It’s tempting to stay in your comfort zone—it’s familiar, safe, and reassuring. But while avoiding risks and sticking to traditional methods of doing business can provide a sense of security, it can also limit your potential.
What if your success wasn’t determined by external forces but by your mindset? Shifting your perspective to see challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles can help you to grow and innovate. Practicing a growth mindset can help you break free from limitations and drive your business toward success.
What is a growth mindset?
A growth mindset, a concept developed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, is the belief that basic abilities, talents, and intelligence are not fixed traits and that they can improve through learning and perseverance.
Individuals with growth mindsets understand that their most basic characteristics and initial talents are only the starting point. They view challenges as opportunities to learn, and believe that progress is possible with consistent effort. In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck writes, “People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it. The bigger the challenge, the more they stretch.”
Growth mindset vs. fixed mindset
Where a growth mindset emphasizes the potential for improvement through effort, another perspective—the fixed mindset—suggests that basic qualities like talent and intelligence are determined at an early age and cannot be changed.
One key difference between fixed and growth mindsets is the interpretation of feedback. Receiving criticism can be extremely threatening for those with fixed mindsets. So can witnessing the success of others. Comparison and judgment are hallmarks of a fixed mindset. It can lead individuals to become secretly worried about their own skills and to make a concerted effort to hide deficiencies. On the flip side, those with a growth mindset are motivated by feedback.
The good news is that with awareness, effort, and practice, anyone can turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset.
Why is it important to have a growth mindset?
There are many benefits of working on your growth mindset, whether you’re an entrepreneur, business owner, or employee:
Adaptability
With technology evolving at a rapid pace and consumer preferences shifting all the time, business owners can greatly benefit from staying adaptable. Developing a growth mindset lets you embrace continuous learning and experimentation, helping you stay ahead of trends in your industry. By actively seeking out new skills and strategies, you can make your business more flexible and competitive when market disruptions happen.
Resilience
While someone with a fixed mindset might feel defeated when faced with setbacks, individuals with a growth mindset view challenging times as opportunities for self-improvement. A growth mindset helps you bounce back from difficulties by seeing them not as failures but as opportunities to gain valuable insights for the future. This resilience not only helps you navigate setbacks but also strengthens your ability to face future obstacles with confidence.
Innovation
A growth mindset fosters an openness to new ideas that can boost creative achievement and lead to the development of new products, services, and strategies. With a growth mindset, you become more willing to take calculated risks and experiment with new approaches, continuously refining your efforts based on feedback and experience.
7 tips for developing a growth mindset
- Recognize your present mindset
- Seek opportunities to learn
- Connect with growth-minded people
- Ask for feedback
- Challenge your ego
- Embrace the power of “yet”
- Adopt the Kaizen method
Even if you consider yourself someone with a fixed mindset, it’s possible to foster a growth mindset by implementing a few best practices:
1. Recognize your present mindset
The first step in developing a growth mindset is to closely examine your most basic beliefs about your abilities. Become aware of your inner dialogue so you can identify the beliefs that limit your growth. Ask yourself questions, such as:
- When you’re faced with a challenge, what goes through your mind?
- Think back to a recent failure: Did you take it as proof that you’re unworthy of achieving goals or view it as an opportunity to uncover new areas for growth?
- How do you set goals? Do you look at results as pass/fail or with room for grey areas and improvement opportunities?
- What are some basic assumptions you hold about yourself? What do you think you’re good at or not good at and why?
On an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, Aishwarya Iyer, CEO of the direct-to-consumer olive oil company Brightland, discusses how becoming more self-aware helped her tackle challenges. “So much of it was honestly digging into myself, working with a coach, doing a lot of vision boards,” she says. This helped her understand her fears, become more compassionate with herself, and tackle challenging goals.
2. Seek opportunities to learn
Engaging in continuous learning doesn’t only help you to foster a growth mindset; it can also build your confidence in your own abilities, too. Each new skill you acquire serves as proof that your talents are not fixed and you can develop new skills through effort. If you come to enjoy the process of learning, you’re more likely to embrace new challenges and remain open to opportunities for growth.
