Mindset: How Does Your Mindset Influence Your Success?

If we asked you what a person’s success depends on, what would your answer be? Maybe you will tell us that it depends on his talent, his intelligence or the education he has received. Perhaps you consider that the best starting point for success is having good opportunities. However, beyond all that, the key seems to lie in the mindset.

Certainly, it seems naive to think that “ can he who believes he can ”. However, Carol S. Dweck, Doctor of Developmental Psychology, has come to some clear conclusions on this matter. His book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success , explores how beliefs powerfully influence our performance. Thus, today we are going to discuss the interesting proposals of this best seller .

How does your mindset influence your success?

Mindset is the set of beliefs we have about how the world and ourselves operate. It is on the basis of this data that we guide our behavior. So what we take to be true causes us to act in one way or another, which ultimately determines our results.

The above conclusion was drawn by Dweck. He did this after observing a group of four-year-olds faced with the following dilemma: solving a simple puzzle or trying to complete a more difficult one. Even at such a young age, he was able to divide the children into two groups: some children chose the easy task while others accepted the more complex challenge. But why ?

The reality is that the distinction between the two groups of children was not in their abilities, but in their mentality, in their basic beliefs. Thus, he differentiated two concepts that largely determine our development and success: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.

The fixed mentality

People with a fixed mentality are those who consider, consciously or unconsciously, that intelligence is immutable. That each of us is born with a certain degree of intelligence, with talents or qualities that are stable and impossible to change. Under this premise, they maintain a very specific behavior:

• These people tend to try to validate themselves constantly, trying to appear smart and skilled.
• They avoid challenges at all costs, because failure would imply a lack of capacity
• They are on the defensive when obstacles appear and they immediately give up tasks that challenge them
• Effort is unnecessary and failure is unacceptable, infallibility is required
• Others’ success and constructive criticism threaten them

The growth mindset

For their part, people with a growth mindset believe that skills and talents can be developed through hard work and personal effort. They understand that we each have a starting point, but what really determines it is what we do with it. Thus, they exhibit the following attitudes and behaviors:

• They are excited to learn, grow and thrive
• They accept challenges and grow up in front of them, seeing them as an opportunity to improve
• These people see failure as part of the path and, far from sinking in the face of obstacles, they persevere.
• They do not see effort as a sign of lack of capacity, but as the path to mastery

• They learn from constructive criticism and are inspired by the success of others

Reach your maximum potential

In summary, the attitudes associated with each type of mentality condition the development that an individual is capable of achieving. Thus, those of the first group (depending on their innate qualities) can grow rapidly, but stagnate. On the contrary, according to his thesis, those in the second group (using effort and perseverance) continue to grow until they develop their full potential.

This would manifest not only academically, but also in their professional careers, in social relations and in any area of ​​life. Those with a growth mindset overcome obstacles, learn from their mistakes and reorient their journey, develop and reach their best. The fixed mindset gets you to establish yourself at a certain level that you will never overcome for fear of failure, paralyze yourself in the face of challenges, and limit yourself to thinking that you are what you are and that there is no way you are. nothing more.

So even though the kind of mindset that we have is part of our personality, it is in our hands to change it. Stop praising yourself and measuring your worth by your qualities and start praising yourself for your efforts, resistance, and persistence. Sometimes failure allows us to reach our maximum potential.

Our thoughts

The way that genuine use of personal development can benefit you is called the growth mindset.