Permanent link for You Can Develop Grit on March 3, 2023

A key to entrepreneurial success is grit: passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement.

It's easy to talk about grit as something you have or don't. Successful entrepreneurs have grit; the rest of us don't. But this false. Anyone can develop grit.

Dr. Carol Dweck, PhD in psychology, has studied people's ability to learn and adapt to challenging circumstances. She describes two basic mindsets: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. Her research shows that people with a growth mindset tend to perform better than those with a fixed mindset, and she's shown that people with a fixed mindset can develop a growth mindset.

People with a fixed mindset tend to see intelligence as static or fixed; people with a growth mindset tend to view intelligence as a characteristic that can be developed.

Growth mindsets enable entrepreneurs to move into new fields, fosters grit, makes it easier to iterate on your product or service, and keeps you from stagnating. Harvard Business Review has a nice run-down on why entrepreneurs need a growth mindset.

How can you develop a growth mindset?

1. Learn to recognize your fixed mindset voice. When you say things like "I'm not good at..." or "I always...," you're probably using a fixed mindset. Work to notice this voice, think about examples that counter the fixed mindset, and substitute conditional statements like "sometimes I..." or "In these situations, I often..."
2. Work on being comfortable being vulnerable, and seek honest feedback. Critical feedback is not telling you who or what you are; you're just hearing about weaknesses or oversights that you can improve upon.
3. Invest your sense of self-worth and your self-esteem in your values and basic human worth rather than in what you produce or your income.

Categories: entrepreneurship
Posted by Thomas Hopper on Permanent link for You Can Develop Grit on March 3, 2023.