Why Attitude Is More Important Than IQ
New research shows that your attitude is more important to how you
do in life than your intellect.
When it
comes to success, it's easy to think that people blessed with brains are
inevitably going to leave the rest of us in the dust. But new research from
Stanford University will change your mind -- and your attitude.
Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying
attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a
better predictor of your success than your IQ.
Dweck found that people's core attitudes fall into one of two
categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you
cannot change. This creates problems when you're challenged because anything
that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless
and overwhelmed.
People with a growth mindset believe they can improve with
effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower
IQ, because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn
something new.
Common sense would
suggest that having ability, like being smart,
inspires confidence. It does, but only while the going is easy. The deciding
factor in life is how you handle setbacks and challenges. People with a growth
mindset welcome setbacks with open arms.
According to Dweck, success in life is all about how you deal with failure. She describes
the approach to failure of people with the growth mindset this way,
"Failure is information -- we label it
failure, but it's more like, 'This didn't work, and I'm a problem solver, so
I'll try something else.'"
Regardless of which side of the chart you fall on, you can make
changes and develop a growth mindset. What follows are some strategies that will
fine-tune your mindset and help you make certain it's as growth oriented as
possible.
Don't stay helpless.
We all hit moments when
we feel helpless. The test is how we react to that feeling. We can either learn
from it and move forward or let it drag us down. There are countless successful
people who would have never made it if they had succumbed to feelings of
helplessness: Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because
he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas"; Oprah Winfrey was
fired from her job as a TV anchor in Baltimore for being "too emotionally
invested in her stories"; Henry Ford had two failed car companies prior to
succeeding with Ford; and Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC's Cinematic
Arts School multiple times. Imagine what would have happened if any of these
people had a fixed mindset. They would have succumbed to the rejection and
given up hope. People with a growth mindset don't feel helpless because they
know that in order to be successful, you need to be willing to fail hard and
then bounce right back.
Be passionate.
Empowered people pursue their passions relentlessly. There's
always going to be someone who's more naturally talented than you are, but what
you lack in talent, you can make up for in passion. Empowered people's passion
is what drives their unrelenting pursuit of excellence. Warren Buffet
recommends finding your truest passions using, what he calls, the 5/25
technique: Write down the 25 things that you care about the most. Then, cross
out the bottom 20. The remaining five are your true passions. Everything
else is merely a distraction.
Take action.
It's not that people with a growth mindset are able to overcome
their fears because they are braver than the rest of us; it's just that they
know fear and anxiety are paralyzing emotions and the best way to overcome them
is to take action. People with a growth mindset are empowered, and empowered
people know there's no such thing as a truly perfect moment to move
forward. So why wait for one? Taking action turns all your worry and concern
about failure into positive, focused energy.
Then go the extra mile (or two).
Empowered people give it their all, even on their worst days.
They're always pushing themselves to go the extra mile. One of Bruce Lee's
pupils ran three miles every day with him. One day, they were about to hit the
three-mile mark when Bruce said, "Let's do two more." His pupil was
tired and said, "I'll die if I run two more." Bruce's response?
"Then do it." His pupil became so angry that he finished the full
five miles. Exhausted and furious, he confronted Bruce about his comment, and
Bruce explained it this way: "Quit and you might as well be dead. If you
always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread
over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your
morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but
you must not stay there; you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills
you. A man must constantly exceed his level."
If you aren't getting a little bit better each day, then you're
most likely getting a little worse -- and what kind of life is that?
Expect results.
People with a growth mindset know they're going to fail
from time to time, but they never let that keep them from expecting results.
Expecting results keeps you motivated and feeds the cycle of empowerment. After
all, if you don't think you're going to succeed, then why bother?
Be flexible.
Everyone encounters unanticipated adversity. People with an
empowered, growth-oriented mindset embrace adversity as a means for
improvement, as opposed to something that holds them back. When an unexpected
situation challenges an empowered person, they flex until they get results.
Don't complain when things don't go your way.
Complaining is an obvious sign of a fixed mindset. A growth
mindset looks for opportunity in everything, so there's no room for complaints.
Bringing it all together.
By keeping track of how you respond to the little things, you
can work every day to keep yourself on the right side of the chart above.
BY TRAVIS BRADBERRY
http://www.inc.com/travis-bradberry/why-attitude-is-more-important-than-iq.html?cid=em01016week10a
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