We hear so much now about mindset nowadays, it’s become something of a buzz word. But first we need to know what a mindset is and then we will learn why your mindset matters.
If you aren’t clear on what a mindset is, or why mindsets matter, you won’t know what you need to do to change or grow. In this article, you’ll learn what mindset is and why that matters.
From Psychology Today website:
- A mindset is a belief that orients the way we handle situations—the way we sort out what is going on and what we should do. Our mindsets help us spot opportunities, but they can also trap us in self-defeating cycles.
Now we know that, lets move on.
Table of Contents
What does it do?
How often have you heard someone say they have an open your mind? Or that someone has a closed mind about a particular subject or even perhaps in general.? When presenting a new idea people often say “keep an open mind”.
Most people have heard or said this at some point. Your mindset often becomes set about certain issues and even in general aspects of your life as you get older. It can also be set through things learnt as a child and young adult, could be related to survival if life was lived in a harsh environment.
Your mindset determines what you experience and the ideas you are open to and what it is closed to.
Your mindset sets your success in life, love/relationships and business. Your mindset can be fixed in some ways about certain situations and ideas or you might have a growth mindset that allows you to grow as a person and live a happier life.
Mindset, according to Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, is the view you adopt, which determines how you live your life, you see the world, and make decisions.
- After studying the behavior of thousands of children, Dr. Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence. When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger. Therefore they put in extra time and effort, and that leads to higher achievement.
So this means?
That it is your perspective or your view of the world and your beliefs about your abilities and qualities that form how you do things or see things. It’s your normal attitude or mental state.
Think about your strengths or talents. Are you musically inclined? Are you wise or intuitive? Are you creative? How you answer these questions defines your mindset and provides clues as to how you view the world and yourself. Your mindset shapes your reality and your perception of what you can do and what’s out of reach for you.
Your mindset can be optimistic, negative or a mixture of both. Your mindset can be that of a person with a sunny outlook on life, an athlete’s focus on success or a business owner’s methodical way of thinking.
Growth and Fixed Mindset
There are the different types of mindsets as well as Dr Carol Dweck said.
The fixed mindset and the growth mindset are the two main ones that determine how you see things.
A fixed mindset is just that. Fixed ideas on some or many things. You believe they are true and do not want to believe otherwise, often because the belief has been fixed there for a long time.
A growth mindset also speaks for itself. It is open to new ideas, ready to learn new things and wants and is keen to grow further.
You might have a social mindset, a fear mindset, lazy or envy mindset. Maybe you have a business mindset, a follower mindset or a dreamer mindset. You can possess a creative mindset, a confident mindset, or have a gratitude mindset. Your mindset might be one of greed or anger. You can have different mindsets about different areas of your life as well.
Why your Mindset Matters
The mindset plays a significant role in how you cope with challenges. When you were in school, if you had an open or growth mindset helped you achieve more and learn by putting in more effort. Your mindset can determine how resilient or persistent you are.
Your mindset determines how successful you will be in every area of your life. For example, someone with a growth mindset is much more likely to succeed because they are driven and believe they should always aim for bigger and better things. Those with a closed or fixed mindset become stagnant, lacking motivation to achieve more than they already have.
Your mindset is the force behind whether you thrive or avoid challenges, how you view failures and setbacks and how you persevere toward your goals. You can change your mindset when you realise it’s keeping your stuck.
Thank you for visiting. If you found this post enjoyable and/or helpful please share.
Questions and comments welcome.
The mind is a great part of many things that we do and truth is, it can be a reason why we succeed and also the reason for failure in any instances. I have gone into business a lot of time with the mindset that it may not work and truth is they didn’t work. The mind helps you as a motivation and a positive mindset will give you the boost you jewd
Exactly Justin. Without the proper mindset it is very hard to succeed at anything in life. ‘What you think about you bring about.’ So thinking failure does make it happen.
Thank you for visiting and commenting.
What you shared in here is really great and I appreciate it here. It is really great and I can benefit from IT. Our mindset is capable of anything so long as we are willing to send out the energy to it and do the work. What you shared here is great and very well worthy in all. This was great to read. Thumbs up to you here
Glad you enjoyed this blog post Nath and found it helpful.
Mindset is very important in the way we deal with things throughout our lives and plays an important part in whether we are successful or not.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Most of the things that we do as humans are based on our mind, what we say, do and how we react to issues. This makes it of the utmost importance for us to know why our mindset is important, this will help us know how to handle and control our mindset to benefit ourselves. Thanks for the post.
I agree Bruce, mindset does affect the way we react to everything.
Not everyone realises that it makes such a difference or that it can affect how successful we become in life. It is good to understand that we have the control to change to being positive rather than negative.
Thank you for your comments.
This is a very good post you have shared on the mindset and why it matters very much to us. I hear oekoel very often talk about having a closed mind or an open mind to something but I think that open mindedness is the most important of all the kind of person when to have a mindset, just the way you discussed it here. Nice work!
Thank you Suz, gad you enjoyed it and found it helpful.
Having an open mind is very important as you said. That way we are more open to new ideas and listen to other people’s views rather than just dismissing them because they don’t agree with our own.
We learn much more when we have an open mind and having a positive mindset means we are more likely to be successful.