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NatWest Business Builder

How to develop your skills

Develop your mindset further

Growth mindset is often talked about as a quick-fix to solve problems, but as with any ability it takes time, effort and practice to develop. We’re going to identify four useful tools and techniques to help you build your growth mindset. These will help you develop yourself, and your ability as an entrepreneurial leader to:

  • More effectively overcome challenges
  • Learn from setbacks and ultimately
  • Make better, more informed decisions in your business.

How can you grow?

Carry on developing your self-awareness – having awareness of your thoughts will allow you to understand and control your emotions, and help you recognise what triggers your fixed mindset beliefs or behaviours.

Ready to have a go?

Try this:

Take some time to identify three key areas, skills or abilities that you have previously approached with a fixed mindset but would like to develop further. Reflect on what was stopping you from developing these skills in the past asking yourself these questions to help:

  1. What was stopping you from developing these skills?
  2. Can you identify any common triggers or situations that would bring on a fixed mindset?
  3. How did it make you feel?
  4. What do you worry about?

2. Step outside your comfort zone

It’s good to carry on challenging yourself. The science sitting behind the idea of a growth mindset could help you understand more about this technique.

Your neurons make connections

In your brain, cells called neurons are always making connections to thousands of other neurons, and the strength, number and location of those neurons affect how the brain works.

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New connections rewire your brain

Amazingly, these connections change all the time, and, as the result of our experiences, new connections can be formed, or strengthened, making the brain smarter by literally rewiring our brain.

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Keep on going when it gets tough

Brains, like muscles, need to be exercised to develop, and can do that through effort, practice and hard work. Working on something challenging can cause anatomical changes to your brain.

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Repeat those experiences

If you repeat those experiences, the connections will get stronger – and those things will become easier!

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4. Enjoy the journey (and learn how to fail)

Probably one of the strangest sounding tips – but a key part of developing your growth mindset is in how you respond to setbacks. 

Try to view mistakes, or setbacks, as learning opportunities, and the practice of doing that will help you control how you react to certain situations. Most entrepreneurs only got to where they are now after experiencing failure. But with the right mindset you can work past it, and grow from it.

Ready to put all you’ve read into practice?

Try this:

Take some time to reflect on your answers from above in the ‘how can you grow’ section. Identify three key actions (remembering that words have power) you can take to overcome that fixed mindset and start to develop those abilities.

Consider how much, by when and who you need to support you.

Take a moment

Finally, spend some time reflecting on any setbacks or failures that you've experienced so far.  Think about how you dealt with those challenges, and whether you could have done anything differently.

Take some time to review what you have learnt and write down three key actions to take your business forward. Make sure they're SMART actions (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-bound), specifying how much you are going to do and by when.

What's next?

Continue to build your business through: