How to Shift Your Mindset from a Fixed Mentality to a Growth Mentality

How to Shift Your Mindset from a Fixed Mentality to a Growth Mentality 

Mindset work is not just about thinking positively or ignoring your past hurts, failures or negative experiences.

When you've experienced devastating disappointments, failures or even traumas in your life, shifting your mindset from being ‘fixed’ or staying in those dark places to one of ‘growth’ where you feel like you can rise from those ashes and move forward takes a few key elements.

If you’re suffering and feeling ‘stuck’ by your circumstances or something that’s happened in your life, follow these steps to facilitate your healing:

• Treat yourself with grace and self-compassion.  Recognize that is will take some time to recover.
• Evaluate your environment:  Are you in a safe place? If you're sharing your story with someone else, is it safe to share freely?  Your journal is always a safe place to share, and the writing practice helps you process what you've been through.  You'll also become aware of the lessons are there for you to learn,  Your health-care professional can help you with resources too.
• Adopt a firm resolve to leave behind the notion of being a victim of your circumstances (regardless of what has happened to you), and refuse to let it hold you back from all you're meant for and who you're meant to be.

Here’s how to begin the journey from ‘fixed or victim mentality’ to ‘growth mentality’ in a way that honors your experiences:

1. Mindset is KEY. 

Everything begins with your beliefs and how you think.  What you think about, you'll bring about.  What you focus on creates more of what you're focusing on.

For those who've survived a traumatic experience and intend to put the pieces of their lives back together and thrive, it's important to recognize a few important elements:

• Your brain and your body are both miracles of creation and engineering and they’ve adapted to keep you safe. TRUST in that for yourself.
• Healing begins with recognizing that it was an unfortunate circumstance but you ARE fully capable and ready to move out from under those circumstances and create and amazing life for yourself-despite the trauma, tragedy, failure or let-down.
• All that you need to heal completely and move forward with your life is fully within your capabilities and achieving 

I fully believe that for you – and for anyone who’s ready to put their painful past behind them. You can design the life you love.

2. Cultivating a Mindset of Growth

Someone with a fixed mindset believes that their abilities, their intelligence, and even their current circumstances are unchangeable, often reinforcing feelings of helplessness.

A negative failure, setback or even a traumatic event can make this belief stronger.

While your past experiences may shape the idea that changing the way you feel about something is impossible, but I’m hear to offer you hope.

It's entirely your choice to heal and move beyond that negative experience. How you THINK  about your experience can empower you to leave it behind you, and move ahead in your life in a positive way.

When you have a mindset of growth, you’ll be able to recognize that your negative experience had important lessons for you to learn and take forward with you. You don't have to stay 'stuck' there - you’re not doomed to stay in that sorrowful state and in those negative circumstances.

Understanding that setbacks are a natural part of life, failures happen to all of us - even the most successful people have had devastating failures to work through, and sometimes, even traumatic events happen.  

Those events do not define you, your worth or your potential to create the life you absolutely love for yourself. What matters most is that you get back up, dust yourself off, take the lessons forward and 'grow' through it.

3. Cultivating Self-Compassion and having a Curious Attitude

Negative experiences are part of life.

People will cause you pain, let you down and hurt you. 

That’s part of loving others.

Sometimes, we do fall victim to unfortunate circumstances, even traumatic events and such negative experiences can leave us with an inner critic – that little annoying voice in your head, (yes, I have one too - we all do),  that can contribute to feelings of unworthiness, zap our confidence and make us feel unworthy.

You can actually begin to tame that Gremlin Voice. 

Start to question what it’s saying to you. The next time you have negative thoughts or being to doubt yourself, try using curiosity instead.

Ask these questions:

• What would I say to a loved one experiencing this?
• Where is the proof for this that I’m hearing?
• Is there any real validity to it?
• What else can be true?
• Why exactly are you hearing this?

Questioning negative thoughts in this way is a strategy for self-kindness and allows for expansion. Going through this process will rewire your brain for safety and positivity, rather than simply being defeated and beaten by those negative thoughts.

Reframing with curiosity to explore and get to the bottom of it all changes negativity into growth opportunities. Each challenge is a step forward, not a confirmation of inability, insecurity or doubt.

Positive self-talk is another fantastic and powerful weapon you can use against your inner critic. Turning those negative notions on their head and reframing them will shift your mindset to a more positive place.   

Affirmations like:

1. I am capable of learning and growing through this. 
2. I love who I’m becoming: stronger and happier, more resilient. 
3. I am a champion. I never lose. I either win or I learn. (That one is from Nelson Mandela and one of my favourites)

You can make up your own affirmations.  Use whatever resonates most with you, but always make them positive and powerful. 

Repeating these affirmations such as these often are even more powerful when you get into the habit of saying them out loud, in front of the mirror looking into your own eyes.

PRO TIP: Try doing it each morning when you're getting ready for the day.

This one daily habit is practiced by professional athletes and competitive sales teams around the world.  It's proven success strategy and costs absolutely nothing for a massive return.

4. Creating an Environment of Safety (to facilitate your growth)

You can do some things to help create a sense of safety to facilitate and accelerate your own personal growth.

These simple practices include:

• Deep breathing and meditation and visualization
• Goalsetting – helps you focus on what you’ll create for yourself rather than what’s happened to you
• Grounding exercises, 
• Journaling (letters to yourself, your thoughts and feelings, uncensored)
• Mindful movement help create a sense of stability

Walking in nature is a free grounding exercise and one that helped me through my own healing journey.

Hiking near water or through the forest has a calming effect. If possible, go bare-foot (don’t risk splinters or cutting your feet). Connecting directly with the grass or the earth in your back yard are refreshing, grounding exercises that supports your healing journey.

5. Small, Sustainable Steps

Healing is not about drastic transformation. It’s also not going to happen overnight.

Healing takes time. It is a process. Real healing involves small, intentional steps along a journey from where you are to where you want to be.

This tip will help you along the way: Celebrate your progress. Even the tiniest step forward is worth celebrating. And every step forward builds on that foundation of self-awareness, progress and creating a winning mindset – one that is wired for growth.

Finally – resolve to leave behind the notion of being a victim of your circumstances – regardless of what has happened to you in your past. Refuse to let your painful past hold you back from all you are meant for and who you are meant to become.

Empowered with a growth mindset, there’s nothing you can’t achieve, no heights you cannot reach. 

This is your unique journey and I have a gift for you.

My Gift For You 

If you’d like some personalized guidance on Your Healing Journey, I’d love to chat. Please reach out to me privately at  trishosborne55@gmail.com or find me on  https://www.facebook.com/yourhealingjourneytrishosborne  to schedule a complimentary session.

' Your Healing Journey' Breakthrough Call.

This is a free call and there’s now obligation for us to work together. We’ll discuss your unique circumstances and what you'd like to overcome and achieve by the end of our time together, you’ll have:

1. Crystal Clarity with simple steps and solutions
2. Tools and resources to help you move forward confidently
3. A customized Action Plan designed just for you – what to do next to help you on your journey to wellness and healing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trish Osborne is a certified Integrative Life Coach, Founder of Your Healing Journey and the Host of a forever -free Facebook Community of the same name.

It's her mission to help women leave past hurts and traumas in the dust (where they belong), recover from their pain, boldly embrace their unique talents and gifts, and design the life they truly desire - one full of passion and purpose, confidence and freedom. 

With a proven, step-by-step process to recovery and life success, Trish offer you a customized coaching experience designed with each individual client collaboratively and with holistic approach to healing the mind, body and the soul too.