UNLOCKING THE RIGID SELF THROUGH KEYS OF ALPHABET
By: Jayasri Ramesh
Tags: Mindset Shift

The Dictionary of Self (A-Z) in the journey of self actualisation by shifting Mindset from Fixed to Growth.

Identify yourself with abstract nouns, verbs and adjectives that enable to realize Self-worth and Self-Actualization by shifting Fixed/rigid to Growth/incremental mindset.

Maya is AVP, Communications in a leading Mass media company. She did presentation to the client i.e., broad casting an ad about client’s product in between time slot given for commercials during Olympics. The client outrightly rejected the content for reason, the communication about his Company’s product is not strategically positioned and is tangential to the overall objective of the company. Maya did not expect this to happen. Though she anticipated minor changes in the technical aspects, she was quite confident about the content. She was very disappointed and called for a meeting with her team who worked on the content. One of her team members said the content was old, outdated and not trendy (Digital revolution). The team member suggested Few & vital changes just before presentation, Maya did not heed to any of his suggestions as she believed that content is perfect and deal did not happen because of lacunae of technical team. She is not ready to rewrite the content instead she asked the tech team to redesign from scratch. Whereas the truth is the content was inappropriate as Maya did not have pulse of the Zen x. Maya wants to push the blame to tech department rather taking ownership of failure. She asked the tech team to redesign the presentation by changing the backdrop keeping the same content and follow up with client for further consideration.

Why Maya did not adopt the suggestions by her team?

There are many answers to this single question “why”. The abstract nouns , verbs and adjectives that stay with “self” which become eventually the mindset which can be either “Fixed &rigid “or “Growth or incremental”.

In the present case, we say, she might be having “Rigid or Fixed mindset “

Self-acceptance: It cultivates Growth mind set. It is easy to accept the good & upsides of ourselves. It is difficult and at times we deny any negative angle of ourselves. The first step in betterment of current self is to accept the defects/negative points that we have with in. Once you accept the flaws then you can proceed to the next step i.e., how to conquer them.

In the current scenario, had Maya accepted the truth that she wasn’t tech savvy then fifty percent of her problem would have been solved. Then she can try to better her tech skills with the help of the team with an incremental mindset.

Self-belief: Often self-belief serves as bias and encourage rigid mindset. it is a person’s belief in their ability t`o complete tasks and to achieve their goals. Self-belief means that you should have enough self-confidence to change, but not over-estimate your abilities, as that could become a “fixed or rigid mindset”. You should be willing to grow and adapt and should be aware of your strengths and weaknesses so that you can work on weaker areas.

Maya over estimated her ability in development of content and therefore became rigid in spite of suggestions to change the content were given by her team.

Self- compassion: It makes pathway for growth mind set. We all make mistakes, big and small, but what really matters is how we respond to them. The kindest thing we can do when we make a mistake for ourselves and for other people — is to acknowledge what happened and make amends from a place of compassion.

It’s about the mistakes that arise from choices we make in the moment.

Maya needs to acknowledge that she made two mistakes and subsequently made a choice to present the same content to the client.

1.Not listening to the team

2. Not making required changes in the content before presentation.

Acknowledging mistakes by Maya help her to compassionate with herself and with the people around and enables a new dimension for problem resolution.

Self — diligence: It is the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken.

People with Growth mindset believe that they can improve through dedication and hard work in comparison to the fixed mindset think that ability to improve is innate.

Maya’s confidence on the content depict her Fixed mind set which is against the diligence, as involves constant endeavor in the journey of success where there is no room for complacency.

Self- Empathy: It enables growth mindset. Empathizing is about accepting reality. It’s not about blaming, judging, or (at the opposite end of the scale) condoning but about taking a compassionate look at what is true.

Whatever the mistake, we won’t be able to move past it and start to make amends until we can empathise with why we did? what we did?

Maya should empathize the situation by answering the following questions which in process help her to empathize with the people and things around and will enable her different perspective in addressing the problem.

1.Why the situation arose in first place?

2.what was my contribution towards the situation?

3.Had it been the problem of my best friend, how would I respond?

Self -forgive: This undoubtedly led towards pathway of Growth mindset.

