When deciding what new habit to pursue, it’s easy to look at all the things we shouldn’t do as a place to begin. We want to stop smoking or stress eating. We want to learn how to say ‘no’ or to quit spending so much time on social media.
Have you ever considered the flipside of all that by building a habit that’s positive? What if the habit you formed was one of growth and personal development?
Having a growth mindset positively impacts your life in multiple ways, so it’s a great healthy habit to build into your life.
What are the benefits of developing a growth mindset?
1. You keep learning. Learning is important as you not only discover new ways to do things, but by making a practice of constantly learning, you develop new ways of thinking, and start having new ideas. Learning connects you with more of the world and helps you see things with a deeper significance than you ever thought possible. But more than that, people who stop learning very quickly become stagnant…and unfulfilled. Studies have shown that the practice of learning new things when you are older helps ward off problems related to dementia. In short, learning is good for your brain!
2. You expand your awareness. As we learn new things, we adapt and change how we think. That gives us the ability to see other solutions to problems that would have frustrated us in the past. In a sense, this expanded awareness allows us to think out of the box and become more resourceful. By challenging yourself to grow, you learn how to find new paths and overcome previously impassable obstacles.
How about some more actionable benefits?
3. You learn how to embrace challenges. Growth can be challenging, and scary. But by pushing yourself to grow, that means you’re also pushing yourself to look at everything differently; your personal abilities, your influence in your life, the world around you is working for you, previous “challenges” no longer cause stress, anxiety, or overwhelm. An obstacle now becomes an opportunity to learn something new and to do things in a way you haven’t tried before. That’s exciting…not scary.
4. You learn how to embrace failure. When you’re interested in growing as an individual, you start to see failure differently. Everything becomes a potential lesson in a way that you didn’t think would work. For every failure that you make, you figure out something that didn’t work, and you are one step closer to finding the solution. On to the next one!
5. You become more open to criticism. By embracing a willingness to grow, you start to see that sometimes the input of other people has significance. You see their words not so much as something negative, but something you can use to develop as a person and learn something about yourself, or how you engage with others. You might not always like the lesson, or agree with it, but that’s part of growing too. Keep in mind: life doesn’t happen on your schedule, things are not always linear, and sometimes the lesson isn’t always clear…until later.
Who doesn’t want to be…better at everything?
By embracing personal growth, you uncover and fortify the best version of yourself. You’re able to become more than you ever thought possible, and then surprise yourself again by finding out that you can become more still. You’ll find that the furthest edges of yourself are far beyond what you thought you ever could be. To jumpstart your growth mindset – check out my free Mindset Shifts mini-course.
Throughout my life there have been fundamental beliefs, ideas and principles that have helped me achieve success in many respects. I’ve benefited from many different schools of thought and learned from mentors of all different backgrounds and philosophies. The way I live my life and the concepts I teach are a reflection of these different points of view.
