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Boosting our adequacy at work—a simple mindset change might do it!

Anson




Work adequacy mindsets—--Growth and Fixed—-what are they? 


Inadequacy at work is a common feeling faced by people in the workplace. This feeling, if left unchecked, can cause serious confidence issues or downfalls in self esteem and satisfaction in the workplace. The feeling could turn every day in the workplace into a daunting one. After some research and analysis, however, we found out that a possible cause for this feeling lies in a fixed mindset of perceiving things.


A fixed mindset refers to a belief that abilities are inborn and unchangeable. Conversely, a growth mindset views abilities and skills as learnable and improvable through hard work and effort. Take the scenario of a person who is interested in becoming a good tennis player as an example. If he/she immediately blocks out the idea trying it out because of bad eye-hand coordination and thus deems the task impossible, then he/she has a fixed mindset. In contrast, a person with a growth mindset would try it out as he/she believes that poor motor skills can be improved by training.


These two mindsets result in various different perceptions during work, as we would list out below: 



  1. Fear of failure vs learning from failure:


Fixed mindsets fear failure  because they believe that failures reflect that they have poor skills. As they do not believe in future improvement, this would act as a direct and severe hit to their self-confidence. They therefore intrinsically try to avoid taking on any tasks that might result in failure to escape the pain of it. This limits their work experience and scope of abilities. 


In addition, fixed mindsets are often extremely outcome focused. This is because they do not find importance in learning; and thus would view efforts for a project to be completely useless if it does not yield the desired result in the end. Things learnt during the process would be ignored or overseen by this fixed mindset


So how does this correlate to our workplace proficiency? 


When unfamiliar tasks are forced upon them in work, their lack of absorption of relevant learning experiences before, coupled with their belief that it is impossible to pick up new abilities required, results in a greater chance of failure in it. They do not believe in their own success at all even before the task. The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy can be applied here—-(Self fulfilling prophecy: A prediction that comes at least in part true due to the person’s belief that it would come true). A tiny setback in the task might be sufficient to confirm their own feelings that they were never capable of it in the first place, and make them give up. They then consequently and naturally feel inadequate; more so than those with a growth mindset facing a similar failure, as they believe that the failure deems them as a low-level person. Thus, they feel constantly unhappy at work. 


A growth mindset, on the other hand, would not be crippled as much by a failure because they see what they have learnt in the process to be equally valuable. They also possess higher levels of perseverance and do not give up easily as they believe in their own ability to learn the skills required for the task. This, along with their constant willingness to try, learn and improve allows them to have a higher chance of succeeding in any tasks, and feeling adequate at work.


  1. Threatened vs inspired by the success of others 


People with fixed mindsets feel very threatened by the success of others as it makes them feel inferior in comparison. Therefore, their self esteem and feeling of adequacy decreases every time they are exposed to such successful people or cases. However, it is almost impossible to block out such information in the workplace as there would always be colleagues attaining success like getting promotions or being praised by others around us. Thus, they feel unhappy at work every day. 


Also, this mindset produces negativity, which affects their workplace social circle and life. Coworkers may feel the jealousy and negativity coming from people with these mindsets and thus not wish to get close to them, making them unpopular. This results in a further decline of self esteem.


In addition, the similarity attraction theory (People who share similar traits tend to be attracted to each other) means that people with fixed mindsets would find it difficult to make friends with those with higher positivity and appreciation for others' success, and instead only find comfort with those with similar inadequate and jealousy feelings.  This may result in a social circle filled with negativity, which makes them feel even worse and inadequate. 


In contrast, a person with a growth mindset would be inspired by the success of others as he/she finds it a valuable source of learning information. (The fixed mindset does not believe that learning can change one’s abilities, as stated before). He/She would therefore not be threatened by successful people, and even wish to be friends with them so as to be influenced by them more. This attitude is a positive one and make them more likeable to others. A person with a growth mindset would therefore likely have more friends and support at work, and thus greater feelings of adequacy there. 


  1. Open VS Defensive to feedback 


A fixed mindset is dismissive to feedback as they feel that it is a rejection of their capabilities and attack of their self-worth. They might thus make angry retorts to those who criticise them. They also always make up excuses to make themselves feel better for their own mistakes, as admitting to faults makes them feel very low-rated. This attitude affects their social circle in the workplace as people would often have to tolerate questionable behaviour from them. This can also lead to projects involving them being crippled because of faults from him/her which he/she refuses to correct or constantly makes up excuses for. Once again, this might make the fixed mindset person unpopular at the workplace and make him/her feel inadequate. 


The dismissive attitude to feedback also means that the person would not be able to improve his/her skills. So he/she would always struggle with many areas at work and life that he/she is not proficient in, which again lowers self esteem. 


A growth mindset, however, is open to constructive criticism and feedback. Their thrive of learning allows them to realise that there is always room for improvement. Therefore, they carefully consider feedback from others and correct the parts which they deem faulty and improvable. This allows them to become a better and more likeable person every day, which allows for good relations with colleagues. They can also be more productive at work as they develop better skills, attaining more success there and thus a higher sense of eventual adequacy. 


The above information all point out to one fact—-a growth mindset, and not a fixed one, is extremely important for realising self-adequacy at work. In the next part, we would cover the steps for turning yourself into a person with such a mindset! 



How can we transform? 


As mentioned previously, a growth mindset is very helpful to achieving adequacy at work. Here are some tips to start the transformation:


  1. Focus not only on the outcome but also what you have learnt in each task


It is very normal for us to put heavy emphasis on the result of a task—-after all, this is what we work so hard for! Yet a very important aspect of a growth mindset is the ability to shift part of our focus onto things learnt in the process. This is essential as the primary characteristic of a growth mindset is to be able to reflect, learn and grow from mistakes. For example, you might feel the training efforts and competition time spent are all wasted when you lose a competition. But instead, try to think about what the experience taught you. Maybe you were too conservative during the match? Or maybe implemented the wrong strategy? Whatever the case, there is bound to be some valuable feedback in the experience. 


2. Cultivate a sense of purpose 


A sense of purpose behind work is very important as it provides motivation for us to learn and improve. Without it, we might fall into a sinkhole of being content with relooping the same routines every day. For instance, you probably wouldn’t find motivation to work harder in your job if you receive the same pay, never get promoted or appreciated no matter how hard you work, wouldn’t you? 


3. Place growth before speed


It is important to note that growth usually takes time. A common hindrance in discouraging people to take up the growth mindset is that they do not see any improvements in a short period of time, and thus give up and revert back to the fixed mindset, concluding that growth is impossible. In reality, growth is a slow process. Errors and failures are all part of the process. Accepting them as such plays a key role in acquiring the growth mindset. 



4. Acknowledge your weaknesses 


This might be hard for some of us with a big ego. Accepting that you are weak in something may not be as easy as it sounds. For instance, are you really a good graphics designer at work if the graphics get criticised by others or have to be remodified before publishing? Of course, it might be that you were judged by the wrong people. But at least take a moment to consider the possibility of you being not as good as what you think in something, especially when some others point it out. Think carefully and rationally whether they have a point. Accepting one’s weaknesses is an important part of acquiring the growth mindset as only then can we really truthfully understand which parts of us require the greatest amount of improvement, and work on it. 



We can conclude from the above passage that acquiring a growth mindset is very important and useful for a person to get a sense of fulfillment and sustain adequacy at work. We hope that this article can guide you to correctly transform your work mindset to a growth one and subsequently attain excellence!

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