrying about being successful.
This is based on a shift in mindset.
A growth mindset views learning as exciting.
Challenges are opportunities to form new connections and grow.
A fixed mindset views learning as threatening.
Learning comes with failure, and failure threatens our sense of self.
But we need challenges to grow.
Building a world where we’re perfectly successful is the perfect way to NOT grow.
Action: Celebrate the learning process
Dweck shares a quote in her book: “Becoming is better than being.”
Never halt your journey of learning and becoming.
3. Do things that take effort
Effort is a polarizing topic in mindset literature.
The fixed mindset views giving effort as a risk.
Dweck shares two reasons for this:
“Geniuses” are not supposed to need effort
Actually trying eliminates all your excuses
Someone with a fixed mindset is worried about judgment and perfection. Giving effort undermines both.
The growth mindset views effort as essential.
Dweck writes:
“In the growth mindset, it’s almost inconceivable to want something badly, to think you have a chance to achieve it, and then do nothing about it.”
Carol Dweck
Tennis legend Billie Jean King has a wonderful way of framing this: What do you want to look back and say?
If you want to look back and say “I could have been …” then go ahead. Play it safe, never give effort and forever protect your fragile identity.
Or you can look back and say, “I gave everything I had for the things I valued,” and courageously take a shot.
Action: Embrace the “risk” of effort
Where can you give more effort right now?
What potential failure are you shying away from?
Choose a growth mindset and go for it.
4. Resist labeling
One of my favorite examples in Dweck’s book is the Polgar family.
The Polgars produced three of the most successful female chess players ever.
Susan, one of the daughters, described her father’s mindset this way:
“My father believes that innate talent is nothing, that [success] is 99 percent hard work. I agree with him.”
Susan Polgar
Judit Polgar, the youngest, is considered by some to be the greatest female chess player of all time.
“Judit was a slow starter, but very hardworking,” Susan says of her sister.
One of the reasons I love this example is because it doesn’t include what we so often do with young talented people: label them.
“My son is a great football player.”
“My daughter is the artist in the family.”
“Riley down the street is the smartest kid at school.”
All of these are meant as sincere compliments, and yet they make building a strong mindset much harder.
Labels set an expectation.
They create a fragile sense of worth.
Perhaps worst of all, they create a belief that other people can define you.
Action: Resist labeling yourself or others
Pay attention to where you use labels in your life (we all do).
Make a deliberate effort to strip them away.
If you want to praise, make it about effort, learning, growth and the process of improvement.
5. Growth > genius
By now, we understand the power of our mindsets.
But what about the power of an organization’s mindset?
Like people, organizations cultivate a mindset.
Dweck writes about a study she participated in of Fortune 500 companies.
The study’s key findings:
Organizations with a fixed mindset build a “culture of genius” — talent rules
Organizations with a growth mindset build a “culture of development” — growth rules
Those in growth mindset companies reported higher trust, commitment and sense of ownership
Those in fixed mindset companies reported a cutthroat environment and more unethical behavior
When talent is put on a pedestal, it encourages selfish behavior.
After all, who doesn’t want their talent recognized?
But when growth is celebrated, it encourages curiosity and collaborative behavior.
People become excited to share what they learn.
Action: Value talent but celebrate growth
On a personal level, take action to continually expand your talents. They are malleable.
On an organizational level, review what mindset and behaviors your culture encourages. Make changes to foster a culture of growth over genius as much as possible.
Summary
To recap, 5 tips to build an elite mindset:
Resist labeling
Growth > genius
Challenge your beliefs
Do things that take effort
Nurture a love of learning
I hope these ideas help you and your teams build stronger mindsets.
Teddy’s Recommendations
Each week, I share something I’m enjoying that’s making me better.
Right now, I’m loving Mason Currey’s book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.
It’s a compilation of short anecdotes about how some of history’s most prolific creators did their work.
I’m a nerd when it comes to learning about peoples’ habits, processes and systems. If you’re into that kind of thing as well, I think you’ll enjoy this easy read.
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