Adopt a growth mindset. That’s a buzzy phrase you will see all over the internet, whether it is advice you will get on LinkedIn or a link to an academic study one of your friends randomly posts on their social media, and for good reasons. Science shows that growth mindsets, or one in which a person believes that their intelligence and talents can be developed over time, are more beneficial than fixed ones, or mindsets in which people believe that said development is not possible. 

And that makes sense right? Growth mindsets encourage people to take a positive outlook towards learning, and allows them to believe that they can get better at certain skills or tasks that they may currently struggle with. But, let’s drill down even further. Because cultivating and maintaining a growth mindset can offer you specific benefits that will make you a better leader, employee, parent, or anything else! And here’s how.

5 Specific Advantages Of Adopting A Growth Mindset

1. Growth Mindsets allow you to focus on the process - By believing in and focusing on progress and the ability to improve over time, growth mindsets teach people to care less about the results and more about discovering the best way to tackle a particular challenge or problem in the future. While failure at a particular task may offer holders of a fixed mindset proof that they cannot achieve something, the only message it sends to those with growth mindsets is that, while they cannot achieve it now, with more time or effort they will be able to moving forward.
2. Growth Mindsets don’t require outside validation - By definition, a person with a fixed mindset can only be validated through the receiving of praise and acclaim from others. Because they believe they cannot progress their skills in the future, those with fixed mindsets need to get positive results right this second to believe that they, either now or in the future, will possess the talent or skill necessary to accomplish something. Those with growth mindsets, however, understand that they can continue to learn and grow, and that even if they don’t receive praise for their work today, they may be able to on one of their next attempts.
3. Those with growth mindsets handle feedback better - Related to the point above, people with growth mindsets can handle constructive feedback from others because they acknowledge, up front, that they can get better and improve with more time and effort. Fixed mindset holders, however, will often take feedback for criticism, and use it as further proof that they cannot do something difficult.
4. Growth mindsets help you to become more realistic and resilient - Due to their belief in their future improvement, those who carry a growth mindset will more readily accept failure, and bounce back from it, knowing that a specific disappointment doesn't have to be permanent. Therefore, growth mindsets also help people to establish realistic expectations, because they don’t need to be perfect on their first try.
5. Growth Mindsets make you more comfortable taking risks - Because they fear failure less, those with growth mindsets are more willing to take risks, or trying something new. Meanwhile, those with fixed mindsets miss out on a lot of rewards and benefits, because they are afraid of the failure that might come their way if they attempt to do something hard that they may not have attempted before.
   

This is just a small glimpse at the specific attributes and characteristics that you can start to develop by adopting a growth mindset. Keeping reading about and researching growth mindsets to learn more, and remember that adopting a growth mindset, like anything worth doing, takes constant effort and practice in order to get it right.