3 Mindsets for High Performance

If you want to reach peak performance, you need more than a growth mindset.

The Growth Mindset is all the rage right now.

It comes from a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. She is a researcher who studies the impact of praise and mindset on effort and success.

Her book is a great read and deserves a place on your shelf.

However, a growth mindset is all about adaptability, effort, and learning over time.

If you want to be a successful human who crushes it in life and work, you will need more than a growth mindset.

In this article I am going to teach you about two other mindsets you must have in order to smash your goals.

There is More Than 1 Mindset

Most people have heard of the growth mindset.

But there are many more:

• The exponential mindset
• The craftsman mindset
• The positivity mindset

I could go on.

Mindsets are like mental models.

They are ways of thinking to help us approach our lives.

They are tied to our values, opinions, and temperaments. But they can also be learned and adopted.

As you continue your path of personal development, there are two other mindsets that are foundational to high performance.

They are:

• The Creator Mindset
• The Intentional Mindset

Every high performer I have worked with also has these two mindsets. Combined with a growth mindset, you will be unstoppable.

The Creator Mindset

Are you the creator of your life? Or do you play the victim?

The victim mindset can be summed up in one phrase:

“It’s not my fault.”

The victim mindset is the number 1 mindset which holds people back.

Those with a victim mindset complain a lot. They think others are out to get them. They look for others to fix their problems.

They do not take ownership, so they have no power to change.

The opposite of the victim mindset is the creator mindset.

The creator owns their life and takes a stance of responsibility.

Creators acknowledge they have the power, agency, and ability to influence their lives.

The victim mindset keeps you stuck.

The creator mindset places the ownership of your life squarely in your hands.

Once you OWN the fact that your life is YOURS, how are you to adapt and grow over time?

Well, you leverage the growth mindset.

The Growth Mindset

As mentioned above, the growth mindset is about learning and adaptation.

Those with a growth mindset believe they can be more if they only learn and grow.

They know they can get smarter, learn new skills, and develop expertise.

They also have been shown to have more grit.

Those with a fixed mindset believe their intelligence is inborn and cannot grow.

They believe people have natural talents, and that one can only learn new things if they are predisposed with that ability.

The growth mindset is what allows us to make career changes, level up our skills, and learn new things.

A person with a fixed mindset can still be a high performer. They might see themselves as a high achiever who has a solid work ethic. Therefore, they put in extra hours, work hard, and are constantly on the move.

However, in this case, the person may be more likely to burn out. They need the growth mindset to learn how to work more effectively without sacrificing their whole-life to their work-life.

Also, even if you have a growth mindset, you can still be stuck.

You can believe that anything is possible and that you have potential, but if you don’t take action nothing will change.

There is one more foundational mindset that is required to level up your performance:

The intentional mindset.

The Intentional Mindset

The intentional mindset is all about purpose and action.

Successful people take action, and they do so with purpose… with intention.

When they work, they work on things that are important.

When they rest, it is to recharge and prepare for the next bout of effort.

When they are with family, they are focused on the moment and creating memories and relationships.

The opposite of the intentional mindset is the passive mindset.

Those with a passive mindset go from one activity to another, never considering the impact, or the “why,” of those activities.

They are easily distractable and tend to lack focus and consistency.

In all my work with high performers, it is the intentional mindset that is most pronounced.

The Impact on Performance

Each mindset has a different impact.

They interact with each other to produce different results.

First, let’s acknowledge that some mindsets influence your performance more than others.

I posted this on LinkedIn (and other socials) the other day to illustrate the point:

On the creator / victim spectrum, one needs a creator mindset to make any significant progress in their life. If we slide to the victim mindset, we give up our control and therefore our effective decisions.

So first, develop a creator mindset.

On the growth / fixed spectrum, one can have a fixed mindset and still be a high performer. However, compared to those with a fixed mindset, those with a growth mindset have been shown to give more effort and better push through struggles.

The growth mindset enables you to create a new and better future. Growth stacks on creation.

The intentional / passive mindset has the biggest impact on performance.

Nothing will happen if you don’t take action.

The more intentional you are with how you spend your time, the more you will achieve.

How they Interact

We have established that the creator mindset is foundational for success and performance.

Your growth and intentional mindsets exist on a spectrum and interact with each other.

Check out this 2x2 matrix:

Ideally, we move ourselves into the upper-right corner where we have both a growth and intentional mindset.

In different situations, we may slide our mindset down one or both of the axes.

Personally, my natural disposition is to be passive and adapt to life being thrown at me. This means I tend to get distracted and wander from action to action.

It takes focus and intention to move up the axis to acting with purpose.

Being in this quadrant (distractable wandering) is not bad… it just doesn’t lead to high-performance.

Same for the stubborn persistence quadrant. You might stay fixed to a diet on a weight loss journey and lose a ton of weight. You might be miserable and stubbornly persist even if that diet is not lifestyle friendly. You’ll get results, but it will impact your performance level.

What can you do to move up levels in each mindset?

How to Level Up Your Mindsets?

Now you know the three foundational mindsets for high-performance.

But how do we ensure your mindsets are optimized for you?

Start with these steps for each mindset:

The Creator Mindset

• Reframe your problems. If you see someone else as out to get you, or causing you pain, reframe the problem and ask, “How are they challenging me to become a better person.”

  This puts you back in control! The problem becomes less about the other person and more about how you are going to respond.

The Growth Mindset

• Always ask, “what can I learn from this?” In good experiences and bad, ask this question. Then assimilate what you learn into your actions.

  Never say, “I can’t.” Instead, learn to say, “how can I?”

The Intentional Mindset

• Plan and execute. In the morning, plan out your day. What are the top 3 things you need to do for each role you play.

  • Top 3 things to complete for yourself
  • Top 3 things to do with / for your spouse and family
  • Top 3 things to complete for work

  Then DO them!

Our mindsets dictate our actions and therefore our performance and achievement.

Change your mindset, change your life.

Clark