Mindset - Growth vs Fixed: How to literally change your mind

Do you believe you can only do things one way?

Do you believe that there’s a limit to what you can learn?

Do you believe you are only capable of doing certain things?

A common term these days is ‘Growth Mindset’. It's the new thing to be and to have, but what exactly is it? 

Mindset simply means the way you think or view things. Your mind is set a certain way; you think about things a certain way, or see them from a certain perspective, and your actions are dictated by what you think.

A ‘Growth Mindset’ means you are able to change your perception or view point and expand it to take on new ideas, concepts, and ways of doing things.

“If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.” - Jesse Jackson

In contrast the term ‘Fixed Mindset’ means you are limited by what you believe you are capable of achieving or thinking - you are fixed in your thinking.

If you believe in certain ways of doing things or there is a limit to what you can learn, and are rigid in how you do them, and/or don’t believe there is another way for you, then you have a fixed mindset and you find it difficult to conceive that you could change that. This fixed thinking means you can’t grow or expand in what you can achieve or learn - or at least you don’t think you can.

“Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations our possibilities become limitless.” - Jamie Paolinetti

In life this can either help or hinder, and it shows up in different ways.

You might have a dream about something you want to do, but if you don’t believe it is actually possible for you to achieve it, you won't take action to make that dream happen. It restricts you, and this can leave you unhappy, depressed, even anxious. You might even think there is no point in your life, leading to even darker thinking.

How we think about what we can and can’t do is affected by what others say and tell us, whether it’s parents, teachers or peers. It’s also by what we experience and what meaning we attach to that experience - whether it is something positive or negative – and this in turn can change the decisions when we make future choices.

“Growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” - Carol Dweck

A mindset is a dialogue in our heads. We create this dialogue through our experiences and our feelings, and through what we hear and see externally; through how people treat us and respond to us.

If enough people tell us there is something wrong with us we might then believe it to be true, restricting and treating ourselves accordingly. If they tell us we can’t do something enough times, we might believe it.

But we can stop believing it by literally changing our minds. It’s all down to our internal dialogue. Nothing externally can change that, only we can.

“Change your thoughts, change your life.” - Wayne Dyer

A lot of the ways we limit ourselves are based in fear and comes from low self-esteem and self-doubt. If we are strong in our sense of self and who we are, and trust ourselves and listen to our hearts, we can be more open to change how we think.

We can start this by remembering these three things:

1.) You are not your thoughts

Thoughts are your minds way of processing your day, you don’t need to let them dictate how you feel. You can choose which thoughts to engage with and which ones to discard. But the thoughts you think the most in your conscious mind will feed what your subconscious repeats and delivers into the conscious mind, so the more you interrupt negative thoughts by challenging and replacing them with accurate, ‘true’ thoughts, the more you will train your subconscious into only throwing up helpful, supportive thoughts that will help you open up to what you really want to achieve.

2) You always have a choice

You can not change or control anyone or anything outside yourself. You can only control how you choose to react, and that is always a choice, whether you are aware of it or not (often we are not). You also don’t have to justify any of your life choices or actions either – a common misconception in our society. Only you need to be sure about what you are doing, and leading from the heart. If you are confident in your choices, those around you will be confident too.

3.) What you believe is how you live

The word 'believe' has two other words in it: 'be' and 'live' so what we believe is what we be and how we live. The world is open to you if you believe it is. You can achieve anything you want if you believe you can achieve it. You are only limited by what you believe is possible, and that is fed by your mind and thoughts.

Our internal dialogue can limit us if it is negative: we won’t believe we can do all the things we want to do, no matter how much someone else says we can, or what we witness others doing. Only if we believe it ourselves will we be able to achieve it.

We can feel restricted or we can feel limitless, the choice is ours.

Thus our minds are either fixed or growing - the choice is ours.

Whether you believe you can, or believe you can't, your right. - Henry Ford

Personally I like to believe we can change the stars!