The Benefits of Having a Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is when people believe their talents and abilities can be grown. They make a deliberate choice to focus on HOW they can increase their talent or ability by three main ACTIONS:
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 and will determine if you succeed or not. There are many benefits to having a growth mindset. We have curated the five most important benefits for your convenience. We also have three posters you can have in your child’s room or in your child’s classroom to facilitate your child developing this mindset. Check them out!
Benefit #1: Improves Your Self-Esteem
A growth mindset is critical for self-belief. Students 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.
Benefit #2: 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 applying for admission into a competitive school or securing an amazing career opportunity, having a growth mindset is one of the factors that evaluators look out for. 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.
Benefit #3: Accept New Challenges
In school and in life there will always be new challenges. These can come in many different forms, and sometimes your child can face many challenges at once. A student with a growth mindset will not give up or complain but will find a way to deal with every problem until it is resolved.
A student with a growth mindset will not blame his or her teacher or parent or the work but will instead motivate themselves to reach out for help, form a study group and get ahead of their course material. It is critical for students to have a growth mindset to lead themselves to believe in themselves and achieve greater success individually and alongside their peers. However, this does not mean that you should take uncalculated risks. It means that your student should take reasonable risks that lead them into new territories.
Benefit #4: See New Opportunities
With a growth mindset, your child will see opportunities where other people see challenges. It does not mean that they won’t recognize 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. Students must have a growth mindset to creatively solve problems and see new opportunities to continue to develop both academically and professionally. Parents and teachers makes sure you look out for the words that you child speaks when they encounter a challenge. This will let you know what kind of mindset is driving their success. Gently correcting them and having the aforementioned posters available as a soft support will make a major difference.
Benefit #5: 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 facilitate growth. A growth mindset will enable you to consider all the aspects of a project or task and recognize where you could have done better. It does not put you down, instead, it causes you to want to try again and improve.
Cultivating a growth mindset is one of the most important elements necessary to be on the journey to success. We strongly encourage you to make this mindset a priority by reminding your child about the appropriate thoughts they should have when they encounter failure or a challenging obstacle. When this mindset is developed over time, your child will become an indestructible force willing to take on any and every challenge knowing that it is their effort, practice and knowledge that will determine their success. There is always room for improvement and that choice is always in a person’s hands.
