Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset  |  Parenting with UNWAVERING Self Confidence!

If you tend to lack confidence and feel down about yourself, you are not alone. So many of us fear that we're messing up as parents, or just worry that we're not good enough. It's pretty much the most common fear that we parents have. And many of us live under the tyranny of a mean-spirited inner critic that is constantly pointing out our failures and just telling us how much we suck. But think for a moment how you would respond to your child saying that they're not good enough. Or to your best friend being so worried that they're messing it up. If your child makes a mistake, you would want them to know that mistakes are just learning opportunities. That they can recover from mistakes and move on. You would want them to know that they are good enough. That they are valuable and worthy, just as they are. You would want them to know that they can always learn, grow, change, adapt. You would want them to know that they are flexible, adjustable, and resilient. So why are you treating yourself any differently than you would treat your child? Why can't you also be learning, growing, changing on a journey? When you feel down on yourself, speak to yourself the way you would to your child. Adapting a growth mindset means that you understand that you can learn and change. That you are not stuck where you first begun. That mistakes and failures don't define you. That they are, in fact, simply learning opportunities and just an inevitable part of being human. That people can and do change. That behaviors, thoughts, and feelings are adaptable, shapeable, and moldable. That your brain plasticity doesn't end in childhood. We grow and change throughout the span of our life, and research proves this to be true. When you adopt a growth mindset, you know that you can be flexible. When you come at parenting from this mindset, you will be so much more confident in yourself. You won't magnify your mistakes and focus on all the ways you're messing up, feeling like this defines you and it's insurmountable. Instead, you'll brush off the mistakes, call yourself a human, and try again. You'll be kinder to yourself, knowing that you're on a growth journey, like the rest of us, and that there's no such thing as perfect. When you adapt a growth mindset, judgments and criticisms from other people will just roll off your back. They won't stick, because you'll know that's not you. Other people's thoughts and judgments or your own mistakes and shortcomings don't define you. They don't mean anything about you, except that you're on a journey. It's just one more stepping stone, one more stage to go through. You'll actually be grateful for those mistakes and for those hard times, because that's what makes you grow and learn. It develops your perspective and your empathy and your wisdom. It will help you to show up even better next time. And even more importantly, a growth mindset will quieten that inner tyrant who's telling you you're not good enough. That is such a useless voice. How does it help us? Instead of that voice, you'll begin to strengthen the whisper that you are good enough, that you're good enough just as you are, imperfect like the rest of us, and that the you that you are is always growing, adapting, and changing. So how can we ever judge it as not good enough when it's a constantly changing and evolving being? When you adapt a growth mindset, you'll be more flexible, compassionate, and forgiving towards yourself and towards others. This will lead you to feel so much more confident, so much calmer, and really find an inner peace.