A growth mindset. Why do we even want that? What is it exactly? And more importantly, how do you develop it? In this blog post, we’re going to talk about the growth mindset and how to develop a growth mindset.
Because of everything that’s been going on, a lot of us are now stuck at home, and the prevailing thought is “Does this mean that I’ve stopped growing?” Well, the answer is no. Let me explain. We’re not talking about growth in terms of growing physically, per se; we’re talking about developing yourself in your entirety: growing your mind, growing your body, growing your emotional maturity, or your emotional intelligence. So no, we don’t stop growing just because stressful things are happening in the world. Unfortunately, a lot of people decide they don’t want to continue growing and they get stuck in a holding pattern. So let’s talk about why one would use their life circumstances to not grow and why it is so important to have a growth mindset.
The 6 Figure Academy helps people with their bad money stories and their limiting beliefs, which is literally what gives people that unconscious excuse to not do something when bad things are happening in the world. We stop and freeze like a rabbit or deer in front of headlights and say, “No, I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to do anything with my business. I’m not going to do anything with my life.” And the reasoning is often that people feel like they need to stay at home, watch Netflix, veg out and not think about the world’s problems.
So let’s talk about why it’s important to have a growth mindset.
If we’re not growing, especially as an entrepreneur, then don’t expect your customers to see as an entrepreneur. Your business is an extension of you. If you decide to stop growing, then guess what: your business is going to stop growing because your business reflects you. You stop growing, your business stops growing. And then if you have employees, it will trickle down to your employees and they will stay stagnated.
Another reason why it’s important to have a growth mindset is because it helps you grow from learning. Anybody can grow; literally the minute you’re born, you’re growing. Maintaining that growth mindset is to maintain your ability to learn and continue to expand what is possible from your unique footprint on this planet and in this lifetime. A growth mindset allows us to learn from any and all life circumstances. When you are in a state of having a growth mindset, your mind is literally looking for ways to grow. It keeps us from getting derailed or stuck. For example, a lot of what we’re dealing with right now in terms of what people have to go through with world circumstances and social circumstances can really affect us. If you do not have a growth mindset, you’re going to see everything as problematic, whereas if you’re in a growth mindset, or solution-based thinking, you’re looking to learn from everything that you’re confronted with. Having a growth mindset creates stickiness in terms of progress we make in success. If you want your money flow to grow, then a growth mindset is an absolute requisite. Your money flow literally reflects your state of existence. And if you’re stuck and not maintaining a growth mindset? Your money flow will also get stuck.
So let’s talk about what a growth mindset actually is. A growth mindset is a state of being. If you set your growth mindset as a goal of attainment, it will be fleeting and short-lived.For example, if you think “I’m going to do this so that I can have a growth mindset and go in a particular direction,” it’s going to be short-lived and you won’t be able to maintain that your actual goal is to integrate it deep into your neurology as a state of existence and philosophy. And that’s what having a growth mindset actually is: creating your unique state of existence that allows you to continuously grow.
Now, there are three primary types of growth mindset, which will lead us into how to develop it.
Internal and External Growth
The first type of growth mindset is called an internal growth, also known as personal growth, or personal development. Whenever you’re investing time into developing your personal self, that is called an internal growth mindset. External growth mindset is the second type of growth mindset, which is all about things that can be externalized. This includes things that the rest of the world can see such as your business, your relationships, and your health and fitness. How do we develop these growth mindsets? It’s all about the sequence of internal and external members. There are two types of growth mindsets to have an internal growth mindset and an external growth mindset, and the ways to develop them come about from how you structure the development and sequence of those two.
