Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2015. Its “new research from Stanford” refers to 2015, though Dweck’s mindset research spans decades, and Bradberry is described as president of TalentSmart as of that year.
When it comes to success, it’s easy to assume that people with a high IQ will succeed sooner and more easily than those whose IQ isn’t as high. But new research from Stanford University suggests this isn’t always the case.
See also: IQ doesn’t matter: what predicts success is grit
Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that attitude is a better predictor of success than IQ.
Dweck found that people’s core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and that can’t change. This creates problems when you face challenges, because anything seems to be more than you can handle, and you end up feeling overwhelmed and hopeless.
People with a growth mindset believe they can improve with effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower IQ, because they take on challenges and treat them as opportunities to learn something new.
Common sense suggests that having the ability to be smart inspires confidence. It does, but only while things are easy. The deciding factor in life is how you handle setbacks and challenges. People with a growth mindset welcome setbacks with open arms.
According to Dweck, success in life is all about how you deal with failure. She describes the way people with a growth mindset approach failure like this:
“Failure is information—we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.'”
Whichever category you fall into, you can make changes and develop a growth mindset. What follows are some strategies that Travis Bradberry, author of the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and president of TalentSmart, suggests on his LinkedIn account to adjust the way you think and help your mind keep growing.
1. Don’t stay helpless
We all have moments when we feel powerless. What sets people apart is how they react to that feeling.
We can either learn from it and move on, or let it drag us down to the depths.
There are many successful people who would never have made it if they had given in to feelings of helplessness: Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, among many others.
If any of them had had a fixed mindset, they would have given up at the first setback and never achieved success.
People with a growth mindset don’t feel helpless because they know that to succeed, you have to be willing to fail and start again.
2. Be passionate
Powerful people pursue their passions relentlessly. There will always be someone more naturally talented than you at something, but what you lack in talent you can make up for with passion.
Powerful people’s passion is what drives their relentless pursuit of excellence. Warren Buffett recommends finding your true passions using what he calls the 5/25 technique: write down the 25 things you care about most. Then cross out the bottom 20. The remaining five are your true passions. Everything else is just a distraction.
3. Take action
It’s not that people with a growth mindset can overcome their fears because they’re braver than the rest of us; it’s just that they know fear and anxiety paralyse their emotions, and that the best way to overcome this paralysis is to take action.
People with a growth mindset are motivated, and powerful people know there is no truly perfect moment to move forward. So why wait for one? Take action and turn your worry about failure into positive, focused energy.
4. Go the extra mile, or two
Powerful people show up even on their worst days. They are always pushing themselves to make an extra effort.
One of Bruce Lee’s students ran three miles with him every day. One day, they were about to reach the three-mile mark when Bruce said, “Let’s do two more.” His student was tired and said, “I’ll die if I do two more.” Bruce’s reply was: “Then do it.”
His student got so angry that he finished the full five miles. Exhausted and furious, he confronted Bruce about his remark, and Bruce explained it this way: “If you always put limits on what you can do, physically or in anything else, you’ll never achieve anything. Those limits will spill over into your work, your morale, your whole being. There are no limits; you mustn’t stay at them, you have to go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”
See also: Bruce Lee’s philosophy in 10 quotes for entrepreneurs
5. Expect results
People with a growth mindset know they will fail from time to time, but they never stop expecting results. Expecting results keeps you motivated and feeds the cycle of power. After all, if you don’t think you’re going to succeed, why bother?
6. Be flexible
Everyone runs into adversity unexpectedly. People with a growth mindset embrace adversity as a way to improve rather than something that holds them back. When an unexpected situation challenges someone with a growth mindset, they stay flexible and adapt to the circumstances until they get the results they want.
7. Don’t complain when things don’t go your way
Complaining is a clear sign of a fixed mindset. A growth mindset looks for opportunities in everything, so there’s no room for complaints. While you’re complaining, you’re wasting precious time and the energy you’ll need to keep moving forward.
See also: The main differences between successful and unsuccessful people
Featured image: Satheesh Gopalan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
