The Success Mindset - The New Psychology of Success
Posted on April 20, 2015 by Tricia Ryan, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.
Your success quotient is made up of skills, knowledge and attitude with attitude accounting for 85%. Carol S. Dweck’s book, Mindset The New Psychology
“It is not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.” Alfred Binet.
Your success quotient is made up of skills, knowledge and attitude with attitude accounting for 85%. Carol S. Dweck’s book, Mindset The New Psychology for Success, supports how important attitude is, but adds an additional premise that you have to be open to learning rather than closed to learning. According to Dweck, the world is divided between people who do and don’t have an open mindset. Those who do have an open mindset succeed, often outperform and lead happier lives as compared to those with exceptional skills and knowledge but who have a closed mindset.
Strong differences in people’s backgrounds, experiences, education and training have all been used as a way to explain why some of us achieve success and many of us fall short. According to Dweck, mindsets frame the running account taking place in people’s heads. They guide how you interpret things. The fixed mindset tends to judge failure as a loss and re-enforces its view of failure with internal monologues such as: “this means I am a loser,” or “this means I am not as good as they are.” It also tends to support shutting down, not trying again or giving up. Growth mindset people on the other hand are also monitoring negative situations and have internal dialogue with themselves, but they interpret failure as a challenge and a learning experience. They know that they can obtain both positive and negative learning from failure experiences. They tend to look at failure as constructive and an opportunity for learning and growth. They ask questions like: “what can I learn from this,” or “how can I improve?”
Dweck suggests that there are four key steps to shifting your closed mindset to being more open. It is also important to note that many of us have both mindsets and they come into play in different situations. So when facing a future challenge or setback or criticism, you might decide that your fixed talents or abilities are lacking. Alternatively, you can try a growth mindset approach that suggests you need to ramp up your efforts, stretch yourself and possibly train and enhance your skills and abilities.
Here are some suggested steps:
1. Learn to identify and hear your fixed mindset voice.
Look at situations and ask yourself about your judgments and your response to the situation. Are you saying things like: “It’s not too late to back out, make excuses,” or “it’s not my fault?”
2. Recognize that you do have a choice.
Interpreting situations as bad or challenging or a setback can often be shifted to viewing them as a learning experience and a stepping stone to success. The choice is really up to you.
3. Talk back to yourself with a growth mindset voice.
A fixed mindset voice can say things like “are you sure you can do this; maybe you don’t have the talent.” On the other hand, a growth mindset voice might say: “I may not be able to do this right now but I can learn it with time and help.”
4. Take a growth mindset action step.
Since it is up to you, what you say and hear is up to you. Learn from your setbacks and try again. Take on challenges and when you hear criticism, act on it. This is not always easy but practice, with the support of a coach or mentor, can make all the difference in enhancing your success quotient score and getting attitudes in place for enhanced success.
To understand and obtain the resources you need to maximize your success consider the FocalPoint Business Coaching Model. It will deliver progressive action by taking a proactive “one step at a time approach”, unique to you, and build on your incremental successes.
