Neuroscience Says Embracing This Mindset Actually Changes How Your Brain Is Wired (in the Best Possible Way)

First, let’s talk about mindset — specifically, growth mindset. Here’s no less an authority than Mark Cuban on the benefits of embracing a growth mindset:

When you’re first starting, you may or may not have a job. You don’t have any money. You’re at a complete uncertainty about your career. 

What I learned early on is that if I put in the effort, I can learn almost anything. It may take me a long time, but by putting in the effort I taught myself technology, I taught myself to program. … It was time-consuming, painfully so, but that investment in myself has paid dividends for the rest of my life.

I learned that learning truly is a skill … and that by continuing to learn to this day, I can compete and get ahead of most people, because the reality is most people don’t put in the time to learn … and that’s always given me a competitive advantage.

And here’s the thing. Research on achievement and success by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck shows that most people embrace, whether consciously or not, one of two mental perspectives on talent:

• Fixed mindset: The belief that intelligence, ability, and talent are inborn and relatively fixed. Someone with a fixed mindset might think, “I’m not good at sales, so I probably shouldn’t try to start a business.” 
• Growth mindset: The belief that intelligence, ability, and talent can be learned and improved with effort. Someone with a growth mindset might think, “I don’t have any sales experience,  but with a little time and effort I can surely develop the skills I need.” 

Embrace a fixed mindset — assume that you aren’t (and will never be) particularly smart, or skilled, or adept, etc. — and whenever you find yourself struggling you’re likely to quit. If who you are — and will always be — isn’t good enough, why try?

Embrace a growth mindset and the world — with time, effort, and dedication — can be your oyster.

Because, at least in part, embracing a growth mindset can also change your brain at a neurological level:

• A study published in Psychological Science found that people with a growth mindset exhibit a higher Pe (error positivity) waveform response, which correlates to paying greater attention to mistakes — and makes those individuals much more receptive to corrective (whether internal or external) feedback.
• A study published in Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience found that a growth mindset was related to ventral and dorsal striatal connectivity with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (the brain region responsible for learning and self-control), therefore improving error-monitoring and behavioral adaptation. (In non-researcher-speak, wiring you to better learn from your mistakes.)
• A study published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience found that a larger Pe difference helps people perform with greater accuracy after making mistakes. Why? People with a growth mindset aren’t as afraid of messing up along the way, because they see making mistakes as part of the developmental process.

Yep: Embracing a growth mindset wires your brain to be more willing to make mistakes. To be better at accepting feedback. To be better at correcting and, more important, learning from mistakes.

Given time, having a growth mindset won’t be a conscious decision. It won’t be a mindset you’ll need to remember to embrace. At a neurological level, it will be how you operate.

As the researchers write:

As our brain is plastic, it is able to undergo reorganization and development. Growth mindset relates to brain processes, and brain processes relate to motivated behaviors.

Likewise, motivated behaviors can affect cognition as motivation shapes what and how people think.

Add it all up, and changing how your brain functions means you won’t have to remember that mistakes are part of the process. You won’t have to remind yourself that learning new skills is hard. You won’t have to remember that, with time and effort, you can become something you curently are not.

You won’t even think about it.

Because the neural pathways you’ve built will do it for you.