This is probably the most challenging, which means it requires courage and resilience to rebound from the past mistake. At the same time, this is the step that will have the biggest impact on how you will feel about yourself in relation to the mistake later on. At the very least, your mistake will have affected you. It might have affected other people too. Forgiving our mistakes to ourselves can be hard enough, let alone admitting them to other people. In order to truly forgive ourselves from a big mistake, means taking action to demonstrate to the people affected that you want to make up for what happened.

Maya post acknowledging her mistake should forgive herself and should give assurance to the team that she is going to make it up through an apology letter to the client in which she would be sending a draft amended content (that is in consonance with the ZEN X) which she along with her team would be doing in the ensuing week of sign off engagement.

Self — Grit: According to research from Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007), grit is a question of nature and nurture, not one or the other. For people to develop grit, they need to cultivate a growth mindset. Grit is about sustained, consistent effort toward a goal even when we struggle, falter, or temporarily fail. Mentally tough leaders are more consistent than their peers. They have a clear goal that they work towards each day. They don’t let short–term profits, negative feedback, or hectic schedules prevent them from continuing the march towards their vision. They make a habit of building up the people around them — not just once, but over and over and over again.

Maya if she tries to shift her mindset a little bit, she can collaborate with her team and complement successfully. she should focus on nurturing grit which would help her to take timely good choices and confront tough situations.

Self — Honest: It is Pre requisite for Growth mindset .it is a process that includes a consistent effort to become self-aware in accepting yourself for what you actually are. “Most of us live our lives based on our aspirational truth. It’s the version we wish to become, instead of the version of who we are. Self-honesty is about being real in the present.

Maya needs to be honest with her true self, had she been honest about her skill at the first stance she could have sought help from her team in building the need of hour presentation. Her rigid mindset prevented her from being honest to herself.

Self — induction: When a person with rigid mind set confronts a deviation from their original plan or belief or thinking or proposition, they develop resistance subconsciously (i.e., inertia) and the consequences would not be welcoming for themselves and for everyone arising out of rigidity.

Maya exactly developed self — induction at the team meeting when change was suggested owing to her fixed or rigid mindset.

Self — justification: It is the act or fact of justifying oneself, especially of offering excessive reasons, explanations, excuses, etc.., for an act, thought or the like. It is your ego shielding your identity from reality like an overprotective mommy her feeble, fragile child resulting into fixed or rigid mindset.

Maya’s justification that deal is acceptable for technical glitches and not for content arouse owing to her fixed mindset. Her ego (not being able to accept about the quality of content) is shielding her excuse i.e., technical glitches. Hence, she was in complete disbelief about the reality.

Self — kindness: Being warm and understanding towards ourselves when we suffer, fail or feel inadequate. People who are having growth mindsets recognize that being imperfect, failing and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable in the process of reaching potential growth thresholds. Hence, they embrace reality with kindness to experience greater emotional equaminity which is need of hour to be a leader.

Maya’s fixed or rigid mindset did not allow her to embrace the deal rejection with kindness.

Self — learning: People with growth mindsets sets see failing as learning and when they experience failure or downsides in their journey, they learn valuable lessons from these failures and keep experimenting what they learnt to garner the learning leverage (I.e., learning curve effect)

Had Maya been with incremental or Growth mindset she would be keen on learning rather shut for any new ideas by her team.

Self — management: It is the ability to manage our behaviors, thoughts and emotions in a conscious and productive manner with open , incremental and growth mindset know what to do and how to respond in different situations.

Maya on other hand with fixed or rigid mindset became resistant upon the changes suggested by her team.

Self-Nimble: It is again the pre requisite for Growth mindset. It is the ability to thick and understand quickly.

Maya’s approach towards any change is rigid which is opposite to agility or being nimble.

Self — ownership: It is the condition where an individual has the exclusive moral right to control his or her life. People with Growth mindset take ownership of everything including failures and make an effort to problem resolution. On other hand people with Fixed or rigid mindset take ownership as their authority and fail to undertake responsibility as they do the blame game at the times of crisis.

Maya on other hand blamed the technology team for deal rejection and her fixed mindset did not allow her to own the responsibility of failure.

Self — perseverance: A person with Growth mindset may, therefore be more apt to exert effort, even when challenged.

