We’ve talked about stress, resilience and focussing on the positives. Today I want to move that back into the world of work with the concept of a Growth Mindset.
A reminder: Stress is the defining affliction of modern life — ubiquitous, unending, and seemingly unavoidable.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. By understanding the neuroscience of how it operates – which I’ve shared, we can learn to target stress at its source. Researchers that Neuro Linguistic Institute (NLI), believe that one part of this involves helping develop a growth mindset — the belief that challenges are opportunities to improve, not threats to status or identity.
When you develop a growth mindset, research suggests you’ll enjoy a much greater advantage when stressful situations come your way.
While many mental stress-fighting techniques like exercise and meditation can work to offset the symptoms of stress by reducing anxiety and calming the system, what they don’t do is address the root cause of the stress. So, if we take a definition of mental stress as “an affliction spurred on by misallocated attention” (i.e. too much focus on the negative possibilities of a situation), then a growth mindset may hold a solution.
Growth mindset assumes that skills are simmering wells of possibility and potential, rather than fixed traits. In professional settings, people can develop their faculties, acquire new abilities, and strengthen their existing capabilities. Seeing the world through the lens of growth enables you to steer your thoughts away from the negative focus induced by stress and back toward the positive.
When you cultivate a growth mindset, you don’t worry so much about problems. Instead of wondering how you’ll get through a crisis, you ask yourself far more constructive questions, such as “What can I learn from this situation?” or “How can I use this to better develop my skills?”
One place where this wisdom is taken to heart is Microsoft. Last year, the NLI partnered with Microsoft to help instil a culture of learning in which managers reward their employees for growth, and recognising and learning from failure.
Instead of stressing over problems, Microsoft employees use growth mindset to see opportunities for improvement. Stressful situations still arise — and they always will. But with a growth mindset, they feel equipped to respond in a positive and a constructive manner. Stress may be the leading affliction of modern life, but with the right mindset you have the power to make it disappear as suddenly as it arrived.
NLI define a growth mindset as the belief that skills can be improved with persistent effort; they are not set in stone, or fixed. A Growth Mindset Culture is one where most, if not all, employees demonstrate that attitude in their shared everyday habits. They embrace failure. They take risks. They learn to get better.
Fortunately, growth mindset makes room for an emphasis on learning and checking progress over time, because it’s not about comparing two different people or teams to one another; it’s about comparing one person or team to themselves.
One way to do all that and still ensure you’re moving in the right direction is to perform a bit of mental contrasting. This technique involves holding in your mind’s eye the memories of the past or the vision of a desired future, and contrasting them with the present reality.
When you contrast where you are to where you were, or where you’d like to go, you can evaluate the fruits of your growth mindset. You can ask yourself questions such as, How much have I grown? Am I growing in the right ways? What else still needs attention?
In other words, growth mindset isn’t important just for its own sake. At some point, everyone still needs to stop and see how far they’ve come.
One of the hardest aspects to get started with a growth mindset is the difficulty in accepting failures as learning opportunities and seeing challenges as chances for growth. It is very rare that people share how uncomfortable developing something so positive can be; but I am only focussed on helping you realise your potential, so here are four steps to help you get started and stay on course.
1. Get familiar with the feeling of fear
The world and life are riddled with uncertainty, when we feel highly uncertain, our attention narrows, and our cognitive function suffers. When developing a growth mindset in a particular area, it is important to identify moments of fearfulness to recognise which thoughts may be holding us back. Creating this self-awareness lets you determine whether you really are in tough situation or just new to something.
2. Know you will get frustrated, and that’s okay
Developing a growth mindset doesn’t mean that all learning will come easy, and that you will feel great all the time. The key to building a growth mindset is to recognise that setbacks are inevitable, and also temporary. Learning requires a willingness to figure out how to make progress and move forward despite frustrations.
Sometimes the best remedy to a challenge is rethinking your approach. So often what we’ve done before, isn’t the right solution for where we want to go now. So taking a break to let past insights marinate and dissipate can create a open-mindedness that enables innovation, ideas and inspiration can come forth and re-energise you to tackle the problem a new.
“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I’m Possible” Audrey Hepburn
3. Monitor your progress in order to make adjustments
Embracing your ability to grow, develop, and stretch will take practice, and a focus on measuring progress over time. It helps to look at what you’ve learnt and where you have room to get even better. One of the best ways to do this is to get yourself into a state of regular, specific feedback. This means being willing to confront weak spots, concocting ways to adjust, and testing those solutions as soon as possible. Continuous improvement is not just a technical term – it’s a personal one too.
“I like criticism, it makes you strong” Lebron James
4. Share what you’ve learned and what it took to get there
One of the most powerful ways to embrace the discomfort of developing a growth mindset is to share your journey and learning with others. We learn best when we can turn ideas into concrete writing or discussion and create new energy around it.
Sharing your wins and failures may create greater intrinsic reward, which research has shown is extremely motivating. And who knows, you may gain a Growth Mindset Partner as you share your story (similar to the accountability partner from the gratitude blog).
As well as having the world around us changing with the need to WFH, adjust our working habits, home-schooling, isolation etc, at work, and within every team we are all undergoing a lot of change – maybe that's change in leadership, change in focus, change in team structures, change in technology, change in systems, change, change, change, change, change!
Being able to apply the above principles of Growth mindset as we approach any aspect of that change whatever it may be op model changes, new roles or team members; we need to approach each and every of them with the concepts of being open to looking at:
our past as simply a source of opportunity to see the possibilities for learning,
the current as an opportunity to explore new ways and share experiences; and
the future as a shared path where we can support one another to grow and achieve.
Now more than ever, given the challenging environment, we need to let go of the past, be humble about the present and inspired and collaborate for the future.
“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited about what could go right” unknown
I hope that this will inspire you to once again, focus on the positives in every communication, every task, every interaction – and at this point in the year, when we’re all creating our objectives, I want you to also challenge your line manager to work with you to ensure your objectives enable you to demonstrate your growth mindset at work.
“If you can find a path with no obstacles. It probably does lead anywhere” Frank. A. Clark
Until next time...
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