Mohammed A. Helal , written on 7 January 2020
To write these words I had to change my mindset. I have many ideas but told myself I can’t write them down or, that people might see it as useless.
However, after few weeks of hesitation I decided to change my mindset, then believe in my experience and knowledge and counter all these negative thoughts. I convinced myself that may be someone will benefit from my words.
Before I retired and during my working years, I am sure I had a mindset for growth and progress. How do I know? One of the reasons is that I never said no to a challenging task.
I believed that one’s mindset is determined by a collection of experiences, knowledge, beliefs, and what you think about yourself and the world around you.
My religion (Islam) impacted my life and enhanced my growth mindset.
There is a very beautiful verse in the Qur’ān that states that God will make things work out when and where someone does not expect: “And whosoever believes in Allah…He will make a way for him to get out (from every difficulty). And He will provide him from (sources) he does not expect” (Qur’ān 65:2-3).
The Qur’ān also highlights the fact that relief comes with difficulty. “So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief: Verily with every difficulty there is relief. Therefore, when you are free (from your immediate task), still labour hard. And to your Lord turn (all) your attention” (Qur’ān 94:5-7). Ultimately, the Qur’ān shifts the psychology of the person so that they see the greater picture of what they are going through. One must trust that God ultimately knows best and has the best plan for each person, be it in this life or the hereafter.
With this belief in the creator of everything you can conquer any challenge and you will have growth mindset.
Consider yourself like a processing machine, it is important to know how you receive and deal with the inputs, how you process the inputs, then how you present the outputs.
To have a mindset for growth, you should not have a fixed mindset. To achieve growth and success, you always must change your mindset to adapt to the changing environment based on your experiences and knowledge.
You must believe that you are a capable person, and don’t be afraid of failure. Failure will only bring success the next time around. Be optimistic when you approach a task and if your knowledge and experiences are not enough, believe that you can gain the necessary knowledge and experience to succeed and achieve growth.
During a visit to our community primary school I found a display to teach the students about Growth Mindset.
It is presented in a simple and colourful way to grab the students’ attention.
It is important to learn these elements and how to implement them in life from young age. This leads to success and confidence in tackling challenges that always faces us.
There are a lot of material available on the internet explaining how to change your mindset. Most are good and presenting a variety of ways to change your mindset to a positive progressive mindset to achieve growth and success. Some of the points that will help changing your mindset include: making sure you are in contact with good people in your field, you have a good and relevant source of information, don’t limit your belief in yourself, listen to your positive thoughts and ignore the negative thoughts.
One element that will help in changing your mindset is “Finding your voice”. Here, Stephen R Covey” list “The 4 Steps to Finding your voice” http://www.stephencovey.com/blog/?p=16
{How do you define “voice”?
To help you find this, answer these 4 questions.
- What are you good at? That’s your mind.
- What do you love doing? That’s your heart.
- What need can you serve? That’s the body.
- And finally, what is life asking of you? What gives your life meaning and purpose? What do you feel like you should be doing? In short, what is your conscience directing you to do? That is your spirit.
People are internally motivated by their own four needs: to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy. When they overlap, you have voice-your calling, your soul’s code.}
Also, this link at Wikipedia has some details and references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindset
{According to Carol Dweck,[4] individuals can be placed on a continuum according to their implicit views of “where ability comes from”.
Dweck states that there are two categories (growth mindset versus fixed mindset) that can group individuals based on their behaviour, specifically their reaction to failure. Those with a “fixed mindset” believe that abilities are mostly innate and interpret failure as the lack of necessary basic abilities, while those with a “growth mindset” believe that they can acquire any given ability provided they invest effort or study.
Dweck argues that the growth mindset “will allow a person to live a less stressful and more successful life”.}