Growth mindset merupakan sebuah keyakinan seorang individu bahwa segala sesuatu dapat ditingkatkan melalui dedikasi dan usaha keras yang dilakukan. Walaupun mereka mengalami kegagalan, namun hal itu justru menjadi pembelajaran bagi mereka untuk berkembang menjadi lebih baik.
Orang-orang yang memiliki keyakinan untuk terus berkembang dan selalu berusaha untuk mencapai tujuannya merupakan orang-orang yang memiliki growth mindset. Hal ini sangat baik bagi sebuah organisasi, perusahaan, hubungan maupun aspek kehidupan lainnya.
Dengan mengambil langkah kecil untuk suatu hal yang baru, dapat membawa kita untuk terus berkembang dan belajar dari setiap kegagalan yang dilalui. Ini merupakan sebuah kunci kesuksesan bagi setiap individu.
Harvard Business School mengangkat sebuah topik menarik mengenai perbedaan growth mindset dan fixed mindset yang dapat membantu kita supaya memahami mindset seperti apa yang harus ditanamkan agar kita terus berkembang dalam artikel yang berjudul “Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset: What’s The Difference?”. Selain itu, McKinsey & Company juga membagikan beberapa cara bagaimana membangun growth mindset dalam artikelnya yang berjudul “How To Develop A Growth Mindset”. Mitra QR mari kita simak pembahasannya, selamat membaca dan semoga bermanfaat!
GROWTH MINDSET VS. FIXED MINDSET
Someone with a growth mindset views intelligence, abilities, and talents as learnable and capable of improvement through effort. On the other hand, someone with a fixed mindset views those same traits as inherently stable and unchangeable over time.
For example, as an aspiring entrepreneur, you need basic finance skills to create your business’s budget and prepare its financial statements. If you have a fixed mindset, you may think, “I’ve never been good with math, let alone financial statements. I’m not cut out to run my own business.”
Now imagine you approach the situation with a growth mindset. You might think, “I don’t have a background in finance, but I can learn and practice those skills until I feel capable.”
The concept of growth and fixed mindsets was coined by psychologist Carol Dweck in her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
According to Dweck, challenging situations can be catastrophic for those with fixed mindsets because of the implication that if they don’t already have the skills or intelligence to complete a task, there’s no chance of improvement.
When you have a growth mindset, you believe you can gain the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed, which makes every challenge a learning opportunity. Given the numerous challenges entrepreneurs face, a growth mindset can be a powerful tool as you work toward your venture’s success.
4 REASONS ENTREPRENEURS NEED A GROWTH MINDSET
While a growth mindset can benefit anyone, it’s crucial for entrepreneurs. Here are four ways a growth mindset can serve you as you launch and grow your business.
1. It Allows You To Move Into New Fields
When you have a growth mindset, your past doesn’t define your future. This can be an asset if you have expertise and experience in another field and want to pursue entrepreneurship.
For example, Indya Wright, former commercial banker and deputy clerk at the Washington, D.C. Superior Court, launched her own public relations and production firm, Artiste House. Rather than let her previous career define her potential, she knew she could learn the language of the startup world through hands-on experience and taking Entrepreneurship Essentials.
“You need to find ways to equip yourself with the skills necessary to sustain your business,” Wright says. “You’re investing in your own success.”
2. It Fosters Resilience
Resilience—the capacity to recover from and move through difficult situations—is critical in the entrepreneurial world. When challenges, setbacks, and failures inevitably arise, your business’s survival depends on your ability to persevere and learn from difficult situations.
In one of Dweck’s studies, her team analyzed students’ brain activity while reviewing mistakes they made on a test. Those with a fixed mindset showed no brain activity when reviewing the mistakes, whereas the brains of those with a growth mindset showed processing activity as mistakes were being reviewed.
A fixed mindset can physically prevent you from learning from mistakes, while a growth mindset can empower you to perceive mistakes as learning opportunities.
3. It Enables You To Iterate On Your Product
“It’s most productive to think of entrepreneurship as an iterative process—a way of managing that involves continually searching for a winning combination of opportunities and resources,” Sahlman says in Entrepreneurship Essentials.
This continual process of testing an idea, learning from the results, and reiterating the product is only possible with a growth mindset.
An entrepreneur with a fixed mindset is likely to view negative feedback as a sign they don’t have the ability to make a valuable product. This can result in avoiding feedback for fear of rejection, untested products and bad product-market fit, or giving up on a venture altogether.
An entrepreneur with a growth mindset, on the other hand, receives negative feedback and constructive criticism and uses it to improve their product offering. With a growth mindset, uncovering your product’s weaknesses doesn’t translate to an inability to create a valuable product. Rather, it enables you to create the best version of it for your target market.
4. It Keeps You Humble
Finally, a growth mindset constantly reminds you that there’s always more to learn. By knowing you have the capacity to improve, a growth mindset can keep you humble throughout your entrepreneurial journey.
This can be especially useful in combatting stagnation. People’s needs, attitudes, and motivations change over time, so periodically reassess your product-market fit. If you get too comfortable with your initial knowledge, you could miss opportunities to grow with your target audience and meet their needs as they arise.
MAINTAINING A GROWTH MINDSET AS AN ENTREPRENEUR
If you realize you’ve been living with a fixed mindset, you can make the switch to one centered on growth by giving yourself ample opportunity to learn new things.
Examples of opportunities are networking and knowledge-sharing with other professionals, reading articles and books on topics you’re interested in, and brainstorming and problem-solving with others to gain new perspectives.
Additionally, taking online courses can be an accessible, rewarding way to maintain your growth mindset and remind yourself that you can learn new skills to make your entrepreneurial venture a success.
HOW TO DEVELOP A GROWTH MINDSET
Whether you’re looking to develop your own growth mindset or integrate it into your organization’s culture, one thing’s for sure: learning and adaptability are fundamental to growth. Explore these insights to discover ways to master these skills in an era of uncertainty, and understand how to:
- Build adaptability as an evergreen skill
- Put intentional learning into practice
- Create a learning culture within your organization
Stay grounded when the only constant is change