Sober Toolbox 2: Sober Mindset - Growth or Fixed
This article has been recorded to audio for convenience. All Podcasts can be heard on: This Website (Podcast Episodes), Podbean, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Google Chrome, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and more.
Hello Sobertown,
Let’s explore the power of mindset.
What is a Growth Mindset in Sobriety?
Our growth mindset is one of the most important tools in our sober kit.
Mindset is a powerhouse.
Inversely, lacking an understanding of mindset is a substantial detriment to progress. As depending on your current mindset, you could be hitting a roadblock due to yours.
From our mindset sprouts our attitudes, our behaviors, our actions and their results. To neglect hard work and introspection into our mindset in sobriety is to miss out on a key element to growth.
How can we grow our Sober Mindset?
Firstly, we should delve into the work of Carol Dweck.
Professor Carol Dweck, an American phycologist created a theory on mindset essentially stating that we all have different beliefs about the underlying nature of ability.
This can be observed from childhood in most cases. This is an interesting topic, and if you wish to pursue it deeper, I recommend Dr. Carol Dweck’s book; Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfill your potential.
Mindset from the perspective of Dweck’s theory is categorised into “Growth Mindset” and “Fixed Mindset,” and each of you falls into or at least toward one of these categories or the other.
Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset
A FIXED MINDSET is one where it is assumed that abilities are essentially engrained and fixed. People with a fixed mindset might believe that abilities or intelligence can not be improved and that you simply have it or you do not.
A GROWTH MINDSET is one where it is understood that abilities and understanding can be developed. People with a growth mindset generally believe that their abilities, intelligence and talent can improve through time and effort.
Please, if you have 10 minutes, watch Dr. Dweck speak on this link: Dr. Dweck: Developing a Growth Mindset
Although Dr. Dweck speaks mainly of her studies into students, this is highly applicable to those of us planning the transition to sober living.
We need to strive for a growth mindset, and this can be achieved even if you currently have a fixed mindset.
Ask yourself the following questions:
1: Do you believe high-performing athletes are simply born with their abilities?
2: Do you believe you simply are what you are?
3: Do you think intelligence, creativity and skills are fixed?
4: Do you think talent gets you places?
5: Do you think hard work gets you places?
6: Do you think anyone can learn and grow in a given area?
Do you relate more to questions 1-4 above or do you relate to questions 5-6?
If you relate to all of questions 1-4, then you exhibit a fixed mindset
If you relate strongly to questions 5-6, then you exhibit a growth mindset
The likelihood is that you may fall somewhere between fixed and growth with the scales tipping more to one side or the other.
Quiz Yourself
I recommend you use the link and take this mindset Quiz. I completed this quiz as a drinker and then months later as a Sobertown resident once I had ridden that Sobertrain for several laps of the sun. My answers drifted substantially toward the growth mindset side of the scale the further into sobriety I got.
Overcoming a Fixed Mindset
When we have a fixed mindset we are inclined to believe that we are simply unable to change our habits, unable to learn how to live without alcohol, unable to quit because of a genetic predisposition to addiction or simply who we are.
Thankfully, this is not correct.
Yes - Our environment and genetics play a large role in our consumption habits, who we are, what we are capable of and how we perform.
BUT, but with a growth mindset, we free ourselves of the shackles of the incorrect belief that we cannot change, learn or grow.
Fuck that!
We can grow. You can grow. Your genetics and other controlling factors only limit you to a point, and I guarantee this limit is far less than you probably believe. Dweck’s mindset theory was not created to address any part of sobriety, however, we can apply it to our journeys here without question.
Adopting a Growth Mindset
To quit alcohol and to continue to grow, learn and evolve through your sobriety, you need a growth mindset because you are NOT locked into a life of consumption. You CAN change, and you CAN do so through hard work, learning and effort.
Do you recall “neurons that fire together wire together”?.
Well, you can alter the course. If you are stuck in a fixed mindset, you can force the circuitry to change so that your mind accepts the truth that we are not fixed in who we are and what we do and that we are capable of growth.
Dweck states in her book: “I’ve seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves in a learning setting, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?”.
This relates to a fixed mindset. This is failing to see things in the bigger picture.
Dweck also states: “This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way in their initial talents, aptitudes, interests or temperaments, everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”
When we see the bigger picture, that failure is simply a learning process and an opportunity to do the necessary work to succeed then we can achieve almost anything. (2)
A fixed mindset in sobriety would be one that reflects thoughts and opinions such as: I am simply a drinker or an alcoholic and I can not change this. I am powerless to personally put in place methods to help myself live a sober life.
This is my opinion only.
My opinion is that we CAN change.
We CAN change course in our lives. We CAN quit alcohol. We CAN grow. We CAN become faster, better, stronger through hard work and persistence.
My beliefs exhibit a GROWTH mindset, and I will claw to these beliefs to the very end because we can grow and we can change.
Do you believe you can change? Do you know you can change?
Below are points that can be used to help steer your mindset toward one which allows for growth, one which allows you to see that your place and your habits are not pre-determined, and you can overcome past, genetics and other factors to prevail and live a life free of alcohol.
