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A growth mindset is the belief we can improve through dedicated effort to do so. It’s not a case that you either have a growth mindset or you don’t. Various factors can make us more or less likely to adopt a growth mindset in different situations.
A growth mindset is a powerful tool for better performance and mental health (because it enhances how we handle stress and uncertainty). The benefits are incredibly well-established in psychology research. They help us be more innovative and adaptable, lead to us using our strengths more, and contribute to us being better at receiving and even giving feedback, because they help us become more accurately attuned to others. (This research is summarized here).
By using a habits framework, you can more reliably draw on a growth mindset when you need it. Here’s how to do that.
Habits follow a sequence of cue-routine-reward. We’ll use that sequence here. Your growth mindset habit will have these three elements.
1. A Self-Talk Statement to Cue the Growth Mindset
When you’re facing a challenging situation, use a consistent phrase to signal you to begin your growth mindset habit.
One powerful statement to use is: “I believe I can handle this.” You can adjust the wording to suit your preferences.
Use this cue when you detect yourself feeling negative emotions like worry or anger. You can also use it when you’re walking into situations you commonly find challenging, like meetings or presentations. The statement itself helps reduce the threat level you feel. We become negatively stressed when we perceive the difficulty of a situation exceeds our ability to cope.
2. Curate Memories to Draw On as Proof of Your Ability to Handle Challenges
Positive thinking alone isn’t helpful. Our brains respond best to real evidence. When you reflect on times when you handled adversity or navigated uncertainty, it reinforces the belief you can do that again.
Think about past situations where:
- The situation involved unnerving uncertainty.
- You experienced intense difficult emotions.
- You showed grit in handling the situation.
Memories that meet this criteria are proof that you have the ability to push through challenges, even in difficult and uncertain circumstances. If these don’t come to mind immediately, don’t rush it.
The more you intentionally recall these memories, the more you build a mental archive of evidence that you can handle whatever comes your way.
In our habit loop framework, your task is to encapsulate some specific memories into a more distilled type of sense memory. Then, you can bring that sense memory to mind quickly and automatically after the self-statement you decided on in Step 1. It’s important you can bring this memory, or group of a few memories, to mind when you’re on the move, like when you’re walking into a presentation.
3. A Self-Talk Statement to Take Skillful Action
The first two steps in the process I’ve outlined are at the cue > routine junction of our habit loop (the first step cues the next step in our routine). This third step is about completing the routine and moving to reward.
Next, you need a self-talk statement to prompt you to take effective action. For example:
“What is the best action I can take right now, given the reality of the situation?”
However you phrase this statement, it should help you free yourself of any past regret or rumination, and help you focus on just the next step, not the whole process ahead of you. The way I’ve worded the statement here also subtly helps prevent some common biases, like the sunk costs bias, where we bias our actions based on effort or money or time we’ve already invested.
If you’re reading carefully, you’ll be thinking now about the reward component of the habits loop. We can’t guarantee the outcome of whatever action we take, but we can create a reward by celebrating having executed a successful process. Good outcomes can come from bad decision-making processes, and vice versa. You’ll get further if you can celebrate yourself for having used a good process for handling a challenging situation or problem, regardless of the outcome. Practice this.
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Use this Habits Framework to Cue a Growth-Mindset More Often
Habits aren’t influenced by time pressure, stress, or fatigue, whereas other goal-driven behavior is. By using a habits framework to cue a growth mindset when it’s most needed, you can experience more of the benefits of a growth mindset more often.
