Developing a Growth Mindset as an Entrepreneur

The concept of growth Vs fixed mindset forms an important feature in positive psychology. This approach to learning and personal growth has come into mainstream knowledge due to the work of Dr. Carol Dweck whose best-known work revolves around mindsets and how they impact success.

For entrepreneurs and small business owners, success and performance often rest on possessing the right mindset. In this post, we’ll look at the virtues of possessing a growth mindset and how it can impact your life. Let’s begin.

Understanding what a growth mindset is

You or the people around you may believe that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’. That you possess certain traits and capabilities and can never change them. Personalities and skills are innate and there’s no point trying to develop new ways of thinking or living. These beliefs reflect a fixed mindset.

The opposite is the growth mindset. People who have growth mindsets do not think of their abilities as fixed. They recognize that while people do have gifts, most abilities and skills can be developed and are not just a result of your DNA.

Leaders must have a growth mindset if they want to be successful in business, blogging, or anything else. This is because the challenges and activities you carry out in the starting and running of a business are varied. You need to deal with people, finance, some degree of psychology, technology, and more.

When you have a growth mindset, you can meet every challenge that appears and grow as a leader and a person.

How to develop a growth mindset

Like any other kind of personal and mental transformation, developing a growth mindset requires time and practice. Here are practical ways to work on creating a growth mindset that becomes part of how you approach business management and life in general.

Learn unusual things

Most people are done with learning after school or college. Or if they do study, it’s to reinforce an area of knowledge they are familiar with. But creativity and growth happen when you expand your horizons and are able to connect dots between different concepts in a way that has not been done before.

So, make it a part of your life to learn something out of your normal scope of interests. It could be history, Confucian philosophy, or watercolor painting. As you try new things, you’ll automatically ‘grow’ in ways you wouldn’t have expected.

Read books, join online classes, or attend live workshops depending on whether it’s safe for you to do so. Even a little bit of effort learning new things on a regular basis will help.

Try radical self-acceptance and other-acceptance

What makes fixed mindsets so narrow is that there’s a mindset where you’re judging things and people. People with fixed mindsets tend to believe that there’s only one right way to do things. They don’t deal with failure well and because of this, they are risk-averse, preferring to never go forward at all if it means never failing.

Practicing self-acceptance and other-acceptance takes you away from a fixed mindset. Put effort into embracing mistakes, accepting failure as a part of our life experiences, and flaws as a natural part of human nature.

When you become more comfortable and accepting of such things, you won’t waste time or energy dwelling on negativity. You’ll take action to remedy a problem or at the very least, learn and carry forward important lessons.

Practice mindfulness regularly

You need to bolster your attempts to have a growth mindset with a mindfulness practice. When you are mindful and practice meditation, you become adept at observing your thoughts.

With time, you can catch yourself when you think or act from a fixed mindset perspective.

Make meditation a regular part of your life and develop the ability to let thoughts pass over instead of occupying your mind.

Feedback can lead to growth

To become a more effective leader, you need to grow from feedback as well as provide it to your team. Working with a mentor or doing team-building efforts with your team, as well as brainstorming ways to improve your business can create great insights.

Seek constructive feedback from your customers too to make changes in your business and in how you operate. In this way, you’ll see expand your thinking and develop a growth mindset.

Conclusion

As entrepreneurs, you can’t afford to not have a growth mindset. Being open to new ideas and to learning new things will help you find solutions you may not have considered before.

First, be aware of the kind of mindset you already have, and then leverage the tips given here to make changes and improve. You’ll feel better and more energized as you continue to take on challenges in life and win them too.