Growth Mindset and How To Get One

Roarke
3 min readNov 14, 2020

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A growth mindset focuses on “how can I grow,” instead of `I will grow when I need to.” If you have a growth mindset you can face a problem and say “how can I learn from this’’ instead of “why me?”. Growing is a key part of our life. During your childhood, you grow in height and maturity. Growing in life is something that doesn’t come with age, but with mindset. If you have a positive mindset and forward-focused instead of negative you will live a life growing from problems instead of sitting down and giving up. While reading this you will learn why you need a growth mindset and my tricks to get one.

I have had both mindsets and have learned that a positive one will get you a lot farther than a negative one. Storytime: A few years ago I applied to some middle schools in my area. I was waitlisted or denied at all of them. After that, for a few years, I had the mindset that if I did not try then I could not fail. Until last school year, when the pandemic started, that was my mindset. Last year at the end of class I had a teacher call me out and say I know you can do better work and that you can try harder. I got thinking and realized that I wanted to be better. After that when I faced a challenge I said to myself “how can I grow and learn from that?” I have grown in maturity and I know not to give up when I face an obstacle. Since then I also push myself to do work better than the day before and to try new things. My grades are now steady at a grade that I want and am proud of instead of simply getting by or through the work. I was simply coasting but not doing enough to be proud of my work. That has changed. I am now proud of my work because my mindset changed. Trying something is better than not. I have been on both sides of this mindset dilemma and I can say with 100% certainty that being positive will lead to success and you will be happier with what you do.

Ok so here is the part about going about getting a growth mindset. How many of you are asking yourself how to have a growth mindset. Good question. I recommend that when you face a challenge ask yourself “how can I grow from this?”, “How can I face this challenge and succeed?”, or “What can I do to learn from this?” Do not say to yourself “why me?”, “This is not fair” or “this is someone else’s problem.” If you can ask yourself the first set of questions you are on track to have a growth mindset. Next, if you fail at something say to yourself “no one is perfect.” We all fail, it is a normal human thing. Remember “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison. Overall these are my ideas and recommendations to learn and grow using these questions and what to ask yourself instead.

Some things to do to change your mindset is if you say “Plan A failed, now what?” change that to “plan A failed, good thing there are 25 more letters to go.” If you give up, say “I will try a new strategy.” One thing I always used to say was “It’s good enough;” I have tried to change that to “is this my best work?” If you say “I am awesome at this,” change that to “I am on the right path.” Try taking something negative or egotistical and say something that is positive or positive reinforcement instead.

Overall having a growth mindset will help you throughout your whole life. It isn’t easy to do every day. I am far from perfect at it. However, when I have a challenging project instead of thinking “I dislike this job” say “how can I make this job better?” Having a chore that is hard instead of “this is too hard,” try “how can I motivate myself to keep going?” Having a growth mindset has changed my life and it can change yours as well. If you have a positive mindset you can be successful by knowing how to face challenges positively and it will prepare you for life in a way that makes it easier to be happier with whatever you have and whatever you are doing.

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Roarke
Roarke

Written by Roarke

Visually impaired 16-year-old running three non-profits

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