Yeah, your stop is not here.
By: Ahsan Azam
Tags: Growth, Mindset, Motivation, Personal Development

Have you ever wondered how our mindset controls us? How does it drive our emotions, how does it intrigue us towards challenges or holding back from challenges, how it actually drives our whole lifestyle? Now let’s see, what is it all!

Shan White said, ‘Mindset is your rudder in the boot of your life’

Mindset refers to a collection of ideas or thoughts which get rigid that they may compromise our ability to take right and rational decisions, while on the flip side, it’s also the mindset which encourages us to take challenges and never fear, never give up. Actually what happens is that there are two kinds of mindset viz, fixed mindset and growth mindset which we keep switching in our regular life. But what decides the defining course of our life is the predominance of what mindset we are carrying.

Let’s take a quick trip to both types of mindsets in a few lines. Fixed mindset limits us by not accepting new challenges, it says abilities and talent are innate, they can’t be modified, furthermore it says that feedback is not my thing, Im perfect in my work, it makes you feel threatened by the success of others thus creates jealousy which being negative emotions affects your attitude.

While, if fixed mindset attributes are reversed, we have the growth mindset. Growth mindset is really something we all should cherish. It dictates us to face challenges, it embraces mistakes and accept feedback to improve on a certain skill. Growth mindset lets us celebrate others’ success too and get inspired by the stories of those who are successful in their careers and learn from them.

Our brain is adaptable to change, it works like a muscle. So, here is good news, if we are more inclined towards a fixed mindset, we can rewire our brain and can put it more towards a growth mindset. But the question is, how this will happen, this could only happen through our sheer resolve to shift our mindset towards growth by continuous practice of accepting challenges, learning from mistakes, keeping ourselves open to the feedbacks, taking obstacles as opportunities to learn something new out of that.

Why the growth mindset is being stressed here, it’s because, it is the type of mindset which makes you a great problem solver, critical thinker, multi dimensional personality, lifelong learner, the key attributes today’ world organizations crave for. A person with a growth mindset can develop any skill through effort and dedication.

Let’s take an anecdote into account. There were two people on a tour to caves in the mountains, one with a fixed mindset and the other with a growth mindset. They went to a cave, and what happened was a heavy metal piece through wind came and blocked the cave thus leaving them stranded inside. At that moment, the person with a fixed mindset panicked all of a sudden and thought about his last few hours before death, while on the contrary, the person with a growth mindset takes that challenge in hand and started thinking how they can come out of that cave. He started looking here and there searching for something which could remove that heavy metal object.

Luckily, he found some long iron rod there and then by rubbing its tip against the stones, he molded that into a specific shape which could help lift and remove the metal object from the cave and it happened as he wanted and they both were out. Hurrah, he said. He enjoyed that experience and learnt something new while the other person who was just a typist and a skillful typist was he, he just left the hope saying, this is not my domain, my hands are up, I can’t do anything.

What we can conclude from here is that, if we have a growth mindset, we don’t get panicked to see something new out of our areas of expertise, we just take things as opportunities to learn something new on a daily basis believing that every skill can be learnt and even mastered with perseverance and effort. Like Edison was declared utterly unintelligent by the school, but later on what he did, he invented bulb after a long hard struggle comprising hundreds of failed experiments which he called as the ways through which a bulb can’t be made. This is the approach which makes the difference.

Fixed mindset would only make you go to a certain career height, while a growth mindset would not only let you summit Mount Everest but create an urge to explore the world beyond Mount Everest.

Finally I would conclude, the current era is in desperate need of great problem solvers and multi skilled persons which can only be the ones who have the growth mindset. So, let’s utilize the neuroplastic ability of our minds and grow ourselves as a growth minded person to taste the real delight of life as they are the ones who follow Allama Iqbal’s motivational verse of couplet,

‘Manzil se aagay barh kar manzil talash kar’ (Just find the destination after destination. If you find the one, just start seeking the other because you have been blessed with a powerful mind by Allah Almighty.