As confirmed by the renowned psychology professor and researcher Carol Dweck, mindset is everything in life. She discovered the two major mindsets people live on namely, the growth mindset and the fixed mindset.
So using these two mindset comparisons, we’re going to discuss how mindset influences everything in your life.
Let’s dive in!
Mindset Is Everything – How A Growth Mindset Influences Everything
Someone with a growth mindset believes that their abilities are changeable and challenges are their ticket to improve all-round. They also don’t base their identity on their successes and failures but focus on putting effort and appreciating learning.
This healthy mindset is everything when it comes to progressing in every aspect of life. And here’s how –
1. It Ensures A Growing Self Esteem
A growth-minded person’s view of oneself isn’t about the present abilities they have but the effort they can put to reach their goals.
This belief sets your self-esteem high by:
- Helping you believe you can always improve on anything you put your mind to whether you’ll achieve the goals you set or end up learning a lot in the process. Either way, you win.
- Keeping your focus not on how you measure up now but on how you can work on improving who you are with everything you have
When you believe you can only become who you need to be through effort and perseverance instead of natural ability alone, you find no reason to feel inferior to others. And that boosts your self-esteem.
2. It Improves Your Chances Of Success
“If you think you can, you can but if you think you can’t you’re right.” – Henry Ford
If you think you’re going to achieve something, you’ve already set yourself up for success. But how, you may wonder.
See?
- When you think you can do something, say, building your own business, your mind triggers you to think about how you can do it
- Your mind would give you creative ideas on how to build a business, convince you to get the knowledge you need from experts, and help you narrow down what might work for you
- The belief that you can do it makes you put in the effort needed to achieve success
- Then you actually achieve the results you thought you could achieve and/or end up learning something new in the process.
See how the mind works when you are positive about your chances of success? With belief that you can succeed, comes the actual success – even though it doesn’t come in the exact same way you envisioned it sometimes.
Check out Cole Bennet’s experience on mindset is everything.
3. It Dictates The Level Of Your Happiness
With a growth mindset comes special peace in knowing that you can always progress as long as you’re putting action. You experience deep satisfaction from knowing you’ve done your best and that’s okay.
Your contentment doesn’t depend on things you can’t control like your natural abilities but on the controllable like your effort. This makes you calmer and healthier.
4. Challenges Become Opportunities To You
People with the growth mindset seek opportunities to learn and know that challenges are one of those fleeting opportunities. So since they don’t seek to look smart but learn, they dive into those challenges despite fears and doubts.
This makes them more successful than those with a fixed mindset who escape challenges for the fear of looking stupid.
5. It Fuels Competence
“He didn’t ask for mistake-free games. He didn’t demand that his players never lose. He asked for full preparation and full effort from them. “Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort?” If so, he says, “You may be outscored but you will never lose.” – Carol Dweck, Mindset: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Instead of boxing yourself in your circumstances or natural abilities, the growth mindset pushes you to be the best you can be. This is the crux of competence.
In a workplace setting, for example, you won’t be focusing on looking good enough for the promotion but would prove yourself competent by being the most useful you can be.
6. It Helps You Trust In Your Ability To Change
Most people are pessimistic about human’s ability to change. You might even have people convincing you that it’s impossible to change some of your personality traits because they’re too ingrained in you.
But the mindset is everything and in this case, the growth mindset can help you believe in your immense ability to make big changes in everything from saving money to your family dynamics.
It’s all about working on yourself instead of believing that you’ve always been and will always be who you currently are.
7. It Determines Your Resilience In Trying Times
Everybody wishes to be resilient especially when tough times knock the door in their lives. But resilience doesn’t just come by. You have to develop it with the right mindset.
With a growth mindset, you’d, first of all, believe that you can make it through any hard time you go through. And you’d be certain that you’re going to come out better. After all, you’d know that’s the time to stay vigilant and work on overcoming more than ever.
