Develop Your Personal Power: Adopt A Growth Mindset
Your personal power is rooted in your ability to believe you can change your life and achieve your goals. Without this understanding, you will not have the motivation or confidence you need to work hard, overcome obstacles, and accomplish the many tasks that are required to become the best version of yourself. And none of that is possible without a growth mindset.
What is a Growth Mindset?
Everyone can be categorized as having one of two types of mindsets. The first is called a fixed mindset, and people who think this way believe that our basic qualities, such as talent and intelligence, are fixed traits that we are born with (or not).
Instead of focusing on developing themselves, these people often just spend their time making sure others can see what they can do. This mindset believes that your talent alone will make you successful, regardless of your effort.
The other type of mindset is known as the growth mindset. This way of thinking believes that your abilities and traits can be changed over time with dedication and hard work. While your intelligence and natural gifts are a starting point, you can do anything you wish, if you put in the work. This mindset is dedicated to the notion of continuous learning throughout life.
The Connection Between Mindset and Personal Power
Your life is created by your decisions, not the conditions in which you find yourself. Your life is not your traits or circumstance but how you choose to react to those. You can decide to be happy or miserable. You can decide to take action or play the victim. You can decide to react emotionally or to think logically. But, to make the best choices, you need a mindset that says you have this control over your life.
Without a growth mindset, you are stuck honoring old ways of thinking or habits because you do not have the agency to believe you can or should make these significant changes.
A growth mindset empowers you to look at the data you receive from life’s challenges and experiences, then use that information to make better choices for yourself. Without a growth mindset, those learning experiences will just be viewed as setbacks or failures, not opportunities for growth.
Developing a Growth Mindset
Here are seven ways you can start developing a growth mindset and creating the life you want.
1. Embrace your flaws. You will never overcome weakness by hiding from it. See it, name it, and determine if you want to live with it or change it.
2. You don’t need approval. Learning is more important than the approval of others. When you value others’ opinions, you sacrifice your own potential.
3. Remove “failure” from your vocabulary. There are no failures in life, only learning opportunities. Stop using the word, and you will start to redefine how you think of setbacks.
4. Value growth. Share your progress with others often, and you will start to value your effort and gains.
5. Value effort and process. Talent is not as important as the effort you make toward improving that talent. And the end is not nearly as important as what you learn along the way to get there.
6. Focus on the big picture. Having a sense of purpose helps you support and cultivate a growth mindset.
7. Seek approval from the right sources. The only person you need to satisfy is yourself. Don’t worry about what others think.