There is no such thing as failure if you learn form your mistakes....
Emma May Fishlock
Founder and Managing Director of the award winning business, Real World Consultancy| Founder of the Strategic Circle| Non-Exec Director| Strategic Coach
As a business owner it is VITAL to have resilience and a growth mindset. With these two secret weapons you can continually move forward, even when mistakes happen.
Learn from your mistakes and there is no such thing as failure, wallow in mistakes and learn nothing and it turns into Einstein's definition of madness.. 'doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results'...
Firstly, what is a growth mindset?
Dweck, author of 'Mindset: The new Psychology of Success' sum it up perfect as:
"A tendency to believe that you can grow... A “fixed mindset” assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way, a growth mindset thrives on challenge and sees failure “not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.”
Business owners can often mistake their drive to 'prove themselves' as a growth mindset, however, a drive to prove yourself is actually the ultimate fixed mindset, striving to prove others wrong or demonstrate capabilities we know we have is just a stubborn fixed mindset.
Often that fixed mindset comes out as black or white thinking, will I fail or succeed, win or lose, will I look smart or dumb, will I be powerful or weak...
Ultimate growth mindset comes in proving to ourselves we can be better, do more, learn more. Striving to grow and prove to ourselves (not others) that we can, and taking every mistake as an opportunity to learn.
That drive you have as a business owner is fundamental to success, but the challenge is to make sure that drive comes out as grit rather than stubbornness.
How to develop your own Growth Mindset:
3 simple steps to help you get your mindset in check.
***Step 1***
Take ownership of 'you', know yourself, and be honest with yourself about your imperfections.... then embrace them :)!
Hiding from your weaknesses will never make them disappear, but tackling them head on and constantly trying to better those areas will make you continually grow and develop.
To help you get an insight into your strengths and weaknesses, why not take the DISC behaviour quiz.
https://mailchi.mp/fcd755a5a692/disc
***Step 2***
Stop failing....
See nothing as a failure, and everything as a 'lesson' and you will completely change your outlook.
The only failure is a missed lesson. Banish the word failure from your vocabulary and start re-framing mistake/ missed opportunities as lessons to learn from, and opportunities to be even better next time.
***Step 3***
Realise you will never know everything, and that everybody has something to offer that you could learn.
When you listen, listen to understand and gain perspective, not just to respond. Ask questions and listen more to others to gain new knowledge and perspective, even if it differs to yours. Don't be afraid to recognise and challenge your own thinking or opinions based on new information.
3 simple steps, and often just sense checks to recognise your mindset and keep it in the growth space.
How to develop your teams Growth Mindset:
Growth mindset - get your team on it!
So you can have an awesome growth mindset, but your team is a different matter?
It is actually more frustrating when you are working on your mindset and developing a growth mindset... and you are then apposed with someone that is not.
So, let's look at three things you can do to foster a growth mindset in your team:
***Step 1***
Promote problem solving through failure.
It is back to 'there is no such thing as failure', if something goes tits up at work, GREAT, walk through it with the team, learn from it, problem solve, what should have hapenned, what could have been done differently, what will you do next time....
***Step 2***
Encourage openness with setbacks... starting my friend, with YOU.
Show that you too make mistakes, talk through how you have learnt and developed form them, be honest about the challenges you have faced and what techniques and lessons helped. Encourage others to do the same and foster an environment where you learn from each other.
***Step 3***
Challenge...
Invite and challenge your team outside of their comfort zone... help them push through boundaries to work on challenges that do just that...challenge them.
Take the pressure off, there is no failure, 'do your best' mentality, let people mess up and try and push their comfort zones to learn themselves and develop themselves.
In the end it all comes back to helping people challenge themselves by removing that fear of failure...