This positive mindset is what makes people stand back up after big failures. It’s what keeps people going in the face of tragedy. It’s what kept Serena Williams and many other icons keep the winning stance.
Read also: Ways To Be Your Own Mind Coach
8. It Keeps You In Sync With Change
Change is the only constant in this world. And to adapt to it, you must have a growth mindset.
This mindset keeps you in learning mode which helps you keep track of changes early enough to adapt to them. If your job is becoming invalid, you’d be ready to switch to a different one early enough. You won’t become redundant in this world with this healthy mindset.
9. It Is Your Security
While you can lose everything from your hard-earned money to loved ones in unexpected circumstances, no one can rob you of your positive mindset. It’s everything you got to live the best life you desire no matter what cards you’re dealt with.
Even if you become bankrupt for some unfortunate reason, you can use this healthy mindset to build a more and even greater income. Even if you get laid off at your dream job, your mindset can still help you create a job for yourself and others as well. You get the point
And the best part is, you can always subtly invest in your mindset through personal growth mindset practices and yet get massive rewards in return.
10. It Makes You See Lessons Instead Of Failure
Failure is only failure when there’s no lesson learned. That’s the growth mindset’s way of looking at it.
“Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re a wake-up call.” – Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential
So the mindset is everything in that it either makes you despair upon failure or motivates you to draw out lessons and try again.
11. It Helps You Be Peaceful While A Lot Still Needs Improvement
Life is a journey and not a sprint according to those with a winning mindset. It’s about enjoying the progress made without feeling pressured to have everything perfect at a go.
Nothing is entirely perfect anyway. And a growth mindset keeps you peaceful even with that fact.
12. It Gives You A Problem Solving Attitude
Your mindset is everything you need to be a coveted problem solver. Since you believe in changing things for the better, you’d become unstoppable as far as solving problems is concerned.
This sets you at an advantage in this world full of problems needing solvers.
13. It Boosts Mental Spiritual And Physical Health
Mindset is everything as far as mental and physical health is concerned. Even spiritual well-being depends on your mindset.
- Mental health is about emotional intelligence, behavioral health, as well as cognitive health all of which you can improve by embracing the growth mindset.
- All this in turn keeps your body in check since you’d have better ways of dealing with stress instead of self-destructive behaviors like emotional eating and drug abuse among others.
- As with dealing with spiritual issues, you’d be more conscious of your values and would treat others better
Learn about Mindset Coaching to help you take steps toward a healthy mindset.
Mindset Is Everything – How A Fixed Mindset Affects Everything
Since mindset is everything, we have to admit what the negative mindset does to every aspect of our lives. and in this case, we call it the opposite of the growth mindset, namely: the fixed mindset.
Someone with a fixed mindset believes that their talents and abilities are set in stone and cannot be developed over time. Let’s dive in and see how it can influence everything in your life.
14. It Promotes Low Self Esteem
The fixed mindset makes you believe you only have your natural talents to show off to the world so you get so focused on bragging about your strengths and hiding your weaknesses. Even worse, it makes you feel inferior and threatened around anyone you perceive to possess better qualities than you.
This degrades your self-esteem no matter how you fake confidence.
15. It Diminishes Potential
Your natural potential is raw material to build up your full potential through effort. But if you operate mostly on the fixed mindset, you not only hinder fulfilling your full potential but also erode the existing potential altogether.
Dweck put this simply by saying, “It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.”
I’m pretty sure you’ve seen people who seemed very promising while you were growing up but ended up in places even the least talented of your mates could never imagine going to. And you’ve probably seen the least talented get into heights you never imagined.
The difference is all in the mindset. One embraced the growth mindset, the other, the fixed one.
16. It Glorifies Talent To Stupor
Operating on the fixed mindset, you’d be convinced that you don’t need to put effort since you’re innately talented. Even worse, you might think that effort is for the untalented.
But this would mess up your life more than you’d know since results come from effort. You’d be stuck trying to make people see how talented you are without making effort. And they might see at first.
