What is growth mindset, why it’s crucial to success, and how it will make your more money

 

If you are like me, you have consumed an ENORMOUS amount of information, webinars, and online courses – many that espouse the importance of mindset for success.

You might even be sooo sick of the typical hustle-money-success jargon that you’ve begun to just tune it out! I get it, I have too – but one buzzword has earned it’s fandom and should have your full attention: Growth Mindset.

This phrase has snuck into corporate missions statements all over the world (often without much backing) because it is a concept that revolutionized our understanding of learning. It changed how educators perceive a student’s success or failures and shed light on the why.

I’ll explain why you want to actively strive to switch to a growth mindset, how it can bring you success in your business and help you increase your income.

What is Growth Mindset?

Growth Mindset

[grohth] [mahynd-set]

noun

The understanding that abilities and intelligence can be developed.

Those with a fixed mindset believe their achievement to be a matter of luck or innate ability – creating a situation where they don’t really believe they have the power or control over their own successes and failures.

Mull over that for a moment.

A belief that your abilities, and intelligence, can be developed; Grown, improved, and made better with effort.

This has been identified by Stanford professor Dr. Carol Dweck as the key difference between students who took failure as a learning opportunity and those who allowed every small setback to stop them dead in their tracks.

“For some people, failure is the end of the world—but for others, it’s this exciting new opportunity.” – Dr. Dweck

Some people perceive failure as the end of the world, a tattoo of their abilities inked on them forever. Yet some relish it; Seeing failure as an open door of opportunity.

If you don’t believe your efforts will result in a bigger payoff, then why would you put your full potential into it? If you think your abilities right at this moment are fixed and won’t change, why even try?

Makes sense, right?

Why is a Growth Mindset Crucial for Business Success?

When Dr. Dweck began her research she wanted to find out more regarding a student’s attitude toward failure, what she found was that those willing to fail and learn from it tend to achieve more, as they spend their energy learning and becoming better, not worrying about perceptions or saving face.

Let’s apply this to a business environment.

Employees in a “growth mindset” company are:

47% likelier to say that their colleagues are trustworthy,

34% likelier to feel a strong sense of ownership and commitment to the company,

65% likelier to say that the company supports risk taking, and

49% likelier to say that the company fosters innovation.

Dr. Dweck asserts that, “organizations that embody a growth mindset encourage appropriate risk-taking, knowing that some risks won’t work out. They reward employees for important and useful lessons learned, even if a project does not meet its original goals. They support collaboration across organizational boundaries rather than competition among employees or units. They are committed to the growth of every member, not just in words but in deeds, such as broadly available development and advancement opportunities. And they continually reinforce growth mindset values with concrete policies.”

Powerful stuff.

This is trickle-down culture!!!! If you are the leader of your organization, captain of your ship, head cheerleader of your squad, it is up to you to exemplify a belief system that encourages collaboration, fearless ambition, and a commitment to the growth of everyone on your team.

Statistics show that employees who feel challenged, supported, and valued have a higher retention rate. This will be crucial to building your empire, as high employee turnover rates kill profit. Consider this:

• 64% of workers are looking to leave their current jobs (Forbes)
• 51% of the U.S. workforce is not engaged (Gallup)
• Disengaged employees cost organizations between $450 and $550 billion annually (The Engagement Institute)
• Disengaged workers cause massive losses in productivity – between $450 and $500 billion a year (Mental Health America)
• 16% of employees said they felt “connected and engaged” by employers (EmployeeChannel)
• Employees with a high confidence level in their company’s senior leadership are 5 times as likely to remain with their employer more than 2 years compared to employees with no confidence (Qualtrics)
• It can cost 33% of an employee’s salary to replace him/her (HR Dive)

Whoa.

Growth mindset = more committed and engaged employees = better financial solvency for you. Click To Tweet

How Changing Your Mindset Affects Profit

When you shift your mindset, you will notice that the obstacles that previously seemed daunting become #goals. So how does this correlate to profit?

When you begin to believe that not only you, but everyone around you – your team, clients, contractors – can, in fact, improve with effort and education, both your conscious and unconscious behavior will change. You become more likely to take risks. This is where the opportunity lies.

Risk-taking is inherent to entrepreneurship – in fact – risk-taking is a differentiator. Historically, those willing to jump – to take calculable risks that they know may not work out – are the ones poised to achieve massive success.

“Most women I know who have been successful in business, it’s because they’ve been willing to take on the risky challenge that other people would say, ‘Oh, I’m not sure I want to do that.’ If you look at my career, I’ve taken on a lot of risky roles. They were risky to some people but to me it was, ‘Wow, this is this great opportunity and it’s allowing me to learn new things and take on a bigger role and a bigger organization.’” – Sandra Peterson, CEO of Bayer Cropscience

 

This shift alone opens the door for you to see and act upon financial opportunities that may have otherwise been buried under a mountain of doubt. Investing in the future of your company is a requirement in order to see a return, but the act of investing is a risk. It requires belief in your ability to grow.

Start examining your mindset and create a daily practice to begin shifting away from a fixed, stuck mindset to one that views every experience as an opportunity. Begin to see that risks are a necessity and start acting on calculable risks, and position yourself so that when the opportunity for massive success comes knocking – dressed as a huge challenge – you are ready to LEAP.

I explore topics related to your growth mindset frequently over on my travel blog, Dream Life Explorers! Check it out