The Growth Mindset is the belief that your basic qualities can be cultivated with focused effort. Growth minded people never plan to make it to the top — they got there by doing what they love, regardless of the outcome.
The Fixed Mindset is the belief that your qualities are carved in stone. People with the fixed mindset believe their skills are static and crumble when faced with a challenge.
The funny thing about the mindsets is that you can exemplify both during different seasons of life.
As a teenager, I was obsessed with setting my high school’s shot put record. After achieving it, I felt a fleeting moment of elation, which taught me that achievement doesn’t make you fulfilled.
Benjamin Bloom spent forty years studying why made high achievers tick. He concluded that:
“What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.”
Any level of expertise is available to anyone. It all depends on your mindset.
This principle can work for or against you.
If you’re a beginner committed to improving, you will eventually pass the less committed experts in your field.
If you’re an expert, you need to keep improving, or you’ll get passed by a beginners that are committed to improvement.
I. In Sports
Many of the GOATs (greatest-of-all-time) in sports started out as the WOAT (worst-of-all-time).
Michael Jordan was cut from his freshman basketball team. Later he said, “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have.”
Tom Brady split playing time with Drew Henson at Michigan. Then Brady was picked 199th overall by the Patriots. Only to be seventh on the QB depth chart, struggling to get playing time.
Growth minded bosses are open to learning, feedback, and confronting obstacles with clear eyes.
Fixed minded bosses make everyone worried about their performance and bring down the overall team’s performance.
Growth minded companies are focused retention and unlocking the potential of their employees. They don’t look for people who “have it in their DNA”.
Instead, they recruit for learning ability.
Employees in a growth culture believe that risk taking, creativity, and innovation is supported. Even if they fail.
III. In Relationships
Romantic relationships can be hard for high achievers.
In virtually every facet of life, if you fail, the blame is all on you. But when a relationship fails, there’s three things at play:
You.
Your partner.
Your relationship.
(Was it meant to be? Can this relationship improve?)
Growth minded people believe relationships take effort. Compromise, communication, and conflict resolution are required to work through inevitable differences.
Problems can be a vehicle for developing greater intimacy. Don’t dilute yourself into thinking your relationship will be all sunshine and roses.
Get better at communicating and understanding each other’s thoughts, needs, and feelings. Don’t fall prey to the low effort belief that your partner should be able to read your mind.
IV. In Coaching
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was famously obsessed with growth.
“You have to apply yourself each day to becoming a little better. By applying yourself to becoming a little better every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better.”
Equilibrium doesn’t exist in the physics of continuous improvement. The iterative process of improving leads to success. It includes hard work, trying new strategies, and seeking input from others.
\(Effort * Strategy * Time = Results\)
Your process dictates your outcomes. If your hard work isn’t getting result, ask yourself why your efforts aren’t effective.
And above all, be weary of success. Just because you’re successful once, doesn’t mean you will be again. Instead, ask yourself, “Did I give my best effort?” If you did, you’ve already won regardless of the outcome.
How To Change Your Mindset
The growth mindset is based on a belief in your ability to change.
You subconsciously (and consciously) keep mental track of what’s happened to you, what that means, and what you should do. Frequently audit your thoughts. Keep them if they’re serving you well. If your thought aren’t serving you, update them.
The growth minded person recognizes that people stand out because of commitment, effort, and (a little) luck.
By combining effort, strategy, and time, you’ll probably have similar results. If you aspire for results bigger than you’re seeing now, realize that you’re in a necessary period of learning. Fall in love with putting in effort and results will come with time.
Once a problem improves, it’s easy to stop doing what led to the solution.
Change doesn’t work that way. Improvements have to be supported or they’ll go away faster than they appear. One way to avoid this is by asking yourself every day, “What are my opportunities to learn and grow today?“
Change is hard. But you’ll never regret changing your life for the better.
You’re capable of doing incredible things. Go forth: Change your mindset and change your life!
2026 Winter Olympics gold medalist Alysa Liu successfully balanced a fixed to a growth mindset. After the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she burned out from skating. She returned to skating two years later with joy for the act of skating - regardless of the outcome. In an interview on 60 Minutes, she said:
“I love struggling, actually. It makes me feel alive.”