But without results, you’d be forgotten pretty quickly.
The fixed mindset plagues every aspect of your life from education to relationships. The more you think you’re talented enough to not require much effort, the more success eludes you.
17. It Ruins Relationships
People who think predominantly in the fixed mindset don’t put much effort into relationships either. They usually think they’re amazing enough for anyone to want to stay around them. Pretty arrogant, I know.
Due to their admirable qualities, some people might stick around during the early stages, but soon enough they get tired and leave. They end up living empty, loveless lives.
“A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after,” but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after.” – Carol Dweck
18. It Plagues You With Insecurity
If you live your life with a fixed mental attitude, you’d become excessively insecure. Why?
- Since you don’t put much effort into your life, you fail to reach your potential and hence get frustrated a lot when you try measuring up to your own standards let alone society’s
- You define your self-image through success and failure so when you succeed you feel you’re smart/talented but when you fail you label yourself dumb/untalented
- You become constantly envious of others who put in the effort and do better than you
- You feel inferior to anyone with better qualities than you
19. It Brings Social Phobia
People with social anxiety disorder have difficulty interacting in social settings due to the fear of being judged and scrutinized. All this can be explained in different ways psychologically but one way to break it down is the fixed mindset.
People with a dominant fixed mindset are scared of scrutiny because they take any type of criticism as a threat to their fixated identity. If they’re told that they didn’t behave wisely during dinner, they think they’re altogether dumb.
So if you’re going to tolerate the fixed mindset in your life, imagine the social problems it can bring you.
20. It Distorts Your Sense Of Self
Believe it or not, living your authentic self is the only way you can become your most successful.
But the fixed mindset distorts how you view yourself and your progress to the extent that your true self gets buried under the junk of comparison, faking it, social disorders, and more.
Related: Ways To Change Your Words To Change Your Mindset
21. It Fuels Unhappiness
Here’s how the fixed mindset hinders your happiness:
- It triggers constant disappointment
- It attracts the wrong relationships
- It promotes mediocrity which leads to dissatisfaction
- It displaces you in life
- It builds up mental health disorders like anxiety and depression
What Is Meant By Mindset Is Everything?
What someone means by saying mindset is everything is that the state of the mind determines the success of a person across all aspects of their relationships. As many philosophers and psychologists have confirmed, everything starts in the mind.
Growth Vs Fixed Mindset
One with a growth mindset thinks that qualities, talents, and abilities are changeable and can therefore be improved over time with learning and practicing. However, those with a fixed mindset believe that one’s intelligence and other qualities are only innate and unchangeable.
Of course, people feature both mindsets to certain extents both in understanding and in deeds which makes some predominantly, fixed-minded and others, growth-minded.
Why Is Mindset So Important In Life?
Most psychological research suggests that mindsets majorly influence how life turns out for every human. One can largely improve their health and overall life by analyzing their own thinking and seeking to make necessary changes to embrace better qualities.
Why Is Mindset So Powerful?
Your mindset is what helps you focus on your goals instead of getting distracted by other things. It’s what keeps you resilient in the face of struggle. A strong mindset is what helps you get back up after facing setbacks and it’s what keeps you from making decisions that hinder the success you desire.
What Is A Person’s Mindset? Mindset Is Everything Book
A person’s mindset is a set of beliefs they hold regarding themselves, others, and overall life. These beliefs determine their mental attitude and subsequent behavior in response to life’s circumstances. Carol Dweck, a Stanford Psychology Professor, describes two major mindsets people live on in her book, Mindset.
Final Note On Mindset Is Everything
While chance and genetics play a role in your life, mindset is everything if you want to take charge of your life within what you can control.
Instead of carrying on with the fixed mindset to self-destruction, embrace the growth mindset and live your best life no matter where you’re starting from now.
And hey, while you’re at it, share this article with your friends to help change lives.
Keep a healthy mind, stay focused, start creating, and stay positive!
Thanks for reading!
