Your Life: Abundant

According to a June 2022 article by McKinsey & Company, companies (and their leaders) who have successfully adopted growth mindsets are 2.4 x more likely to outperform their peers. Check out this infographic for this and other fun facts.  

As a leader, do you have a "growth mindset?" Having a growth mindset is fundamental to adapting to change, bouncing back from adversity, resilience. Find out if you do by taking this 6-question quick quiz. 

 As May is Mental Health Awareness Month, in this blogpost we’ll be exploring how the positive attributes of resilience contributes to effective leadership. 

In my eBook, The Achiever’s Guide to Failure: How to Succeed In Spite of Fearing Failure, I recount a study done by the National Center on Women and Aging (now known as the National Program on Women and Aging) at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. In this study, women age 50 plus said they feel happier about getting older than they thought they would. 

Quoted in Time Magazine, Elaine Wethington, a Cornell University sociologist who specializes in midlife explains it this way:  

“There is kind of a virtuous cycle created when women feel more confident about their coping skills. They are better at coming to grips with problems because they believe that they can, and solving problems then feeds back and gives you (sic “them”) a sense of mastery of life.”

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 As May is Mental Health Awareness Month, in this blogpost we’ll be exploring the relationship of growth mindset, resilience, and mental health. 

Since having good mental health is not merely the absence of a mental disorder but includes having a positive quality of life that constitutes wellbeing, then positive abilities like having a growth mindset and possessing resilience help support good mental health. In the emerging field of Positive Psychology, cultivating a growth mindset and building resilience are both used in therapy, so their significance to good mental health cannot be overstated. 

The importance of growth mindset and resilience to good mental health

But why is that so? What makes these abilities especially crucial to promoting and maintaining good mental health? First, some definitions: 

Growth mindset: Is the belief that one’s abilities, intelligence and other qualities can be developed and improved through dedication, effort, and...

As May is Mental Health Awareness Month, in this blogpost we’ll be exploring the definition of mental health and nine tips to help improve it. 

 What is "good mental health?"

There are several interrelated definitions of good mental health. For example, from a European neuropsychopharmacology group, good mental health can be defined as a state of well-being that allows individuals to cope with the normal stresses of life and function productively.  

Others have defined good mental health as the ability both to value life and to engage in life. 

Valuing life refers not just to your own life but to the lives of those you love and regarding their lives as valuable both to you and independently of you. It means wanting to care for yourself and your loved ones. 

Engaging in life, in turn, means the ability to behave differently depending on your circumstances, instead of expecting everything to bend to your will. It can mean noticing your feelings but...

Growth mindset vs. fixed mindset

Having a growth mindset means believing that one's abilities, intelligence, and talents can be developed through hard work, dedication, and perseverance. Those with a growth mindset see challenges and setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow, rather than as indications of their limitations. They embrace feedback and criticism as a means of improving themselves and are willing to take risks, stepping out of their comfort zones to achieve their goals.

In contrast, people with a fixed mindset believe that their abilities and intelligence are predetermined so cannot be changed. They may avoid challenges and become discouraged by setbacks, believing that their failures demonstrate their inherent limitations.

Having a growth mindset can lead to greater achievement, resilience, and success in all areas of life, as people with this mindset are more likely to take on challenges, persist in the face of obstacles, and view failures as opportunities for...

Definitions of resilience

Before we can discuss what building resilience means to leaders, we first must define resilience.

As is most commonly understood, resilience is the ability to bounce back quickly after a setback. From the Latin, resilire, meaning “to leap back”

However, most scholars don’t agree on one definition, as resilience (like wellness) is an abstract construct. In the past 30 years alone there have been 12 different theories of resilience.

Despite scholars’ disagreement on the definition of resilience, most do agree in these three areas:

1. Resilience involves two core concepts: Adversity and positive adaptation.
2. It’s a dynamic process that changes over time.
3. Resilience involves a wide range of factors and influences.

Where does resilience come from?

Scholars also disagree where resilience comes from, as many factors contribute to resilience: personality, social support, self-esteem, genetics, etc.

To further complicate the issue, some...