Enhancing your Growth Mindset
Let’s get practical: Enhancing your growth mindset. (3)
1. Acknowledge imperfections: We all have them, to grow is to look at them and investigate how we can grow and improve them.
2. View challenges as opportunities: challenge is good, challenge is the journey toward the goal, the carrot on a stick that drives us, see the milestones as a challenge and embrace them.
3. Try different learning tactics: We all learn differently and we need to learn from our past, if we try the berry, and the berry makes us sick, then we should obviously not go back to that berry. Learn from your past, learn from trial and error and grow from this.
4. Follow the research on brain plasticity: Remember “neurons that fire together wire together”, our brain can change its circuitry if we repeat positive efforts.
5. Replace the word “failing” with the word “learning.”: We don’t fail unless we fail to change, we learn and grow.
6. Stop seeking approval: Searching from external approval is unhelpful, look within for growth through learning and not approval.
7. Value the process over the end result: Seeing the progress as it leads to the end result is valuable.
8. Cultivate a sense of purpose: Goals and bigger picture thought process.
9. Celebrate growth with others: Very successful people such as Muhammed Ali and Arnold Schwarzenegger have adopted the term work hard and advertise. Sharing helps.
10. Emphasise growth over speed: Slow down and appreciate things take time, achievement should take time and not be rushed.
11. Reward actions, not traits: Appreciate the steps required to achieve and not inherent ability to achieve.
12. Redefine “genius.”: Intelligence is primarily through hard work, nobody is born with knowledge. Nobody of high intelligence did not work to get there.
13. Portray criticism as positive. Accept advice.
14. Disassociate improvement from failure: Separate the two from each other.
15. Provide regular opportunities for reflection: Write and think about how you feel and why, reflect on this.
16. Place effort before talent: Appreciate your or others’ hard work and effort and covet this over talent.
17. Highlight the relationship between learning and “brain training.”: Neural Plasticity, make the connection between growing your mind and the process of learning.
18. Cultivate grit: Be determined in your goals and your growth. Be steadfast in your decisions and direction.
19. Abandon the image: Cease to base actions on how they appear to others.
20. Use the word “yet.”: Achievements come through time, use the word yet to understand that with time and effort it will come.
21. Learn from other people’s mistakes.: This is vital. You can save yourself a world of trouble by allowing others’ experiences to shape your progress and decisions, you do not have to make mistakes yourself to learn from them, be open to using others’ experiences.
22. Make a new goal for every goal accomplished.: Always have goals set moving forward.
23. Take risks in the company of others: Back yourself, and if it doesn’t work out as planned that’s ok.
24. Think realistically about time and effort: as established, allow time realistically to achieve goals.
25. Take ownership over your attitude: Acknowledge yourself as having a growth mindset and embrace it.
Think Deeply About Your Mindset
If you exhibit a fixed mindset, then approach this within your mind. You are able to change the way you think to a growth mindset even if the change is gradual. Through the journey of sobriety, you will see profound change in your life and mind, and as you plan and progress through this journey, you can see failures as learning and challenges as opportunities.
The beauty of giving up alcohol is that it has an amplifying relationship with a growth mindset. Even if you are not quite at the stage of a strong growth mindset, quitting and being sober engrains a growth mentality more and more as time progresses.
A growth mindset is about thinking critically. It means challenging yourself. It means shifting from “I can’t” to “I can with the right amount of work”. It is an attitude of lifelong learning and accepting advice and criticism.
Remember these things Sobertown, with a growth mindset:
You CAN improve over time
Failure is NOT final
We CAN change our ways
We are NOT shackled to a life of addiction
You may be realising reading this just how deeply some of us who have successfully shifted to a life of sobriety have had to dig to create this life for ourselves, and you would be right.
It does take a lot of work, learning and introspection to make these monumental shifts in our lives.
But in this, you should take solace because through these learnings and techniques we can truly begin to understand just how possible making these changes are. They truly are with persistence and work and the right mindset. And remember from the previous article “when neurons fire together they wire together,” so even if you have a preponderance towards a fixed mindset, you can create change but it takes time and repetition.
Try employing the strategies to shift toward a growth mindset and truly ponder if you do exhibit a fixed mindset.
Do you really believe we cannot grow through work? Do you truly believe you were destined to have a dependence on alcohol and that you can not shift this?
No, you can, you do not need to be a victim to your given abilities or tendencies, you can grow and you can overcome.
Thanks for reading Sobertown.
REFERENCE
(1): Ackerman CE: 10-03-2021. Growth Mindset vs. Fixed + Key Takeaways From Dweck’s Book. Accessed 13/04/2021.<https://positivepsychology.com/growth-mindset-vs-fixed-mindset/>
(2): Dweck CS: 2017. Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Random House USA.
(3): Briggs S: 10-02-2015. 25 Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset. Accessed 14/04/2021. https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/develop-a-growth-mindset/
The Sobertown Blog articles and recordings are created as a means of assisting others in achieving and maintaining freedom from alcohol. Experiences, entries, research and article content are that of the author/s and should be applied in a safe manner, where/when relevant, with medical oversight. This is not medical advice.
