Cultivating a growth mindset is the best way for marketers to stay agile when faced with uncertainty. Rather than being a person who knows it all, a growth mindset gives you the power to be confident and embrace change.
Many business leaders find that a growth mindset can benefit an organization in various ways. While growth is needed to improve personally, it’s also crucial for business innovation and success.
Having a growth mindset means you adapt through learning and commitment. On the other hand, some have a fixed mindset, believing that hard work is limited and doesn’t pertain to development.
If you want to foster a growth mindset, here are several ways to harness it today.
Many marketers learn to dismiss feedback or aren’t open to changes because some can remain stuck in their ways. People with a fixed mindset often believe feedback is useless. They think they can’t change and therefore discredit the input they receive.
Yet if you learn to love feedback rather than dread it, you’ll notice how it can positively impact your work when making improvements.
Often, it’s easier to achieve this if your company fosters a positive environment. Research shows that employees in a supportive work environment have a 70 percent less chance of experiencing burnout — which is crucial for preparation and development.
Upon receiving feedback, try to understand what your manager or colleague is saying by asking questions. That way, you can process the information and address the issue better.
Accepting feedback is critical to changing and improving yourself. Therefore, it’s best to put your emotions aside whenever possible and realize you get more out of new suggestions by not taking them personally.
Education doesn’t stop once you enter the workforce. A growth mindset requires you to keep learning through formal education. However, you might think returning to school isn’t possible because of the time.
Now more than ever, it’s easier to receive education while you remain in your position. Many online MBA programs offer flexibility and allow you to apply what you learn in the classroom to the real world.
Alternatively, many decide to focus more on their education while taking a break from work. Either way, a growth mindset shows you that it’s never too late to learn. If you feel compelled to pursue a degree, know that it can enhance your marketing career.
Being open to learning also makes you more valuable as an employee. It may even open you to better opportunities to earn more. Yet if pursuing a degree isn’t on your list of priorities, you still have plenty of resources to access online.
For example, you can take a self-paced course to help you improve your marketing skills. HubSpot Academy and Google offer free career certifications to help marketers grow in digital marketing, e-commerce, and more.
A growth mindset makes it easy to stay motivated while navigating obstacles. That’s because you’re more open to being out of your comfort zone, and you know it’s the best way to improve your skills.
Maintaining motivation also occurs when you realize how possible it is to be resourceful. For example, the pandemic led to new changes for marketers. They had to plan many moves for their product launches to exist online when they initially designed it to occur in a physical space.
When you have a growth mindset, ensure you embrace new challenges. Avoid seeing setbacks as a failure because that’s where you have the opportunity to learn and grow from them.
Many changes will occur throughout your marketing career, and often people become frustrated when they result in restrictions. However, adopting a growth mindset makes things much easier when you stay positive through difficult times.
As a result, you’ll become well-equipped as a professional and impress your managers in the long run.
The marketing industry is fast-paced, requiring marketers to handle new responsibilities even if it's not within their job description. However, those with a fixed mindset assume what they can and can’t perform because they’re unwilling to learn new skills.
For example, they might take on a leadership role because it feels more natural to be a leader. Consequently, they resist trying a new task because it’s outside their capabilities.
Yet, it’s possible to develop a growth mindset by seeing your own potential as something you can change. When you take time to grow personally, you become more fluid. That’s because you’re willing to dedicate the time it takes to become better.
However, this doesn’t mean you need to excel at everything. Decide what areas are your greatest weaknesses and work to improve them.
It may require you to reframe your mindset. Therefore, you can consider it a challenge and a chance to enhance your skills.
A personal comparison doesn’t help when trying to accomplish a growth mindset. In fact, it can make you either feel better or worse because of how you view others’ success.
If your happiness depends on other people, you create a negatively competitive environment for yourself and others.
Instead, it helps to define your own successes by knowing what you value most. As you reflect upon this, prevent the negative impacts of comparison.
Many people believe success is one thing they achieved within the same year. However, success is something you can earn daily – and it can be a range of things, from showing up to meetings on time to asking more questions.
Adopt a growth mindset by being aware of smaller successes and writing one down daily for a month. Making a conscious effort like this can help you to become a better fit in the future for your company.
A growth mindset isn’t something to achieve in one day. It’s an ongoing process. However, when you see the value in making continuous efforts, you’ll eventually see more rewarding outcomes.
A growth mindset provides you with a fruitful career. But remember, it doesn’t mean you’ll never fail. Failure is an opportunity to learn, and it’s crucial for those pursuing a growth mindset to understand that.