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The type of mindset we have can be a great predictor of our life success and happiness.
Mindset is everything.
It affects how we think, what we believe, how we act, and how we see ourselves and the world around us.
When you choose the mindset you have, you start living intentionally and creating a life you want to live. You give yourself control and power over yourself and your life.
In this article, you will learn four different kinds of mindsets that will change your life. Cultivate these four types of mindsets and you will see massive improvement in the quality of your life.
Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is the belief system that ability, skills, and intelligence can be developed. A growth mindset believes that change is possible.
A fixed mindset is the belief system that abilities and skills are fixed. It’s a limiting belief system.
A growth mindset sees problems and challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. It thrives on challenges. A fixed mindset sees failure as fatal and gets defeated easily.
Having a growth mindset allows you to learn better. Everything is a learning experience to someone with a growth mindset.
It makes you put in more effort to become better, learn more, and develop new skills. A fixed mindset focused on only showing off and looking good, smart, etc. rather than working on becoming better.
A growth mindset is better able to overcome obstacles and keep trying. A fixed mindset gives up easily and becomes discouraged when faced with challenges and failures.
Having a growth mindset cultivates determination, grit, and resilience.
You also build more confidence and self-efficacy when you experience growth and success from your efforts and pursuit.
People with a growth mindset are also more likely to accept feedback and use it to become better.
They also become inspired by others’ successes. People with a fixed mindset feel threatened by others’ successes.
This type of mindset is especially important to cultivate for parents and teachers to cultivate in children as it leads to higher grades and greater success in school, work, and life.
A growth mindset allows you to believe. Believe in yourself. Believe that anything is possible.
Solution Oriented Mindset
A solution oriented mindset is not one that ignores problems, but one that notices problems and acts quickly to find solutions.
Instead of focusing on problems, you focus on solutions. You put forth more time and energy on seeking solutions to problems.
Focusing on solutions prevents you from staying stuck. You act quickly instead of wasting time worrying and complaining about the problems. You reduce anxiety, stress, worrying, and overwhelm.
It’s a lot harder to solve problems and overcome obstacles when you don’t think you can and let problems overwhelm you.
A solution oriented mindset allows you to reduce procrastination and act quickly when obstacles come up.
If you don’t know something or how to do something, you commit to figuring it out. You commit to learning. You commit to solving.
When you are focused on finding solutions, you learn to make decisions better and quicker. The more you make decisions quicker, the better you become at making decisions, the more you progress quicker to becoming better and reaching your goals.
Focusing on solutions allows you to build up confidence and self-efficacy when you’re able to reach more goals and solve any problem that life throws at you.
Being solution focused leads to more creativity and innovation. You’re able to solve problems more quickly, efficiently, and effectively.
You become more open-minded and learn to look at things from different angles.
You figure out not just one, but multiple different solutions and ways to reach goals and solve problems.
This mindset is incredibly liberating and empowering.
Being solution-oriented makes things possible. Just like a growth mindset, it gives you belief. In yourself and that anything can be possible.
Any problem can be solved. Any obstacle can be overcome. Any task can get done. Any skill can be learned. Any goal can be reached. Anything can be figured out.
“Everything is figureoutable.” — Marie Forleo
Having a solution-oriented mindset builds creativity, resilience, and determination.
You don’t let anything stop you. No problem, obstacle, or failure can stop you. Because there is a solution to everything.
Curiosity Mindset
Curiosity is a powerful tool for humans. It’s what motivates us to learn and pursue.
Curiosity builds a burning desire to learn, to discover, to explore, to know.
Marketers and media producers use this to their advantage. They target our curiosity to get us to click, keep scrolling, continue watching, or buy.
The great thing about curiosity is that you can cultivate it. You can choose to view life, yourself, and look at things through a lense of curiosity.
“Curiosity is a delicate little plant which, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. It turns out that like many delicate plants, in order to flourish, curiosity needs to be cultivated.” — Albert Einstein
When you look at things through curiosity, everything changes.
Curiosity allows for change to become easier. Curiosity can help you grow your knowledge and build your skills. It’s a natural and incredibly powerful motivator.
Children are able to learn so much so quickly because of their strong sense of curiosity.
Curiosity allows you to become more open-minded.
Curiosity builds awareness. You notice things more. You become more self-aware as well as aware of how things are and how they work. Curiosity allows you to stay grounded in reality.
When you’re curious, you enjoy life so much more.
Curiosity leads to a sense of awe and wonder about life. Curiosity can be a very spiritual thing. It allows you to stay present in the moment while still considerate of the future. You become more “in-tune” and in a state of flow.
Progress and small changes are more noticeable when you’re curious.
You become open to new opportunities.
Instead of the tired advice to “follow your passion”, choose to follow your curiosity which can actually allow you to discover passions and opportunities.
Solutions and curiosity go hand in hand. When you’re curious, you become more innovative and focused on finding solutions.
Curiosity also leads to courage. Being driven by curiosity leads you to conquer fear of all kinds.
Curiosity is innate in humans. Use it to your advantage.
Channeling your curiosity will lead to breakthroughs, new skills, more ideas, creativity, and knowledge.
Follow your curiosity and let it guide it. It will lead to amazing things you would have never considered.
To become more curious, use what Ramit Sethi calls the D to C principle.
Whenever you come across something you don’t like or don’t understand, instead of being quick to judge, dismiss or disparage, approach it with curiosity.
Another way to cultivate more curiosity is when you come across a book, article, person, or opportunity, ask yourself: Am I so interested in and fascinated by this that I’d be willing to spend time and effort learning more?
Asking yourself this question allows you to use curiosity to your advantage while also avoiding the pitfalls of curiosity such as shallow curiosity like notifications and clickbait articles. It also prevents information overload by being pulled in so many different directions at once.
Abundance Mindset
Just like a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, there is an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset.
An abundance mindset believes that there is enough for everyone. That there is enough love, resources, opportunities, wealth, time.
With an abundance mindset, there are no limits. There is limitless potential.
A scarcity mindset is a limited belief system.
An abundance mindset is based in growth and optimism. It is driven by hopes, goals, and desires.
A scarcity mindset is a fear-based mindset. When people have a scarcity mindset, their thoughts, beliefs, actions, and goals are driven by fear and anxiety.
An abundance mindset sees more opportunities and solutions. There are multiple ways to reach goals and solve problems. An abundance mindset can grow creativity and innovation.
The default of a scarcity mindset is pessimistic, cynical, and worried. They are critical and always pointing out problems without being solution-oriented.
Having an abundance mindset allows you to think big and push past your comfort zone. A scarcity mindset makes you think small and avoid risk. It makes you stay in your comfort zone and allows fear to control you.
People with an abundance mindset are more generous, giving, and share their knowledge and ideas with others. They are collaborative, agreeable and cooperative.
They work well both by themselves and with others as a team. While they are collaborative, competition makes them stronger. They are able to build trust and rapport easily.
People with a scarcity mindset are more greedy, stingy, and selfish, especially with ideas and knowledge. They see others as a threat and prefer less competition. They keep their guard up and are more suspicious of others.
Having an abundance mindset allows for more gratitude and happiness. It makes success and reaching goals easier.
Final Thoughts
As you’ve probably noticed, these four types of mindsets go hand in hand. They reinforce and strengthen each other. They also have similar benefits.
When you have the right mindset, you are able to learn better, develop creativity, strengthen relationships, achieve more goals, and experience greater happiness and life fulfillment.
Having a better mindset allows you to live a greater life.
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