Why you need a growth mindset to be successful.

Many people misunderstand what it means to be successful. They measure a successful person by their wins in life. Your wins do not measure your success, your failures do. They may have wins, but it is the failings they have endured that has shaped their success. Why? Because every time you fail at something you learn.

You could fail thousands of times before succeeding. Each time you fail, you fail better. You adapt and try a new way. Edison failed a thousand times before creating a working light bulb. He did not view those attempts as failures, he saw them as steps towards his invention. It is this resilience and perseverance that makes a person more likely to be successful.

We are most resilient in our early life. As toddlers, we are driven to try new things as we develop our independence. Take learning to walk, for example. A toddler, tries countless times to take steps independently. They will fall, bump or hurt themselves in the process. But amazingly, they keep trying. Each time they tumble they adjust their balance and try again. It is a process in which they develop resilience and the sense of accomplishment is second to none – they refuse a buggy and demand to walk everywhere.

Somewhere in our childhood our resilience and perseverance dips. This may be a generational thing, in which parents do everything for their child in order to please. AS parents, we start to take away these opportunities for our children to develop these skills. Roll forward to adulthood and life becomes a hot mess in which we don’t know hot to get through.

It’s all about your mindset. And yes, you can change your mindset at any age. They key is knowing and accepting failure as part of everyday life and choosing to keep going through these times. Each time you fail, try again. It is completely possible to build up your resilience. And when you do succeed, the sense of pride is tremendous.

You may find it helpful to have a motivational goal – a purpose for why you want to be able to do something. You then have to believe in yourself and remind yourself of this when you fail.

Like Edison, he believed that he would succeed in inventing a light bulb and 1,000 steps later, he did!

Rachel, That 30 Something Singleton x