Why do people imply staff performance related to mindset?

When I assign the same task to two of my new energetic staff, they perform in two different ways, which embody two different types of mindsets. Vincent’s mindset is about guarantee. He sometimes has no idea dealing with failure and also be afraid to change when receiving feedback from others to improve his performance. He takes it personally and sometimes she is displeased. Vincent requires his benefits before doing something.

Youth training in Botanic Garden, Singapore

On the other hand, Jules expects to receive feedback from the senior when making mistakes. To cope with a failure, she dares to change and improve her ability to accomplish well later on. She perceives challenges as ideal opportunities to fail and to learn. If she encounters something that is quite troublesome, she will endeavor to overcome somehow. After all, you can know that who has the fixed mindset and who possesses the growth mindset in this story.

What is Mindset?

If you refer to someone’s mindset, that means their thoughts and beliefs drive them into habits and the way they commonly think about issues. The mindset orients our disposition or attitudes to handle situations. The mindset has much influence on what people think, how they feel, what they perceive and what should they react. In other explanation, the mindset shapes your belief and your belief shapes your attitudes. People have various mindsets of the same thing due to perceiving in different ways.

The book called Mindset: The new psychology of success written by Carol Dweck, who is a psychology professor at Stanford, is one of the most prominent psychology and individual development books nowadays. The book reminds me vividly of my personal experience.

The Fixed Mindset

People with the fixed mindset believe basic qualities like talents are fixed traits. They view failure as permanent. They are more likely to give up when facing an obstacle. When they feel criticism as a personal attack, they seem to quickly give excuse and explain.

Their behaviors are shaped by innate ability and their priority always is validation and achievement. The insight of people having the fixed mindset is that better performances. They are less likely to take creative risks. They choose easier tasks and put in minimal effort.

The fixed-mindset people don’t allow others be better compared to themselves. If their colleagues try new things and succeed, fixed-mindset people feel threatened. They are afraid that success will put pressure on themselves to do more. Safety is their choice.

The Growth Mindset

People with the growth mindset believe new abilities can be developed by practice. They consider challenge which is just an issue need to be faced, resolved, and learned from. It is possible to say that growth-mindset people can all adapt, progress and experience without any fear of being painful.

Most people are not perfect, and they should suffer from losses and hardships to be stronger and more at peace than ever before. The growth mindset doesn’t mind to show their imperfections as they think that weaknesses are not the problem. The problem is just only the person who cannot accept these weaknesses belonging to them. The imperfections should be recovered since that helps people to improve their adequate development.

Personal performance is good, but the process of how to bear the failure is much more important. The growth-mindset people assume that it takes time for development and achievement. They aren’t convinced of being talented. They strongly believe in the determination of learning from time to time, arduous working and toil to get an accomplishment.

How do you know that you are a fixed-mindset person or a growth-mindset person?

Let’s emphasise straightforwardly in this case. What do people react when receiving a course of work? With the fixed mindset, it will be: “People will finish it with no mistakes. People should avoid being a failure. People simply lose interest or temperature when facing challenges. People think about the inputs for themselves rather than the outputs for others.”

In contrast, with the growth mindset, it will be: “People make mistakes, and it’s not a problem. People need to have feedbacks, even constructive criticism. People get ready to undergo current trouble. People are excited to try to do something beyond what they’ve mastered. People make an effort to figure out the measures of solving issues better than they did.”

5 Significant Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset

1. Acknowledge and embrace imperfections

Even if you demonstrate your best traits of a great person, but you hide from your deficiencies, you will never be excellent in most cases. You are unable to overcome the fear of weaknesses. Of course, fear can hold you back. Have you ever thought that fear is an obstacle distract you from building your strengths? Grasp an opportunity to discover yourself, uncover imperfections hidden and deeply understand yourself. This will be a premise to change the weaknesses towards your strengths.

2. View challenges as opportunities

The growth-mindset people consider each challenge is an opportunities to grow stronger. We continuously determine who we are and what we are able to achieve after enduring troublesome issues. In fact, people might not control events that occur to them, but these unanticipated events serve as a big deal to test truly your characteristics. Thus, it is grateful for welcoming opportunities to learn and to improve.

