My growth mindset journey

I'll be honest with you; I'd never heard the phrase growth mindset until my children started school and even then, I thought of it as educational jargon. It was only when my husband and I attended an open evening for secondary school that something clicked.

We were in the maths department and I flippantly said "I'm not very good at maths" to the teacher. The look I got! The response was along the lines of, "We don't say that here, we encourage a growth mindset." I felt like I was a student. I felt oddly chastised and came home and Googled the phrase to understand it more.

The term essentially means that you believe you can improve your ability or skill at something with hard work, effort, and practice and if you fail, you learn from it and try again. So rather than pigeonholing myself as someone who doesn't 'get' maths, I should be saying, this is where I am now, but if I work at it and study, I know I could become better.

I wondered why I hadn't been aware of the term until then, but it was only coined in 2006 by the American psychologist Professor Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Just before I had my first child, so my mind was on different things entirely.

"If not now, then when?"

But this isn't about me getting better at maths. I saw the change in my mindset when I reached a point in my life - after a bereavement - when I wondered what my next chapter looked like. It was at this point that I truly understood what is meant by a growth mindset.

I knew I felt unfulfilled, stuck in a rut, and that I had more to give and that I had to allow myself to grow, push myself out of my comfort zone, and learn. There's nothing like a milestone birthday to crystalise your goals too. I thought "If not now, then when?" It's in those scary moments when you are truly pushing yourself beyond your boundaries, failing and trying again that contentment and a sense of achievement can be found.

To quote Michelle Obama "Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don't be afraid to fail."

The C word; confidence

I know I'm not alone in this fear of venturing into the unknown. I hear it often with my clients, who are largely busy women in their midlife juggling work, children, home life, and ageing parents. Women who have given a chunk of their life caring for others, who have made sacrifices and - as a result - have lost a little of their identity and confidence in themselves.

When we do allow ourselves time to slow down, to think, to stop worrying about our to-do list, and give ourselves freedom from the 'shoulds', 'musts', and 'have-tos' we realise there are things we want to do, we want to learn, we want to try and yet often we don't have the confidence to take the chance and give it a go.

It feels like we've forgotten how to grow. It's hard work maintaining a growth mindset when your mind is busy juggling so much and you feel like you are just keeping your head above the water.

But it's not good for us and a lack of growth can lead to stagnation. Not a positive word but one that was used recently by a client. Without growth, we stagnate.

The good news is that a growth mindset makes you feel positive. It gives you a plan and a goal. It helps bring satisfaction as you see yourself improving and that in turn brings about new confidence and positivity. In my experience, confidence breeds confidence.

10 tips for embracing a growth mindset 

1. Reflect on the challenge or situation you have and visualise where you want to be, perhaps write/draw/vision board/Pinterest some ideas of what that looks like.

2. What's holding you back? Name any self-doubt keeping you stuck and think about why that may be.  

3. Challenge those beliefs, what if you could do this, what would that look like?

4. Give it a go!

5. Replace the word 'mistake' in your mind with 'opportunity to learn'. (channel Michelle Obama here!)

6. Reflect on what went well or what you might do differently and ask for feedback from supportive people around you.

7. Try again and keep trying, make adjustments along the way, you're learning.

8. Be kind to yourself. If it takes longer than you expected, that's ok.

9. Celebrate achievements big and small and share them with others for that sense of accomplishment - that's where a coach can be useful, acting as your cheerleader in the wings.

10. Become the person you deserve to be.

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