It was back in 2007 when Carol Dwek first proposed the idea of a difference between a fixed and a growth mindset in her book ‘Mindset’, where she discussed the concept of both encouraging and stimulating a positive attitude to learning. The book has been used regularly in educational psychology for years and teachers across the globe use it to encourage learning and experimentation from a young age. As adults, we often forget how to learn and instead, stick to what we know and can rely. It was Dwek who brought the idea of growth mindset to a wider audience and has since become almost everyday language.

True Growth Mindset was created to argue the concept of “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks'' because the truth is, you can. It’s about knowing how to equip the old dog (in this case, yourself) with the right tools to do so. It is about recognising yourself, not as the smartest or most qualified in your team, but as someone who is able to acknowledge their weaknesses and celebrate them. True Growth Mindset is about embracing the excitement that comes with learning something new in order to develop yourself. The focus is on building the confidence in yourself to be happy in acknowledging what you don’t know, with the anticipation to educate yourself to be better.

When adopting a True Growth Mindset in your work life, you are enabling yourself to be inspired by other’s abilities and performance and allowing yourself to be drawn to people who work in different ways to you, rather than being intimidated by them. It's about acknowledging that people who are performing better than you is an exciting opportunity to learn and develop yourself with their positive influence. Particularly in times like these, it is important for us to recognise that this is not a permanent state of mind. You can’t all display this mindset all the time; we are human after all. We need to consider that we should be dynamic and fluid in our attitudes, that this mindset can be applied at different times and in different situations, and it is our job as individuals to monitor that.

Something I have often heard bounced around a boardroom is this idea of ‘failing fast’ and it always left a negative impact on me. When I read Matthew Syed’s book ‘Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success’ (published in 2015), I found Syed built on this and extolled the virtues of learning by our mistakes and embracing failure as a tool to learn and grow. It introduced the new ending to this idea; ‘failfast, and learn faster’.

This is something we work to embody everyday at NeoOptima. Not only when coaching our clients, but also in regard to our internal development. We know that having a True Growth Mindset is a choice we make, to open ourselves to endless opportunities of growth and personal development, in and outside the workplace.

It is about choosing to see other people’s strengths as an outlet to broaden your capabilities, rather than limit them. Open yourself to constructive criticism, even though it can sometimes sting, and allow this to become a tool to help your own development. Having a mindset that gives you the skills to embrace your team’s differences and learn from them will not only improve the performance of your team as a whole, but also enable you to continue to learn and grow, which is only a good thing.

We know that understanding and embodying new mindsets can be two very different things. Perhaps you’re reading this and already thinking about a time at work where you felt threatened by a colleague’s success or insecure in your own abilities. Would you now allow yourself to be open to learning that skill from your colleague, as opposed to shying away from it? Is there an opportunity at your workplace you’ve always been interested in but were too afraid to pursue, in case of failure? If you allow yourself to step out of your comfort zone, you are enabling yourself to succeed. It’s just about having the right mindset, and confidence, to do so.