We have all heard the “mindset” buzzword, but have you heard of the four mindset spectrums? I don’t think that any of us would venture to say a strong mindset is unimportant. I’ve heard time and time again that our mindset is really the only thing in life that we can control.

And if you stop and think about it, that is actually pretty true!

Whether your life is smooth sailing or tossing you every which way in the season you find yourself in right now, you can control the way you think about it. You can control the thoughts that you have about the things life throws your way and you can dictate the perspective you bring to it.

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I’ll explain it another way: We’ve also all heard a lot of people praising gratitude practices for improving their quality of life, but why is that? Practicing gratitude makes us look at even the worst inconveniences of life through a lens that is thankful for all that we do have instead of fixated on what we are missing. In other words, practicing gratitude boosts your mindset.

And so do lots of other things!

A great quote to illustrate this is by Lena Horne: ”It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

Do we focus on the end goal or do we focus on the journey?

Do we see a situation as positive or negative? Glass half empty or half full?

Having a positive mindset is a nonnegotiable tool in any leader’s toolbox, because your mindset colors the glasses through which you see your entire world.

The challenges of each day will be there pretty much regardless of how you internalize them and allow yourself to experience them, so they aren’t the variable. The variable here is how we interpret them, and that depends on our mindset.

Now that we’ve gotten out of the way just a few of the reasons why a strong, positive mindset is critical, let’s dive into four main mindset spectrums so that you can reflect on where you might land!

Side note: If you’re really into this stuff, check out the research that inspired this topic! 🙂 

The Four Mindset Spectrums:

1. Growth mindset vs fixed mindset

This one comes up often in our day-to-day. If I have a growth mindset, I believe that I can change my abilities and see my intelligence and my qualities as things that I can work to improve. If, on the other hand, I have a fixed mindset, I feel limited to use only the gifts I already have and don’t even imagine the possibilities of developing new skills or adapting. It’s almost like a perceived helplessness in a way as opposed to seeing the possibility of equipping, empowering and improving yourself.

Between these two, a growth mindset is absolutely the way to go especially with our common focus of becoming the best we can be. I mean how are you going to get off the launch pad if you don’t even really believe you can fly? 🙂

2. Learning vs. performance

A learning mindset typically results in a higher performing person, so that might give you a hint as to which one is generally best! If I have a learning mindset, I am more focused on the journey and am better about not letting setbacks get under my skin. My focus is on the end goal and I just want to learn for the sake of learning regardless of what the end goal might be. 

If I am extremely performance based in my thought process, however, then I get more motivation from being seen as more competent or–no surprise here–performing better.

I think balancing these two is a total win win, because we can be in a learning mindset AND still perform extremely well. It’s all about taking the weight off of our shoulders, not putting excess pressure on ourselves, and definitely not finding our worth or sense of accomplishment in the end goal. That can just be the icing on the cake 🙂  

RELATED: Knowing Yourself Before Leading Yourself

3. Deliberative vs implemental

If I am being deliberate about something, I am going about it in a careful, conscientious way, whereas if I am being implemental, I simply want to get the job done. Whenever I think of a deliberative mindset, I imagine how I feel at a really good icecream place: With so many options, I have to go through a careful, *deliberative* process of elimination before I settle on the one or two flavors that wil definitely be the winners of the night. 

Oftentimes deliberative mindsets will yield better decisions and leave doors open for more creativity, and the downfall of someone with an deliberative mindset can be that sometimes he or she will wait so long that it gets to be too late.

This is one of those pairs of opposite mindsets that I would say personally is more equal and opposite. I don’t think one is better than the other, and ideally we would all be the perfect blend: It’s important to act, but also important to think before we act so that the steps we eventually take put us on the best possible route.

4. Promotion vs prevention mindset

A promotion mindset fixates on achieving wins and a prevention mindset just really wants to avoid losses.

Again, in my personal opinion, this is another set of opposites that can be taken with a grain of salt and we can just assume that the sweet spot is really to strike a balance between the two:

To be more on the promotion side of things mindset wise, people often exhibit better performance levels, and are more creative and innovative, because they really just want that win! And those are beneficial traits, but not at the cost of everything else or carelessness resulting in bad mistakes.

Where do you fall on these four mindset spectrums, and where do you want to be?! 🙂 Remember that, in leadership growth especially, it’s so important to have a long term perspective. If you just go one step at a time, you’ll be where you want to be before you know it!

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