The phrase growth mindset has become almost ubiquitous. First coined by researcher and professor of psychology at Stanford University, Carol Dweck. It has been adopted by everyone from school administrators. To business executives, to professional athletes, NBA champion, and basketball superstar. LeBron James has been quoted by the New York Post as saying it's always about a growth mindset.

It's the fact that you know that you can do better. Even at our age, even with our accolades, even with what we've done in our careers, we still feel like we can improve. According to Dweck herself, it is the belief that skills and intelligence can be grown and developed through hard work, good strategies and input from others.

Those with a growth mindset tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset because they focus less on looking smart and more on learning and growing. It's about getting better. While thinking about what a growth mindset is, it's important to consider what it isn't. A growth mindset isn't just an attitude of keeping an open mind or a positive outlook.

It isn't a matter of maintaining a belief that good things will come your way. It isn't just a matter of praising or rewarding. And it isn't keeping with a fixed mindset. Fixed mindsets are all too common, both in business and in general. Those with a fixed mindset maintain the belief that skills and intelligence are predetermined.

They are irrationally concerned with being right and looking good in front of others. The fixed mindset suggest that learning should be effortless. You either have a knack for it or you don't. It encourages you to avoid mistakes at all Costs infuse challenges as roadblocks and barrier. It pigeonholes what success is and who can achieve it.

Conversely, a key characteristic of the growth mindset asserts that skills and knowledge can be and are developed, and that learning requires time and effort. It is not set, but rather fluid and capable of being nurtured. Further characteristics are that it treats mistakes as learning opportunities and the challenges that mistakes generate simply as obstacles that need to be overcome.

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