I feel I could be better

By Klaus Döring

Feeling like you can do better is a great sign. It means you are growing. To make changes, pick just one small thing to focus on today. Break your big goals into tiny, easy steps. Track what you do on a “done list” — a list of your small wins. You can use the idea of beating a “high score” in a video game to improve your own life. Instead of looking at what other people are doing, try to beat your past self.

Often in life, we come across relationships and people who are never happy with us. There may be times when you have given your all, but you still realize that you’ll never be good enough for some people.

This feeling is really sad and hurtful, and it makes you doubt yourself. This is when you feel that the world will never be satisfied with you, and there could be days when you feel like a failure.

But life is not about perfection; it’s about accepting the people we love as they are. When one person’s expectations are too high, it’s not possible to be good enough for them, no matter what you do. Never let this feeling make you depressed or feel low.

Amid daily changes in the world of work, there’s never been a better time for employees to cultivate skills that can help them better manage workplace challenges. This is where the idea of the “growth mindset” comes roaring in — the belief that workers are capable of actively improving their abilities rather than being innately able or unable to complete certain tasks.

Yet, this “can-do” mindset can be more difficult to harness than it seems. Doing so means becoming comfortable with embracing hurdles, learning from criticism, and persisting when things get difficult.

Even if we believe that such tenacity is worth developing, doubts and fears can dominate in practice. “We’re wired to believe our emotions,” says Elaine Elliott-Moskwa, a psychologist and author of “The Growth Mindset Workbook,” based in Princeton, New Jersey. “When a person says, ‘I feel I’m not good enough,’ that feeling is very powerful, even though it is a belief about their abilities.”

At the heart of the growth mindset is learning to overcome such feelings of inability or inadequacy in the face of obstacles and instead recognize an opportunity to learn. There can be profound benefits to cultivating this approach. Employees with a growth mindset can tap into useful skills to manage stress, build supportive relationships with colleagues, cope with failure, and develop attributes to help further their careers.

Approaching a challenge with a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset is a choice anyone can make.

Stanford professor and psychologist Carol Dweck narrowed this concept down to two approaches that can determine results: “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset.” “Fixed mindset is the idea that your abilities are high or low, and there’s not too much you can do to change it,” says Elliott-Moskwa, “whereas the growth mindset is the view that your abilities are malleable or changeable.”

While some people may naturally lean more one way than the other, people do not have either a fixed or growth mindset toward all problems. Instead, approaching a challenge with a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset is a choice anyone can make.

For many people, though, moments of difficulty often spur fixed mindsets. For example, Elliott-Moskwa says that when people receive criticism from a boss or struggle with a new task, they might feel a sense of inadequacy. In these situations, a fixed-mindset response might be, “I’m not good enough,” or “I can’t do it,” she says.

By contrast, a growth mindset takes a different approach to the same situation. People with growth mindsets do not interpret such moments as personal failings but instead recognize a need to improve. Crucially, people working with a growth mindset believe they are capable of such improvement and can break down challenges into achievable steps.

This means getting out of one’s comfort zone and accepting a certain level of risk, uncertainty, and potential failure that comes with trying something new. “It feels a little bit uncomfortable and also a little bit exciting,” says Isabella Venour, a London-based mindset coach who helps professionals understand the role their beliefs, values, and patterns of thinking play in the workplace. “You’ve got a bit of risk that it might go wrong, but you’ve also got the potential to learn something and to grow as an individual.”

Why is the growth mindset important in the workplace right now? A can-do approach is always a plus in the workplace — it demonstrates that workers are adaptable and willing to evolve within their jobs and organizations. But fostering a growth mindset also plays an important role in helping workers navigate turbulence and improve their resilience, as they feel more confident and capable of handling difficulties.

How can you improve your growth mindset? The first step toward encouraging a growth mindset is personal awareness: the ability to identify fixed-mindset thinking when it occurs, which often manifests as feelings of discomfort or inadequacy in the face of a challenge.

First, Elliott-Moskwa advises recognizing and accepting such feelings instead of beating yourself up over them. “Then, mindfully make another choice to take an action step in keeping with what you would be doing if you had a growth mindset — the belief that you could increase your abilities,” she says.

To help clients approach obstacles with a growth mindset, Venour often breaks down challenges that feel overwhelming into smaller pieces. For example, if a worker feels unable to give a presentation in front of colleagues, “How much of that is emotional, and how much of that is factual?” she asks. “Can they talk? Yes. Have they spoken in front of more than one person before? Yes. Have they done presentation slides before? Yes. So, if there are elements that they can do, what is the part that they’re not comfortable with?”

Narrowing down an overwhelming challenge to a specific point of difficulty helps workers focus and reduces the amount of learning required to an achievable level.

Often, the learning itself requires asking for help. One of the key concepts of a growth mindset is seeing others as inspiration rather than competition, an approach that can help foster collaborative teams. “If workers view others as resources and not as competitors, they’re open to sharing other people’s skills and abilities and learning from fellow employees,” says Elliott-Moskwa.

Over time, recognizing a fixed mindset and practicing a growth mindset can become easier, and the prospect of taking on challenges can become less daunting. “Growth mindset is an empowering attitude,” says Venour. “You can really develop and grow over time as a person.”

Sometimes, you might feel like you’re not good enough or unique enough, but everyone is unique. Everyone has a different personality.

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Email: doringklaus@gmail.com, or visit me on Facebook or LinkedIn. You may also visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com.