Maya owing to her fixed mindset did not believe in the potential benefits of re — writing the content according to Zen X instead she wanted the technology department need to look into afresh.

Self — quest: People with Growth mindset often want to rediscover themselves and their endeavor to progress is infinite. The quest begins when you decide to no longer settle for current circumstances. The questions. to begin the quest are

1.Do I know what is my belief system?

2.Do I know what is important for me?

3.Do I know my Purpose?

Maya with rigid/fixed mindset fear of knowing the true self which is incompatible under a veneer of “I know everything and I can make people buy into my beliefs “which is quite scary and requires real courage.

Self — Resilience: Growth mindset describes a way of viewing challenges and setbacks. They consider resilience can be developed through effort rather than an inherited trait. They believe that even if they struggle with certain skills, their abilities aren’t set in stone. Skills can be learned and improved over a period of time.

Maya with her fixed mindset felt that content produced by her is irreversible and she did not have to learn anything and that if something needs to be added should be added by her tech team.

Self — sensitivity: It is in other words Emotional intelligence, People with Growth/Incremental mindsets are emotionally sensitive and are more likely to incorporate specific and self-relevant feedback into their self-schemas which in turn lead to self — enhancement.

Maya could not incorporate the feedback about the quality of her content and felt irrelevant, therefore did not felt the need to redesign the content in accordance with Zen X, owing to her fixed / rigid mindset.

Self — tolerance: People with Growth mindset acknowledges that though they are not happy with themselves yet urges them to learn to tolerate their inevitable mistakes and foibles. Tolerance gives strength to do corrective action and give a different perspective towards learning and seeing things from all dimensions.

Maya with her rigid mindset on other hand did acknowledge that it was her mistake hence there is no tolerance nor learning from foibles.

Self — umbrage: People with fixed mindset feel resentment and take offense at any suggestion to do things differently and often lead to vengeful consequences by focusing on the person who made suggestion rather than using the remark for betterment like Growth mindset people.

Maya took umbrage at suggestions made by her team, instead of correcting the content she pushed the blame on tech team who made suggestion.

Self — validation: It is a pre requisite for Growth/incremental mindset. The Five main questions are answered by people in the process of validation are

1.What are my core competencies (Expert strengths) and Weakness?

2.Am I working enough on my weaknesses?

3.What do I need right now?

4.Do I acknowledge my emotions progressively?

5.Do I inspire myself and others?

Maya owing to fixed mindset not able to validate her weak points which was crucial for deal making.

Self — work: People with Fixed mindset stop them from trying to improve and dissuade them to work on certain areas where it is needed. They always try to see improvement in others than in self. They relate failure with everything around them but do not own it and come up with wrong interpretations and conclusions. Growth mindset people work from within (internal) to improve whereas Fixed mindset people expect work from external world for their achievement.

Maya owing to Fixed/rigid mindset expected tech team to redesign the tech aspect of the content rather working on content itself.

Self - xenomania/xenophobia: People with fixed mindsets are like xenophobia’s or fear of strangers or having prejudice towards foreign customs and traditions and their ideas or suggestions. These people constantly suffer from the conflict of self and outsiders unlike people with growth mindset who are instantly ready to adopt foreign traditions and suggestions from outsiders.

Maya’s resistance to suggestion made by her team owing to fixed mindset make her xenophobian.

Self — Yare: People with growth mindset are easily manageable, lively and nimble they are experts in maneuvering at times of crisis unlike Fixed/rigid mindset people who are tough and inexplicable and tag somebody always for their wrong doings.

Maya instead of maneuvering the meeting with client by accepting her mistake and requesting to rework and submit, put the fault to technology team and asked them to follow up with the client.

Self — Zest: People with Growth mindset have great enthusiasm and energy and are not bogged upon by standing blocks instead they put their heart and soul to conquer and go beyond their potential.

Maya was not zest enough to think beyond deal rejection by answering questions like

1.what is key point in the content, that did not appeal the client?

2.Can I ask the client to give feedback on my content?

3.Can I improvise the content by collaborating with the client communication team?

Conclusion: Human endeavor to experience self-worth is perennial and yearns to unleash his potential, beyond” what he is “, towards self-actualization “what he wants to be “. The distance between the timelines present (what are you now) and future (what you want to be) can be effectuated by shifting fixed/rigid mindset to Growth/incremental mindset.