3. Replace “to fail” with “to learn”

Have you ever heard a quote of Samuel Beckett? “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

It’s not a shame to share your failures with each other. When you make a mistake for your goal, you haven’t failed, you are learning. You learn from the bad experience for yourself instead. You shouldn’t think you’re a loser, think that you’re a learner and then an achiever.

4. Redefine “genius”

A genius is a person who suffered from a whole host of challenges, hardships, losses, and toils. You should redefine that the genius is shaped by hard-working, not only natural ability. The fixed-mindset people believe in talent or intelligence. However, the growth-mindset people only recognize improvement and development throughout the experience. You will be a genius if you mobilize your resource and stretch on your way.

5. Learn from others’ mistakes

It is better to combine our mistakes and the mistakes of others to learn. That will be valuable information for you to tackle the problems that push you up. People sometimes share the same weaknesses, which is a chance to empathize and adapt it to your case. It’s not always wise to compare yourself to others. Learn from others’ missteps and travel down on the bumpy road that helps you be more better.

Do you suffer from the so-called symptoms of procrastination? Here are some things you can do to help improve your workflow

Procrastination is a bad habit. It directly affects the success of your career and your life.

The sages of ancient Greece used one word to talk about the state of hesitating or not being sure whether to act or not. They used the term ‘Akrasia’, which basically means procrastination. One of the biggest reasons that prevent young people from succeeding in any endeavour is Akrasia.

To address this problem, you have to understand that you’re suffering from procrastination. Try to overcome it with specific plans.

Are you a procrastinator?

The common ‘symptoms’ of procrastinators are as follows:

Lack of motivation. If you’re not working for your goal, you will find some excuse to get rid of the tasks at hand. Without deadlines for completion, all the things you must do will be delayed.
Lack of clear objectives. Procrastinators underestimate the difficulty of their job. One cannot visualise how to solve the work to the extent that the tasks remain stagnant. Such people often do not know how to use effective tools such as to-do lists, notes, and reminders, and tend to avoid all unwanted work. Procrastinators often prefer doing things that offer short-term satisfaction than long-term value.
Lack of assertiveness. If you cannot decide what to do, you will simply push back decisions and re-schedule tasks for a later time. Procrastinators are often worry about perfection in the way they work, to the extent that nothing gets accomplished.

Rescue yourself from procrastination

Do you suffer from the so-called symptoms of procrastination? Here are some things you can do to help improve your workflow:

Make a plan every day. When you have a plan, you need to stick with it and make sure nothing can slip out of your schedule.
Take advantage of tools. Use a “to do list” for example. Note down everything you need to do during the whole day. Or, you can try various apps that help you through reminders and task lists, so you don’t miss the important things.
Set priorities. You need to know which things need to be resolved first, so you can avoid delaying something you don’t like.
Split your projects into smaller tasks. When you divide tasks into smaller ones, you can more easily create a timetable with specific deadlines. Solving these will be easier than vaguely aiming to finish a big project. This way, you can keep track of accomplishments and then reduce the pressure on yourself when you tick off tasks from the list. Set a time limit for each job — this helps you become more willing to finish each task.
Reward yourself. You can kick the procrastination habit by incentivising yourself for achievements. It does not have to be expensive or big-ticket. This can involve eating out with friends, a delicious meal, a satisfying drink, or anything that can make you feel comfortable and satisfied. You will become better-motivated this way, and it helps create joy in your work. Still, reaching your goals is, in itself, a great experience.

Life is a river. It never stands still. It always changes, for better or worse. So every day, we must ask ourselves:

Am I looking forward to this new year?
Am I feeling better, happier and more prosperous than last year?
Had I been a better person today than yesterday?
If the answer is “No”, you might need to do things differently to welcome the new year with better perspectives.

Tag: productive mindset

5 ways to advance your life and enterprise with a growth mindset