Adopting a growth mindset and believing in yourself as next generation entrepreneurs.
Pretty sure when we are born, we have no idea of what our lives will become. More than 80% of the possible work population will someday go to work in the corporate world and small businesses. A few will go into other fields like social work or education. The rest, around 15% will take a run at starting a company. Why are these numbers not reversed? Why are we not teaching entrepreneurship skills in kindergarten? The problem or the opportunity is bigger than that. And understanding entrepreneurship is not so simple.
With respect to entrepreneurship, 50% of academic research suggests entrepreneurship is in people’s DNA, there from birth. The other 50% of research indicates that entrepreneurship is impacted by your environment, upbringing and the gain of knowledge. Regardless of what you believe, there has been quite a bit of research done on the psychological impact of belief which Carol Dweck, a professor and researcher at Stanford University has studied for over 30 years.
After studying the behavior of thousands of children, Dr. Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have about learning and intelligence. When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that the effort makes them stronger. Therefore, they put in extra time and try harder, and that leads to higher achievement, ergo a growth mindset. For the children who do not believe they can learn and get more intelligent, they simply don’t. They are stuck in a fixed mindset. Forever. More information about Dr. Dweck’s research can be found here in a summary article published on the Association for Psychological Science.
So, what exactly happens when we are young, full of creativity and ambivalent about the world, let alone know what we will become? What shapes our mindsets to become more confident and resilient or to shy away from challenges? Your environment. Let’s define environment as a universe where parents, teachers and friends live and where you acquire traits and skillsets, processes and work ethic that you don’t even realize at the time but it begins to shape you for your future career path. The development of your mindset happens at an early age without you even realizing it. And that might just impact your ability to become an entrepreneur.
In a perfect world, what could have happened to you in your childhood that might have better prepared you to be a potential entrepreneur? Let’s look at some of those traits and skillsets and, you should understand, that you can impact them even now. Meaning, if you believe you can grow and learn today, then you can also believe you are capable of becoming an entrepreneur.
Self-confidence and mindset. First things first. Read and study as much as you can about a growth mindset as it is critical to your career and life. Then adopt a growth mindset. Second, you have to believe in yourself. According to psychological studies, confidence comes from where we derive our self-worth. Here comes the tough part. In order to fuel your growth mindset and self-confidence, you have to learn how to make decisions and then own them, right or wrong.
Resilience and grit. This might be the one trait that helps quite a few entrepreneurs succeed. When things get tough, they don’t quit. Developing a thick skin when it comes to adversity is paramount in an entrepreneur. An important part of entrepreneurship is learning about failure and not fearing it. Prepare yourself to develop a resilient spirit and handle challenges life sends your way. Be calm and don’t get too anxious.
Learning to solve problems. Learning to think critically is a key component to being a problem solver. Learning how to be a critical thinker involves the art of continually asking simple questions. Think of it like peeling an onion, where each successive question peels away another symptom until you are left with the actual problem. Don’t fear being wrong; move progressively forward as you seek the right answer with good questions, some learning and confidence.
Curiosity and creativity = innovation. The world revolves around problems. Getting good at spotting and potentially solving problems could make you an invaluable member of the team. Hone your creativity by being more curious about anything and then spark that effort with asking more questions and reading to fuel your creativity. Innovative things happen when people with curiosity, creativity and growth mindset try to solve tough problems.
Little goals, big goals. Life is hard. Big goals in life are tough. So, get really good on setting and attaining small goals, some that can be accomplished in a day, a week, a month or even a year. Work your way up to a big goal. Make sure the attainment of plenty of small goals help you attain the big goal.
Taking the initiative. This is a tough one. It’s like being invited to a dance, but you are so nervous or have too strong a fear of failure, you never dance. You cannot move forward unless you move forward. Start with little decisions and gradually work up to the bigger ones. Use an advisor or mentor to get good counsel but then make the decision, own it and move on.
Developing your empathy. You can be kind and empathetic to people and still be successful. You don’t need to be arrogant or a bully. Develop leadership skills by listening and utilizing respect and trust to move decisions and projects forward. You cannot build great teams unless people trust you. Someone once said, ‘Be as gracious to the janitor as you would the CEO, they both have an important job to do.’