Identify yourself with abstract nouns, verbs and adjectives that enable to realize Self-worth and Self-Actualization by shifting Fixed/rigid to Growth/incremental mindset.

Maya is AVP, Communications in a leading Mass media company. She did presentation to the client i.e., broad casting an ad about client’s product in between time slot given for commercials during Olympics. The client outrightly rejected the content for reason, the communication about his Company’s product is not strategically positioned and is tangential to the overall objective of the company. Maya did not expect this to happen. Though she anticipated minor changes in the technical aspects, she was quite confident about the content. She was very disappointed and called for a meeting with her team who worked on the content. One of her team members said the content was old, outdated and not trendy (Digital revolution). The team member suggested Few & vital changes just before presentation, Maya did not heed to any of his suggestions as she believed that content is perfect and deal did not happen because of lacunae of technical team. She is not ready to rewrite the content instead she asked the tech team to redesign from scratch. Whereas the truth is the content was inappropriate as maya did not have pulse of the Zen x. Maya wants to push the blame to tech department rather taking ownership of failure. She asked the tech team to redesign the presentation by changing the backdrop keeping the same content and follow up with client for further consideration.

Why did Maya did not adopt the suggestions by her team?

There are many answers to this single question “why”. The abstract nouns , verbs and adjectives that stay with “self” which become eventually the mindset which can be either “Fixed &rigid “or “Growth or incremental”.

In the present case, we say, she might be having “Rigid or Fixed mindset “

Self-acceptance: It cultivates Growth mind set. It is easy to accept the good & upsides of ourselves. It is difficult and at times we deny any negative angle of ourselves. The first step in betterment of current self is to accept the defects/negative points that we have with in. Once you accept the flaws then you can proceed to the next step i.e., how to conquer them.

In the current scenario, had Maya accepted the truth that she wasn’t tech savvy then fifty percent of her problem would have been solved. Then she can try to better her tech skills with the help of the team with an incremental mindset.

Self-belief: Often self-belief serves as bias and encourage rigid mindset. it is a person’s belief in their ability t`o complete tasks and to achieve their goals. Self-belief means that you should have enough self-confidence to change, but not over-estimate your abilities, as that could become a “fixed or rigid mindset”. You should be willing to grow and adapt and should be aware of your strengths and weaknesses so that you can work on weaker areas.

Maya over estimated her ability in development of content and therefore became rigid in spite of suggestions to change the content were given by her team.

Self- compassion: It makes pathway for growth mind set. We all make mistakes, big and small, but what really matters is how we respond to them. The kindest thing we can do when we make a mistake for ourselves and for other people — is to acknowledge what happened and make amends from a place of compassion.

It’s about the mistakes that arise from choices we make in the moment.

Maya needs to acknowledge that she made two mistakes and subsequently made a choice to present the same content to the client.

1.Not listening to the team

2. Not making required changes in the content before presentation.

Acknowledging mistakes by Maya help her to compassionate with herself and with the people around and enables a new dimension for problem resolution.

Self — diligence: It is the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken.

People with Growth mindset believe that they can improve through dedication and hard work in comparison to the fixed mindset think that ability to improve is innate.

Maya’s confidence on the content depict her Fixed mind set which is against the diligence, as involves constant endeavor in the journey of success where there is no room for complacency.

Self- Empathy: It enables growth mindset. Empathizing is about accepting reality. It’s not about blaming, judging, or (at the opposite end of the scale) condoning but about taking a compassionate look at what is true.

Whatever the mistake, we won’t be able to move past it and start to make amends until we can empathise with why we did? what we did?

Maya should empathize the situation by answering the following questions which in process help her to empathize with the people and things around and will enable her different perspective in addressing the problem.

1.Why the situation arose in first place?

2.what was my contribution towards the situation?

3.Had it been the problem of my best friend, how would I respond?

Self -forgive: This undoubtedly led towards pathway of Growth mindset.

This is probably the most challenging, which means it requires courage and resilience to rebound from the past mistake. At the same time, this is the step that will have the biggest impact on how you will feel about yourself in relation to the mistake later on. At the very least, your mistake will have affected you. It might have affected other people too. Forgiving our mistakes to ourselves can be hard enough, let alone admitting them to other people. In order to truly forgive ourselves from a big mistake, means taking action to demonstrate to the people affected that you want to make up for what happened.

