How a Growth Mindset Enables a Career Pivot

Careers only grow when people take the chance to improve their talents and abilities. This sometimes requires a career pivot. They take the “path less travelled” more often than most, and they emerge the other end with new skills because they have subjected themselves to new experiences.

Carol Dweck coined the concept of this “growth mindset.” It is critical when you come to a crossroads in your career. When you start off on your journey towards a new job, you should bear this in mind. Positive change is the destination.

The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

Too many candidates enter their job search with a fixed mindset, hamstrung by their past and clinging desperately to what they know they can do. They take the safest option, jump at the first job offer that comes along and often take a sideways step.

Fixed mindset candidates waste the incredible opportunity that change can present.

Those who have enjoyed the fruits of a growth mindset for many years will understand that the potential for a career pivot comes with uncertainty. If they make decisions with several long-term goals in mind, they can’t be sure what a brand-new role or career will bring, but they know that it will help them develop and evolve.

That is the crux of a growth mindset. You can’t be sure how the growth will come about, but you do know that good things will happen if you back yourself and step into the unknown.

Approaching a career pivot with a growth mindset starts with self-awareness.

You will have built intimate insights into your strengths, values, interests, and ambitions over your career development. A career pivot is a time to bring everything together to work towards a new direction. It might seem scary, but your new job might look different from the last one. This is the chance to get a blank sheet of paper and create your ideal career. Why wouldn’t you want to shoot for transformational change?

Career pivot timing

The checks and balances of the growth mindset approach will then ensure that any practical constraints and obstacles are considered. Exploring the various options presents many opportunities – some more “possible” than others. A growth mindset-led career pivot will not dismiss the unlikely options until doors slam firmly shut. Keeping them open is vital.

Use positive self-talk and visualization techniques to paint a powerful picture in your mind of what these potential futures might look like. Put your “why” at the centre of any dream. Tell yourself that they are possible. You don’t have to know how to get there yet, but you must believe it is possible.

Lastly, individuals who adopt a growth mindset are used to the rejections and failures that any job search will produce. When pursuing an atypical pivot in your career, you can be sure that you will hear “no” plenty of times before you get to the magic “yes.” They know that failure is just one more step towards success and do not let themselves be mentally derailed by any setbacks.

Career pivots are the catalyst for personal and professional development.

Adopting a growth mindset will help you to make the most of them.

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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists. 

Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).