A growth mindset is the belief that skills and abilities can be developed by embracing opportunities to learn and grow. It means you always seek ways to improve and develop new skills. You turn every challenge into lessons that will help you improve and become better.
The opposite of this attitude is a fixed mindset. It’s a belief that their abilities are set in stone. That things cannot be changed or improved. You are who you are. This self-limiting belief often leads to stagnation as you avoid learning and improving opportunities. So you tend to choose a path where it is familiar and easy.
While it is true that part of our nature as humans is to seek comfort and choose the path of least resistance, this doesn’t mean we cannot change this mindset. Our dreams will not materialize on their own unless we step out of our comfort zones and start doing the hard things. We will not know what winning feels like UNTIL we free ourselves from this self-limiting fixed mindset that makes us believe it CANNOT be done.
May this poem from Sir Edgar Albert Guest inspire us all to get rid of our fixed beliefs and start embracing a growth mindset with a desire to make a difference.
My favorite lines from the poem:
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