Maya post acknowledging her mistake should forgive herself and should give assurance to the team that she is going to make it up through an apology letter to the client in which she would be sending a draft amended content (that is in consonance with the ZEN X) which she along with her team would be doing in the ensuing week of sign off engagement.

Self — Grit: According to research from Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly (2007), grit is a question of nature and nurture, not one or the other. For people to develop grit, they need to cultivate a growth mindset. Grit is about sustained, consistent effort toward a goal even when we struggle, falter, or temporarily fail. Mentally tough leaders are more consistent than their peers. They have a clear goal that they work towards each day. They don’t let short–term profits, negative feedback, or hectic schedules prevent them from continuing the march towards their vision. They make a habit of building up the people around them — not just once, but over and over and over again.

Maya if she tries to shift her mindset a little bit, she can collaborate with her team and complement successfully. she should focus on nurturing grit which would help her to take timely good choices and confront tough situations.

Self — Honest: It is Pre requisite for Growth mindset .it is a process that includes a consistent effort to become self-aware in accepting yourself for what you actually are. “Most of us live our lives based on our aspirational truth. It’s the version we wish to become, instead of the version of who we are. Self-honesty is about being real in the present.

Maya needs to be honest with her true self, had she been honest about her skill at the first stance she could have sought help from her team in building the need of hour presentation. Her rigid mindset prevented her from being honest to herself.

Self — induction: When a person with rigid mind set confronts a deviation from their original plan or belief or thinking or proposition, they develop resistance subconsciously (i.e., inertia) and the consequences would not be welcoming for themselves and for everyone arising out of rigidity.

Maya exactly developed self — induction at the team meeting when change was suggested owing to her fixed or rigid mindset.

Self — justification: It is the act or fact of justifying oneself, especially of offering excessive reasons, explanations, excuses, etc.., for an act, thought or the like. It is your ego shielding your identity from reality like an overprotective mommy her feeble, fragile child resulting into fixed or rigid mindset.

Maya’s justification that deal is acceptable for technical glitches and not for content arouse owing to her fixed mindset. Her ego (not being able to accept about the quality of content) is shielding her excuse i.e., technical glitches. Hence, she was in complete disbelief about the reality.

Self — kindness: Being warm and understanding towards ourselves when we suffer, fail or feel inadequate. People who are having growth mindsets recognize that being imperfect, failing and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable in the process of reaching potential growth thresholds. Hence, they embrace reality with kindness to experience greater emotional equaminity which is need of hour to be a leader.

Maya’s fixed or rigid mindset did not allow her to embrace the deal rejection with kindness.

Self — learning: People with growth mindsets sets see failing as learning and when they experience failure or downsides in their journey, they learn valuable lessons from these failures and keep experimenting what they learnt to garner the learning leverage (I.e., learning curve effect)

Had Maya been with incremental or Growth mindset she would be keen on learning rather shut for any new ideas by her team.

Self — management: It is the ability to manage our behaviors, thoughts and emotions in a conscious and productive manner with open , incremental and growth mindset know what to do and how to respond in different situations.

Maya on other hand with fixed or rigid mindset became resistant upon the changes suggested by her team.

Self-Nimble: It is again the pre requisite for Growth mindset. It is the ability to thick and understand quickly.

Maya’s approach towards any change is rigid which is opposite to agility or being nimble.

Self — ownership: It is the condition where an individual has the exclusive moral right to control his or her life. People with Growth mindset take ownership of everything including failures and make an effort to problem resolution. On other hand people with Fixed or rigid mindset take ownership as their authority and fail to undertake responsibility as they do the blame game at the times of crisis.

Maya on other hand blamed the technology team for deal rejection and her fixed mindset did not allow her to own the responsibility of failure.

Self — perseverance: A person with Growth mindset may, therefore be more apt to exert effort, even when challenged.

Maya owing to her fixed mindset did not believe in the potential benefits of re — writing the content according to Zen X instead she wanted the technology department need to look into afresh.

