Cultivate a Growth Mindset for Better Mental Health

A growth mindset is the opposite of having a ‘fixed’ mindset.

You may have seen the phrase used increasingly in recent years as the detail of Professor Carol Dweck’s work has been spread around the globe. The immediate, overriding impression from reading about a growth mindset is the notion that we can increase our intelligence in a way that was not clear before. Essentially, intelligence is often presented as a fixed commodity — either you have it, or you do not… Dweck and colleagues take serious issue with this idea though, having conducted a great deal of research into mindsets and discovering, amongst many other findings, that a growth mindset may alleviate stress and reduce anxiety and depression (Schleider & Weisz, 2016).

First, let’s take a fixed mindset — which essentially suggests you have learned/been told that intelligence and other physical capabilities are innate. As a result, there is a tendency to prove yourself, which may also lead to thoughts and behaviours that limit you.

For example:

• Not wishing to take on things you ‘know’ you are no good at because you will fail.

• Seeing not being very good at something as failure rather than as part of a process of learning, growing, and enjoying the journey.

In her book Mindset, Dweck gives us the quotation:

“Becoming is better than being.”

In a growth mindset, where we are now is just a starting point. We can get smarter and better in different areas of our lives through training, persistence, and learning from mistakes and setbacks. Can you be world-beating, top of the pile, the best? What Dweck suggests is: you can likely become a hell of a lot better — and that the thing keeping you, your ability, your performance, and ultimately your intelligence “fixed” is your mindset.

A good analogy from my own experience strikes me here.

At fourteen, I was 4 ft 10 and weighed 63 lbs (28/29 kgs).

I wanted one day — after seeing an advert in the newspaper — to become a bodybuilder.

I had no business becoming a bodybuilder:

• I did not know any bodybuilders.

• It wasn’t popular.

• I didn’t have the genetics.

• It was hard for me to gain weight/build muscle.

• I could not afford to go to the gym.

In fact, everything I can think of was against the whole venture — except for the inside of my head. The idea consumed me. I read about bodybuilding, talked about bodybuilding, learned everything I could about diet and exercise in relation to building muscle, and went to the gym as often as possible.

To my extreme annoyance, nothing much happened. I laboured on and on, and after two years I competed in my first competition and placed third. It was my local town’s competition (not the Mr Universe). Buoyed by this, I went back the following year and placed nowhere — and again the year after, placing nowhere again. Finally, after five years of non-stop dieting, training, competing, and losing (with a year gap between losses), I won the competition. At that point, it may as well have been the Mr Universe! It turned out to be the highlight of my bodybuilding career.

Yet I realise now — without a doubt — becoming is better than being. Let me be candid: gaining a place at University, completing a master’s degree, graduating for my doctorate — none of these things seemed or felt difficult by comparison to me. I am not boasting about ability or exaggerating — it’s just that after five years of an unerring belief that I would and could do something (that nobody else really believed in), I knew the power of persistence. I was ridiculed at school (I weighed 63 lbs!) and seen more as a mascot than a bodybuilder by the monsters in my local gym. But I learned that I probably could do something that I did not immediately seem to have the potential for. My grades at school were all very poor — but now I am Dr Trevor. As I look back, I realise that my bodybuilding efforts set the tone for both literal growth and a growth mindset. I was not Mr Universe — but I improved year after year (after year!) and that was good enough.

So, Can You Be the Best of the Best? With a growth mindset, who cares? Maybe you can and maybe not — but you can be better. And you are much more likely to reach the moon by shooting for the stars…

References:

• Dweck, C. (2017). Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential. Hachette UK.

• Schleider, J. L., & Weisz, J. R. (2016). Mental health and implicit theories of thoughts, feelings, and behavior in early adolescents: Are girls at greater risk? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 35(2), 130–151.