Your grandest goals are the building blocks of a successful life.
They provide direction, encourage growth, and eventually lead you to what you desire. Lofty aims are the hallmark of an ambitious individual, and many of us have such ambitions. However, the problem arises with our own mindset and degree of self-belief.
Big goals are great and necessary for a fulfilling life.
But unless you get your psychology right, your biggest aims will always feel like an impossible pipedream. And this will prevent you from following your ambitions through until the end. So if your goals feel unattainable, like they’re out of reach and you’ll never make the grade, then you’re in the right place.
Because this post will reveal how to develop self-belief so you can achieve your loftiest ambitions.
The Key to Self-Belief
Self-belief can come from many places.
It can come from positive reinforcement by others, personal experiences of success, or even seeing other people’s successes. Regardless, if you feel as if your dreams are “not in the cards” for you, it’s because you don’t believe in yourself and your ability to make those dreams a reality.
You have a fixed mindset.
What you need to do is convert that fixed mindset into a growth mindset. This shift is the key that will open the door to self-belief, allowing you to achieve your grandest goals in life. Now, you may be wondering what these two ways of thinking entail.
Let’s explore each one in detail so you understand these two mindsets’ effects on your life. We’ll begin with the…
Growth Mindset
In its most basic form, a growth mindset depicts the manner in which you view difficulties and setbacks. People with a growth mindset feel that even if they struggle with certain activities, their current skills are not set in stone. They believe that with dedication and hard work, their abilities can improve.
This mindset will help you persevere, surmount challenges, and eventually reach your grandest goals. Here are some additional benefits of a growth mindset:
- Improvement in confidence and self-esteem
- Increased resilience
- See setbacks as opportunities
- Limitless in regards to talents and abilities
- Greater personal and professional success
- Open to criticism and constructive feedback
- Encouraged by the success of others
Fixed Mindset
Striving for your goals is hard.
However, it’s even more difficult (if not, impossible) with a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset depicts someone who thinks their intellect, skills, and qualities are fixed character traits that cannot develop or improve. They assume and believe people are born with particular proficiency levels (or specific talents) and are incapable of improving their abilities with time and effort.
Here are a few qualities people with fixed mindsets possess:
- Ignores advice and feedback
- Avoids challenges
- Lacks perseverance (easily quits on their goals when things become hard)
- Threatened by other people’s success
- Takes constructive criticism personally
You must go from a fixed to a growth mindset to achieve your grandest goals.
If this transition doesn’t occur, you’ll be confined to mediocrity forever. At this point, you may wonder: How do I develop a growth mindset? Good question. I will share with you a few rudimentary concepts that are so basic you may have a hard time believing their validity regarding goal achievement. But these are the fundamental building blocks to your success.
Are you ready? Here are…
3 Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset to Achieve Your Goals
Do not let the simplicity of these strategies throw you off. Truth is always simple; we just tend to complicate things unnecessarily. Here are the 3 ways to develop a growth mindset to achieve your grandest goals in life.
1. Keep Your Word
This simple idea is at the heart of all self-improvement.
Your word demonstrates the strength of your purpose; failing to keep your word to yourself or others (regardless of the commitment) weakens your resolve and integrity. As a result, your sense of self-belief diminishes, even if you don’t realize it at the moment. This concept is actually serious business.
Think about it from this perspective.
What happens when someone breaks a promise they made to you? How do you view that person afterward? Chances are you’ll see them as unreliable, untrustworthy, flaky, unprincipled, dishonest, etc. In other words, that individual loses credibility in your eyes.
And the interesting part? It doesn’t matter what the broken promise was.
It could be something as “innocuous” as not calling you back when they said they would or as significant as failing to repay a large sum of money you loaned them. Either way, the same effect occurs: a loss of respect and trust. And this principle applies to you.
Keep your word in all that you do.
Be reliable and trustworthy, not just with others but with yourself as well; say what you mean and mean what you say. And you’ll be shocked at how your resolve and self-belief will soar to new heights. This step is the first one to develop a growth mindset and achieve your goals.
Keeping your word develops a ‘follow-through’ mentality in your character, which is indispensable for goal achievement.
2. Engage in Calculated Hardships
You should intentionally add struggle to your life.
Now, I’m not saying you should quit your job, spend your savings, and live out of your car. That’s not the kind of struggle I’m talking about. You need to be a bit more strategic than that. Instead, I recommend integrating calculated hardships into your daily routine.
The idea behind this concept is that life is hard.
However, it’s infinitely harder if you’re a sensitive snowflake who melts under the slightest signs of pressure or discomfort. Intentionally adding struggle to your life through calculated hardships can strengthen you and make you more resilient.
This strategy will go a long way in cultivating a growth mindset and ultimately achieving your grandest goals. Here are some calculated hardship ideas:
- If you live in an apartment building, take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Do 50 pushups when you wake up every morning
- Start taking cold showers
- If it’s within reason, walk to the gym/store/your friend’s house, etc., instead of drive
As you can see, many of these activities are fairly easy.
They are calculated ways to add challenges to your life. Over time, these calculated hardships will build your confidence; you’ll begin seeing yourself as a person who can do difficult tasks. And this will be invaluable, as it will translate into other pursuits and objectives you may have.
3. Bite Off (a Little) More Than You Can Chew
I’m a strong advocate of incremental improvements.
It’s in these tiny, seemingly insignificant refinements where confidence and self-belief are developed. Consequently, it’s vital that you — from time to time — take on a little more than what you’re used to or comfortable with. You have to push yourself beyond your current capabilities or skill level.
A classic example of this is exercise.
You don’t walk into a gym and try to lift the heaviest weight you can locate; that’s asinine. You’ll hurt and injure yourself. Instead, you start with the light weights and slowly build up to the heavier ones through careful training.
Each week, you add a little more weight (provided you were able to successfully lift last week’s load).
This process is referred to as progressive overload. And it’s what allows you to become stronger in the gym. Likewise, you can also become stronger in other realms of your life by biting off a little more than you can chew. As a result, you become more than you previously were, which enables you to handle more than you previously could.
These 3 strategies are the foundation for developing a growth mindset.
Are You Ready to Achieve Your Grandest Goals?
Achieving your grandest goals comes down to how you perceive yourself.
Your self-image will dictate what you feel you’re capable and worthy of and what is beyond your capacity to reach. As such, reaching your desired outcome is the result of improving your self-image through steady and consistent effort. And the 3 strategies listed above is the way to do it.
Stay Motivated And Disciplined.