Self — quest: People with Growth mindset often want to rediscover themselves and their endeavor to progress is infinite. The quest begins when you decide to no longer settle for current circumstances. The questions. to begin the quest are

1.Do I know what is my belief system?

2.Do I know what is important for me?

3.Do I know my Purpose?

Maya with rigid/fixed mindset fear of knowing the true self which is incompatible under a veneer of “I know everything and I can make people buy into my beliefs “which is quite scary and requires real courage.

Self — Resilience: Growth mindset describes a way of viewing challenges and setbacks. They consider resilience can be developed through effort rather than an inherited trait. They believe that even if they struggle with certain skills, their abilities aren’t set in stone. Skills can be learned and improved over a period of time.

Maya with her fixed mindset felt that content produced by her is irreversible and she did not have to learn anything and that if something needs to be added should be added by her tech team.

Self — sensitivity: It is in other words Emotional intelligence, People with Growth/Incremental mindsets are emotionally sensitive and are more likely to incorporate specific and self-relevant feedback into their self-schemas which in turn lead to self — enhancement.

Maya could not incorporate the feedback about the quality of her content and felt irrelevant, therefore did not felt the need to redesign the content in accordance with Zen X, owing to her fixed / rigid mindset.

Self — tolerance: People with Growth mindset acknowledges that though they are not happy with themselves yet urges them to learn to tolerate their inevitable mistakes and foibles. Tolerance gives strength to do corrective action and give a different perspective towards learning and seeing things from all dimensions.

Maya with her rigid mindset on other hand did acknowledge that it was her mistake hence there is no tolerance nor learning from foibles.

Self — umbrage: People with fixed mindset feel resentment and take offense at any suggestion to do things differently and often lead to vengeful consequences by focusing on the person who made suggestion rather than using the remark for betterment like Growth mindset people.

Maya took umbrage at suggestions made by her team, instead of correcting the content she pushed the blame on tech team who made suggestion.

Self — validation: It is a pre requisite for Growth/incremental mindset. The Five main questions are answered by people in the process of validation are

1.What are my core competencies (Expert strengths) and Weakness?

2.Am I working enough on my weaknesses?

3.What do I need right now?

4.Do I acknowledge my emotions progressively?

5.Do I inspire myself and others?

Maya owing to fixed mindset not able to validate her weak points which was crucial for deal making.

Self vs work: People with Fixed mindset stop them from trying to improve and dissuade them to work on certain areas where it is needed. They always try to see improvement in others than in self. They relate failure with everything around them but do not own it and come up with wrong interpretations and conclusions. Growth mindset people work from within (internal) to improve whereas Fixed mindset people expect work from external world for their achievement.

Maya owing to Fixed/rigid mindset expected tech team to redesign the tech aspect of the content rather working on content itself.

Self vs xenomania/xenophobia: People with fixed mindsets are like xenophobia’s or fear of strangers or having prejudice towards foreign customs and traditions and their ideas or suggestions. These people constantly suffer from the conflict of self and outsiders unlike people with growth mindset who are instantly ready to adopt foreign traditions and suggestions from outsiders.

Maya’s resistance to suggestion made by her team owing to fixed mindset make her xenophobian.

Self vs Yare: People with growth mindset are easily manageable, lively and nimble they are experts in maneuvering at times of crisis unlike Fixed/rigid mindset people who are tough and inexplicable and tag somebody always for their wrong doings.

Maya instead of maneuvering the meeting with client by accepting her mistake and requesting to rework and submit, put the fault to technology team and asked them to follow up with the client.

Self — Zest: People with Growth mindset have great enthusiasm and energy and are not bogged upon by standing blocks instead they put their heart and soul to conquer and go beyond their potential.

Maya was not zest enough to think beyond deal rejection by answering questions like

1.what is key point in the content, that did not appeal the client?

2.Can I ask the client to give feedback on my content?

3.Can I improvise the content by collaborating with the client communication team?

Conclusion: Human endeavor to experience self-worth is perennial and yearns to unleash his potential, beyond” what he is “, towards self-actualization “what he wants to be “. The distance between the timelines present (what are you now) and future (what you want to be) can be effectuated by shifting fixed/rigid mindset to Growth/incremental mindset.

Jayasri Tangirala , Counselling Psychologist ,Founder Beyond well being

Pics : Taken from public domain (you tube )