How To Achieve a Mindset for Success

When you think about your qualities, talents, creativity and intelligence, do you imagine a certain static endowment you received more or less at birth? Or are you the type to see your personal qualities as developing, changing and growing throughout your life?

Someone with a fixed mindset sees talent alone as the reason for success, whereas a person with a growth mindset believes that hard work and dedication can transform even basic abilities into formidable achievements. According to Carol Dweck, a renowned Stanford University psychologist who has conducted decades of research on achievement and success, where you fall on this scale describes your "mindset."

While most of us will hold a combination of these two beliefs, Dweck says learning how to adopt as much of a growth mindset as possible is best. A fixed mindset, she says, will inevitably hold you back.

"For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life," writes Dweck in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. "It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value. How does this happen? How can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and, as a result, your life?"

As it turns out, it's about much more than the simple power of positive thinking, Dweck discovered. "Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality and a certain moral character — well, then you'd better prove that you have a healthy dose of them."

While wanting to prove yourself doesn't seem like a bad thing, the prospect of failure can be a hurdle. From research into school children's attitudes about failure, Dweck discovered that some kids were able to rebound from failure while others shut down after even small setbacks. She concluded that when students believe they have the ability to become smarter, they understand that the effort to get there makes them stronger.

In other words, a growth mindset can help fuel motivation and achievement. It means embracing challenges, persevering in the face of setbacks, being open to constructive criticism and feeling inspired by others' successes. They all, naturally, can make for a successful investing mindset as well.

How do you handle criticism? In a fixed mindset, useful negative feedback is ignored. In a growth mindset, negative feedback is an opportunity to learn.

Dweck maintains that growth mindsetters are happier and more successful, with greater resilience and a lifelong passion for learning. The shift may take a bit of effort, but isn't that what growing is all about?