Focusing on a Growth Mindset

Today we are going to address focusing on a growth mindset. Toilet paper. Here we are a full year into a global pandemic and one of the biggest things that sticks out in my mind is toilet paper. Sometimes, I think that it is some kind of experiment on the human heart. Not the pandemic, of course. There is no denying that it is real and terrifying. 

It’s the toilet paper that gets me. The entire situation is a testament to a scarcity mindset and how most humans default to that way of thinking. Don’t get me wrong, there are moments when I wonder what we will do if we run out. I may or may not have switched my family to using cloth napkins so we can save the paper ones for…you know…just in case. 

So, I am not sitting on my toilet paper soapbox and pointing fingers. A scarcity mindset is real and based on what played out with the toilet paper, frightening. 

Moreover, as humans, we are conditioned to fear that there will not be enough. Enough food, money, work, time. Enough love, understanding, acceptance. So, we gather, and we hoard, and quite honestly, we fear. How do we move past that? Can we learn to trust that the person ahead of us is going to take exactly what they need and leave some for the rest of us? How can we know with certainty that who we are will be enough? 

My best guess at this is that we just keep trying. We try to take what we need and share what we don’t. We try to love people who are different than us. Not for who we think they can become but for who they are at the very moment. That, my friends, is how we engage in a growth mindset.

One of my favorite resources for teaching my kids to have a growth mindset is Big Life Journal. How can you practice focusing on a growth mindset today?