The 5 benefits of having a growth mindset

A growth mindset is when people believe their talents and abilities can be grown. They think that they can do this by increasing their talent by practice, effort and gaining more knowledge around that talent or ability.

On the converse, a fixed mindset is when a person believes that their abilities and talents are inborn and static, and therefore will not improve or decrease. These two mindsets form the basis of belief if you succeed or not. There are many benefits to having a growth mindset, and here are the top five.

Improves Your Self-Esteem

A growth mindset is critical for self-belief. People who have this kind of mindset will often have a realistic view of their abilities, capabilities, and talents to build areas they are strong in and work to improve areas of weaknesses. They do not give up on their weak areas but work hard to improve them.

It enables them to have confidence that they can achieve something if they put in time and effort to learn and work. It causes them to achieve what they could not before, which increases their self-esteem and causes them to tackle more challenging goals because they know they can reach them based on experience.

Learn New Skills

Because a growth mindset makes you more open to learning new skills and things you do not know, you find that you can gain new skills if you are interested in learning something new. With a growth mindset, you will strive to accomplish the goals that you set for yourself.

When hiring, this is one of the factors that employers look out for is a growth mindset. This is because even if a new hire does not have the skills needed, they will learn and be able to deliver on the job because they will put in the effort and believe they can learn on the job.

Accept New Challenges

In business, there will always be new challenges. These can come in many different forms, and sometimes the company can face many challenges at once. An employee with a growth mindset will not give up or complain but will find a way to deal with every problem until you resolve it.

A business owner with a growth mindset will not blame her employees but will instead motivate them to work together as a team. It is critical for leaders to have a growth mindset to lead their people to believe in themselves and achieve greater success individually and as a team. However, this does not mean that you should take uncalculated risks. It means that you will take reasonable risks that lead the business into new territories.

See New Opportunities

With a growth mindset, you will see opportunities where other people see challenges. It does not mean that you do not recognise the challenges but rather can weigh all the factors that will make the challenge a success or a failure. A fixed mindset will already give up before considering options.

Subconsciously, with a growth mindset, your brain will pick out new opportunities to give birth to new possibilities. On the other hand, a fixed mindset will subconsciously bypass that opportunity because the brain knows that it’s natural talents or abilities are limited and therefore will not work towards it. Employees must have a growth mindset to creatively solve problems and see new opportunities to help grow the business. Hiring professionals should look out for such individuals when staffing an organisation.

Look Out For Feedback

If you have a growth mindset, you are more likely to ask for feedback to improve your results and methods the next time. Researchers have found that this is because you are looking to improve yourself with this kind of mindset, and feedback is a means of getting a new perspective of something you may not have thought of.

For people with a fixed mindset, feedback is seen as absolute praise or absolute criticism, and it is not seen as a means of improving yourself. It is also seen as a means to compare with others which is not designed to help growth. A growth mindset will enable you to consider all the aspects of a job and recognise where you could have done better. It does not put you down, instead, it causes you to want to try again and improve.