What Is Mindset?
According to Verywell Mind, “mindset” is “a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation.”
What this means is that the way you see things, and how you think or behave can influence your perspective on not only yourself but also the world around you.
The Importance of Your Mindset
Your mindset is essential when it comes to how you deal with the things, people, events, and ideas that shape your life. If you see things in black and white, or as good or bad, then you’ll get into a habit of seeing and reacting with that perspective.
The same is true with the people that you surround yourself with because if you start out with a positive attitude and a positive mindset, but then surround yourself with people who only see the negative, their negativity will start to impact you. Surrounding yourself with people that will support you will help reflect the type of person you want to be (or become).
How To Develop A Healthy Mindset
When it comes to developing a healthy mindset, it’s important to look at the two common ways that people often view situations, in both their personal and professional life. Those two ways of thinking are called “growth” or “fixed” mindset. To get a better sense between the two, let me share a table that showcases the differences.
| Growth Mindset | Fixed Mindset |
| You can develop your intelligence throughout your life | You can’t grow your intelligence; it’s fixed |
| Always willing to try something new and to challenge yourself | Don’t want to chance failure, so you avoid challenges |
| Effort and continuous practice can help you master something | Your skills are intact so practice isn’t essential |
| Failure is only temporary; use it as an opportunity to learn and grow | Temporary setbacks are seen as permanent failures |
| Seeing other people succeed is a form of inspiration to continue to work hard and achieve your goals | Seeing someone else succeed can lead to jealousy |
| Feedback allows you to grow, learn, and do better next time | Feedback is an attack on you personally, and you choose to ignore the recommendations |
What this table makes clear is that someone with a growth mindset isn’t afraid of failure; they accept it as an opportunity to learn, and evolve, so that they can reach their goals. Someone with a fixed mindset wants to hide their mistakes and imperfections so that they don’t feel ashamed of their failure– in a sense, they want to seen as having their act together and looking “perfect” on the outside.
As humans, we need to continue to learn, expand our horizons, and so a growth mindset is important. Now, we aren’t saying that if you have a fixed mindset that there is something wrong with you because there isn’t. What we mean is that to help continue to become the best versions of ourselves, we have to be willing to step outside of our comfort zone to grow.
We are here to help
As an executive coach, I’ve been trained and certified to help clients explore their goals, work on creating a better mindset, and how to implement these steps into their everyday life.
If you’re interested in how you can activate your passion, and optimize your performance with Tackship Consulting click here to schedule a FREE consultation.