- The first one I want to talk about is my personal favorite and it looks at the development of the internal growth mindset. This is the one that most people don’t do because the majority of us were taught the reverse. We always heard that we should work on what everybody else can see first, what everybody can grade first. Then when you feel like it, you go into the internal. There are pros and cons to doing the reverse and focusing on developing your internal growth mindset first versus external. The pro is that developing your internal personal self and your personal growth systems or infrastructure is that you’re consistently growing internally which makes this the most sustainable and long-lasting approach. You will always have your internal learnings and growth. When you invest in developing a growth mindset, it becomes a part of your internal state of being, which means that no matter what happens externally, you will always have your internal growth. A con is that external growth can potentially be a femoral or short lip, especially if there’s a huge disparity between how the external part of you is growing versus the internal. It is very imperceptible in the beginning. So if you’re just starting out on this journey, often times you won’t notice the change, but it’s still good to have that consistency of developing a growth mindset because it will create an exponential boom later. A lot of people avoid taking this approach because it’s slow, arduous, and takes a long time for change to happen.
- The second way to develop a growth mindset is to develop the external growth mindset first, then the internal. Like I said, this is the most common and the one most of us have been trained to do and approach in terms of growth. The pro is that it feeds the belief that “seeing is believing” expectation. The growth is significantly more noticeable sooner to both you and the rest of the world. It’s the fast, quick result and gives immediate gratification. During my journey, when I had to choose between a faster way or slower way, I used to say all the time, “I pride myself on being an impatient entrepreneur.” This was great in the sense that people thought, “This guy wants results right now,” and it was a popular choice because it was so immediate. However, that immediacy comes with a drawback. So let’s talk about the cons. If you like roller coasters, this approach on developing a growth mindset may not be a con, but it can actually be quite tasking. It can add stress to our business and our money flow. The burnout potential is significantly greater because you’ve got this up and down, mentally and physically emotional roller coaster ride. It seems like you’re growing because everybody can see it. In reality, you exhaust yourself prematurely and you unnecessarily task the entire system of your existence. That is a con of this particular approach.
- The third way to a develop a growth mindset that we call the simultaneous, or concurrent development. This is where you develop the internal and external at the same time. A lot of people select this method of approach because they seem to receive a high level of support, but if they’re not, it’s actually a good way to create a challenge. A lot of people do challenges like that, where they work on themselves and then work on the external all at the same time. But if you can imagine, you’re investing a lot of time and energy and working on the internal growth mindset and you’re doing X, then you’re putting a lot of energy to developing the external growth mindset and that’s a lot of output. That’s a lot of investment of time, energy, and maybe even money. The pros are that you do create a sprint like effect for results that are sustainable and longterm, but this is why you also don’t sprint long distance. Sprinting long distance can actually task your entire system of existence more so than the previous one, which is external first than internal. This way is really good for those who don’t have the support of a coach or a mentor because it creates short bursts of growth. What this results in is that you would actually grow up and then you would plateau and then grow up and then plateau and so on. This is where we get into the cons, which is that it can potentially be confusing because you can confuse the external and internal work. You might be thinking that you’re working on some internal growth mindset, when in fact you’re working on an external circumstance and vice versa. This simultaneous development is probably one of the quickest and fastest ways because you’re doing both at the same time, but it requires the utilization of a lot more resources and support. If you’re not used to that and you don’t have the support, it can actually burn you out even faster than the previously mentioned way.
Hopefully you got some inspiration on how you can use one of those three ways or maybe how you can switch between the three ways to start to develop and embody a growth mindset. The next step is to decide which path you want to take and what sequence of ways you want to develop that growth mindset. Again, there’s pros and cons to both. And the most important thing is to recognize what those pros and cons are, and to check-in with yourself to see what you’re willing to cope with or deal with when it comes to developing that growth mindset. The key is to decide and take action in that direction.
Watch the video below:
If you liked this video, then hit the thumbs up, and if you really, really liked it, you can do what I do with a lot of YouTube videos that I like and save it into your library. If you didn’t like it, then you can hit the thumbs down and maybe consider giving feedback in the comments below. Remember to subscribe by hitting the notification bell.
If you want to get our free guide on how to go from money anxiety to six- figure mastery and achieve the lifestyle that you want, check out our website. Let me know your thoughts and questions on this topic or request future topics in the comments below.
