Mindset: It’s Not Just In Your Mind !
According to The Berkeley Well-Being Institute, mindset is:
the set of attitudes or beliefs that we hold.
Sounds simple enough! Mindset is crucially important however because our attitudes and beliefs affect everything we feel, think, do, and experience. Moreover, our mindset influences our perceptions and how we navigate our world. Although everyone has one general mindset, each individual’s mindset is made up of many smaller mindsets. Some help us improve our wellbeing and succeed in the world while others hurt our ability to do so. Developing healthy mindsets can greatly help us reach our goals, achieve success, and ultimately, find happiness.
Six of the most studied mindset types are listed below. Each can be experienced on a continuum. I therefore list them paired- on the left is the more helpful approach and the right, the less healthy rendering. It is important to understand that all these mindsets are changeable. That means they can be learned, adapted, and grown.
- Growth-Fixed
- Positive-Negative
- Challenge-Threat
- Abundance-Scarcity
- Mindful-Mindless
- Entrepreneurial-Worker Bee
Growth and positive mindsets are heavily researched and consequently frequently written about. I perceive the challenge and abundance mindsets to be closely related. The mindful mindset refers to one’s awareness and perception of the world. While some may see the entrepreneurial mindset in the same category as the challenge and abundance mindsets, I have chosen to address it separately, as it combines its own set of traits related to productivity. For these reasons, I will focus this blog on the first four listed mindsets and write separate blogs pertaining to the latter two.
Starting with perhaps the best known, the growth mindset was popularized by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, whose research into motivation and mindset was started in the 1970s, but widely popularized in the early 2000s with the 2006 publication of her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Full of great examples for how to instill a sense of lifelong learning, healthy risk/challenge seeking, growth from life’s hardest mistakes, and confidence-building techniques, Dweck advises,
If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.
The foundation for the research behind the growth mindset is based on brain science and more specifically, neuroplasticity. Defined by Psychology Today,
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to continue growing and evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity to be shaped, molded, or altered; neuroplasticity, then, is the ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new neurons and building new networks
…uncovering endless possibilities! Our amazing brains are capable of shifting functions to its different regions, allowing us to change dysfunctional patterns and other unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving into profitable methods.
The flip side of the growth mindset is the fixed mindset. Those who subscribe to having a fixed mindset believe that the intelligence and abilities we’re born with are those that we have forever- that our brain stops growing after childhood, such that the mindsets, memories, skills, abilities, and intellect we have at the time of early adulthood, remain fixed for the remainder of our lifespan. Individuals who have a fixed mindset believe that they are only capable of so much and should therefore only expect a certain amount from themselves. I feel this to be a very limiting and demoralizing perspective.
A positive mindset was defined by Kendra Cherry at Very Well Mind in 2017 as:
Approaching life’s challenges with a positive outlook. It does not necessarily mean avoiding or ignoring the bad things; instead, it involves making the most of the potentially bad situations, trying to see the best in other people, and viewing yourself and your abilities in a positive light.
I love that Cherry includes the idea that a positive mindset does not mean ignoring negativity. Many people write off the theories of positivity, happiness, and the like as unrealistic or idealistic because life has its ups and downs. Of course it does, and I would be utterly misguided if I said otherwise. However, I appreciate the idea that we can (and should) have a flexible mindset, one which allows us to turn a bad attitude on its head and make something good of it. Whenever possible, I prefer to focus on the bright side, expect positive results, and approach challenges with a positive outlook.
The opposite end of the spectrum for the positive mindset would be a negative mindset. Rather than being able to see the glass half full, one with a negative bias would tend to see the same glass half empty. Positive psychology has studied something called the negativity bias, our tendency not only to register negative stimuli more readily than positive but also to dwell on these negative events, causing us to respond more strongly to negative than to positive or neutral stimuli. This is an unfortunate tendency of humans. However, it does not have to be our downfall because after all, our brains are malleable, and we can learn to challenge such negative practices.
According to Blascovich et al. (2004), the challenge mindset pertains to
How we evaluate the demands of the situation and our resources for coping with these demands. Resources may include skills, knowledge, abilities, dispositions (like positive self-esteem), and external support. Demands may include danger, uncertainty, and required effort. Most of these resources and demands are attitudes, perceptions, and other cognitions—things that we have the power to change.
Therefore, those of us who surround ourselves with new challenges daily are likely to be individuals who like to try new things or take risks. We enter new surroundings with a sense of wonder, intrigue, and courage. We are up for anything and are not likely to see the unknown as a threat. Instead of being fearful, we are brave!
Clearly then, the other side of the continuum is that of the threat mindset. Surely, you’ve heard people speculate about others who are not inclined to take risks/challenge themselves, as being afraid/threatened. What are they afraid of? Of failure of course. But what is failure? It’s the threat/fear that one may not be successful. This sounds familiar. Clearly, we can circle back to the previous discussion of the growth/fixed mindset continuum.
The abundance mindset is one of wholeness. You’ve heard the adage, less is more, well not with the abundance mindset. Here, more is more. For people with an abundance mindset, life is made up of win-win scenarios often inspired by the success of others. We are appreciative for what we have and make gratitude a part of our daily lives. Likewise, we surround ourselves with others who see the glass half full and recognize our possibilities. As a consequence, we are constantly thriving for growth. This should sound familiar (again, think growth/fixed mindset)!
The scarcity mindset, initially coined in Stephen Covey’s best-selling book published in 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, refers to people seeing life as a finite pie; if one person takes a big piece, that leaves less for everyone else. Whereas individuals with an abundance mindset believe there is enough in the world for everyone, if we only expect a certain amount of/from ourselves, how can we possibly fulfill our full potential? Again, this seems a very bleak outcome.
But how do we get there…to a growth/positive/challenge/abundance mindset… if this is not our natural tendency, you may ask? Actively adopting a sense of optimism, acceptance, resilience, gratitude, mindfulness, and integrity will help you develop and maintain a healthy and productive mindset. These traits are not only characteristics of a flourishing mindset, but they are also likely products of one!
To learn more about these topics, read the following blogs:
To see a full library of topics I’ve written about, go to:
If you’ve read your fill and would prefer to wait to read what’s to come, watch for blogs on the mindful and entrepreneurial mindsets!