Ami Colé CEO Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye’s entrepreneurial journey exemplifies how the knowledge and skills you develop can be adapted to new contexts. When she launched Ami Colé, her beauty brand for melanin-rich skin, Diarrha applied lessons from her past roles at Sephora, L’Oréal Paris, TEMPTU, and Glossier. “I’ve always been a very curious person,” Diarrha says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “With every single role I wanted to understand why it was important in terms of the overall workflow of the company.”
Recognizing the larger picture of how each challenge fits into your overall growth can help you find a sense of purpose, knowing that every experience adds to your potential for success.
3. Connect with growth-minded people
Spending time with people who actively demonstrate a growth mindset can set a powerful example. Whether it’s your peers or a mentor, surrounding yourself with individuals who intentionally practice self-improvement can inspire you to do the same.
Danny Buck, cofounder and CEO of men’s jewelry line CRAFTD London, knows this firsthand. “Being ambitious and wanting to self-develop is infectious,” Danny says. At CRAFTD, this growth mindset has shaped the team culture. “The best people we have want to improve themselves.”
To expand your network of growth-minded individuals, check out alumni and professional organizations or Meetup groups focused on professional development.
4. Ask for feedback
Becoming aware of your weaknesses is essential for developing a growth mindset, but these shortcomings may initially be invisible to you. Seeking constructive criticism from others can provide insights into where you have the most room to grow. Think of feedback not as a personal judgment but as an opportunity to fast-track your development. Even the most successful people have areas where they can improve.
When requesting feedback, ask for specific, actionable responses to help you focus on progress. For instance, instead of asking, “Did you like my presentation?” try, “How can I better present my idea and engage the audience?” By making this practice a habit, you can turn feedback into fuel for your personal and professional growth.
5. Challenge your ego
A growth mindset pushes you out of your ego and shifts your focus from individual to collective success. This approach reinforces the idea that success is abundant. “Having a growth mindset significantly shifts your thinking from ‘I’ to ‘we,’” explains Fluff CEO Erika Geraerts. “For example, we work towards a shared goal as a team, in which we should endeavor to make the best decision for the business (and customers), not ourselves. Knowing when to have conviction and when to back down is a constant ego battle.”
Sometimes, growing your business requires setting your ego aside and knowing when to bring in experienced people who can teach you new skills. “Realizing and accepting my own and our team’s limitations allowed us to find and hire the right people to drive our business forward,” Erika says. “Letting go of specific responsibilities and key decision-making allowed for people with greater experience and knowledge to step in and drive our business forward.”
6. Embrace the power of “yet”
One of the core principles of a growth mindset, as Carol Dweck highlights in a 2014 TED talk, is the belief that you are constantly growing and evolving. When you catch yourself thinking, “I can’t do this,” Carol encourages adding the word “yet” to the end of the sentence.
Changing your perspective from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset can be as simple as realizing that your current limitations are temporary. With effort, you can close the gap between where you are now and where you’d like to be. “Yet” illustrates perfectly that progress takes time and you are capable of achieving more through perseverance.
7. Adopt the Kaizen method
Danny says he fosters a growth mindset within his organization by “adopting the Kaizen attitude of continuous improvement, reviewing periods of growth, and controlling it in a sustained fashion.” The Kaizen method is a rapid improvement process where you focus on continuously adapting and refining your skills through small, incremental changes. It’s something an entire team or company can do together and contribute toward. By focusing on smaller goals, you can exercise more control and see regular progress.
Growth mindset FAQ
What is an example of a growth mindset?
An example of a growth mindset is a business owner who turns a failed product launch into an opportunity for improvement. Instead of seeing the failure as proof of their faults, the business owner takes time to understand the reasons behind the failure. By using the lessons they uncover to refine their approach, they adjust their plans and improve their strategies to prepare for a more successful launch next time.
What triggers a growth mindset?
Observing positive role models who embrace new challenges and view failure as a learning opportunity can inspire a growth mindset. Setting and achieving goals can also boost self-esteem and reinforce the belief that personal growth is possible. Additionally, receiving feedback that emphasizes effort and progress helps you see the value of perseverance, contributing to a growth mindset.
What stops a growth mindset?
Several factors can stop the development of a growth mindset. Fixed mindset beliefs, a fear of failure, avoiding feedback, and negative self-talk can prevent individuals from facing obstacles that might otherwise help them learn and grow. By becoming aware of these behaviors, you can start to develop a more positive mindset that values growth and continuous learning.
