A Friendly Guide On Mindset Growth +5 Habits To Try Out
Something I find myself doing often is researching different things I’d like to change or explore about myself. I find a lot of comfort in discovering logical reasons on why I have certain behaviors. One thing I’ve noticed once I’ve gathered all of this information is I find myself asking, “now what?” pretty often.
There’s a lot of general information on a lot of topics that are common to want to change such as; mindset, motivation, habits, self-talk, priorities.. etc. And to be fair, there is a lot of articles on how to fix those things, but if you’re like me I want specific, attainable ways to work on different habits that I can implement almost immediately.
So, I found habits and information that does just that- gets to the point & provides ways you can work on your own mindset effortlessly. I got you :)
Growth Vs. Fixed Mindset
Me before I worked on my growth mindset :(
One of my most debilitating habits became my mindset. (The dog above this paragraph is how I felt). I found self-talk to be full of negativity, any bump in the road would send me over the edge, and any type of criticism would put me into an “I quit” mode. It was impossible to see growth in myself, attain any real goals, or see myself and my life as “good”. I was living (aka really fighting for my life lol) in a fixed mindset, and to be upfront it was really a stagnant, not great time in the ol’ mind of mine.
After researching, “How to change your mindset” 857 times a day, is when I learned about growth vs fixed mindset. A fixed mindset can be simply defined as, “When a human being doing their best really believes individual traits cannot change, NO MATTER WHAT.” Like damn, no wonder I was stuck-that mindset is trash. Imagine if you went to your friend and asked for a little help and they were like, “Yeah nope you will never change ever in your whole life”…bad friend. So if you wanna kindly reflect on yourself, traits of this look like:
-Avoiding challenges to avoid failure
-Ignoring any feedback from others
-Believing I am either good or bad, no in between (my personal fave)
-When I’m frustrated I give up
-I only stick to what I know
-That’s just who I am, I can’t change
On the other side, a growth mindset can be defined as, “A human being doing their best who kindly believes that their abilities or habits are not innate, but can absolutely change through a little effort, learning, and persistence.” How refreshing is that? You can change anything with a little effort, sounds so much better! Now, I’m going to shamelessly list some generic traits of a growth mindset, then we’ll hit up my own personal habits I’ve adopted for my growth mindset journey. :)
-It’s never too late to learn
-Failure is a learning experience
-Criticism helps me become better
-I can always improve something
-My results don’t define me
-I believe I can
See the difference in the wording on the things listed? Fixed: Avoiding, ignoring, can’t and giving up versus Growth: Learning, helps me, improve, and believe. The words you use in your brain do matter. :)
5 Growth Mindset Habits To Try
Me after I worked on my growth mindset :)
I went to a reiki appointment once. She told me that understanding yourself and changing is a practice. This simple piece of advice is what I’ve followed as I’m learning to change my mindset. All this means is that it’s not a flip of a switch or one day you wake up with a different mindset, but it’s patience, trial and error, forgiveness, and being compassionate to yourself as you make adjustments. Here are a few ways I practice my growth mindset daily, steal them and make them your own. :)
Journaling first thing in the morning
Journaling was a really big indicator of how I spoke to myself. When my negative self-talk was natural to listen to every day, writing it down helped me see exactly what I was thinking. This did two things for my growth mindset. The first thing it did was get a lot of very untrue, degrading thoughts about myself out of my head so it wasn’t ruminating in my head all day. The second thing it did was help me begin a practice of speaking kindly to myself. I would write down things I appreciate about myself, compassionate notes, and would write something positive for the negative thoughts I had.
The practice: Start journaling at least 1 full page each morning. Do it right when you wake up. If you need more specifics, break it down into 3 parts: get your negative thoughts out, encourage yourself in some way, and write down something about yourself that you absolutely love.
12 Minute Meditation
Meditation has honestly been one of my biggest learning tools. Rushing through my days was something that led me to believe that nothing could ever change. I wanted to jump from point A to Z so quickly and rush through being a beginner at anything. This led me to never really start anything because I wanted to avoid failing so badly that I also avoided starting anything.
Making myself meditate for 12 minutes a day teaches me to not rush through things, to sit in the beginning stages, to learn, to feel frustration/uncomfortable feelings, and let them pass. There are a lot of micro lessons I learn in my meditation that I will talk about in another article. This has helped me with my growth mindset because it helps me work towards not avoiding failure but learning from it.
The practice: No matter where you are, sit with yourself for 12 minutes in the present moment. (12 minutes is the scientific number that yields benefits to meditating.) You don’t have to turn off your thoughts, just acknowledge them and kindly quiet them as you return back to the present moment.
30-minute daily run
Movement is something that really helps my mindset. I find that sitting in a negative thought/feeling lets it boil, and usually ends in the feeling or thought not dissipating. With my fixed mindset, consistency was not one of my strong suits. I naturally tended to give up easily or believe I didn’t deserve something. My daily 30-minute runs are teaching me that with consistency and showing up for myself each day, I can grow in ways I never thought possible and has taught me an incredible amount of discipline.
A little bonus that I do too, is I run and listen to affirmations at the same time. I choose to listen to “I am” affirmations, so I’m getting movement and working on what I believe about myself.
The practice: For 30 minutes each day, do 1 physical activity. If you want to add more positivity, listen to affirmations, uplifting music, or a positive audiobook. You can run, walk, stretch, do yoga, swim, bike, take a class, paddle board, or anything that moves you.
Intention Setting
This one is really simple, and I like it because you can do it easily in the morning as part of your routine. All I do is use the prompt, “Who do I want to be today?” It’s simple, but it gives you an intention to fall back on throughout the day and gives you a perspective that you get to decide. For example, I have decided I want to be present today, I want to be playful today, I want to be grounded today, or I want to laugh today.
This has translated into my growth mindset by seeing that I do get to decide who I am, and I can change at any point. It helps me see that I have the power to choose my day despite what I have previously thought, and what I found is that what I wanted to be that day I became. There was a day in particular I wanted to be joyous and throughout the day I noticed the small things that made me joyous, like a little family of ducks on my walk. It made me really happy. :)
The practice: Ask yourself “Who do I want to be today?” Write it down in either your phone on your notes or a journal. In the beginning, I would check in a few times a day to check in on your intention, at lunch and dinner just check in on how that’s going.
Keeping 1 promise to yourself
Keeping 1 promise to myself every day helped me adopt trust in myself, discipline to keep my word, and allowed me to adopt a mindset that tells me that my promises and goals I have are attainable. There’s a certain power in knowing that what you say you’ll do, you will do. My fixed mindset would leave me to believe that even if I said I was going to do something, maybe I shouldn’t because I don’t deserve it or I wouldn’t be good at it.
This recommendation sounded difficult to me initially, but the key is to actually keep it simple. It sounded difficult because I would try to make about 20 promises to myself anxiously in a day because I thought one just wasn’t enough. I will tell you from experience one is plenty. :) A few promises I’ve done is: I promise to give myself a compliment every time I eat, read 10 pages of a book, or make sure to get 5 minutes of sunlight.
The practice: Keep 1 small promise to yourself each day, make it simple and attainable. Check in with yourself before you go to bed, to make sure you did it.
I challenge you to start doing one of these things today. They’re all easy to throw into your day. You deserve a clear mind and a mind that is loving and kind. I am nowhere near the point of this being a natural state of mind for me, I have to work really hard to practice my growth mindset. I dont’ say this to discourage you, but to create common humanity. Change is hard, but these things make it attainable and more helpful. Remember that it’s a practice, and a practice is ever evolving, patient, and full of adjustments. :)
