In your role as a life coach, you will of course face challenges and make mistakes – often the same ones as your clients! But what matters most is how you respond to those circumstances, situations, and conditions.
In Mary Morrissey’s eBook “Stronger Than Circumstances”, she discusses how you can overcome any circumstance that comes your way using the power already inside of you.
If you remain open to learning and growing from your mistakes and challenges… well that changes everything.
This willingness to learn and grow is the key difference between what are known as growth mindset and fixed mindset. And if you want to be the greatest coach you can be, it’s essential you embody and model a growth mindset for your clients.
Which brings us here! The goal of this post today is to empower you with growth mindset phrases and help you create positive opportunities where others may only see failure.
First up, let’s dive deeper into why having a growth mindset as a coach is so important.
What is a Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset & How Do They Relate to Coaching?
First things first: let’s draw a clear distinction between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
Growth mindset:
- Believes talents, skills, and characteristics can be changed through learning and practice.
- Understands failure as an opportunity to grow.
- Flexible and open to change.
Fixed mindset:
- Identifies innate abilities, intelligence, and personality as what they’re born into and therefore unchangeable.
- Understands failure as something to be feared and avoided at all costs.
- Rigid and set in their ways.
Your success as a coach is determined by how much you and your clients grow.
With a fixed mindset, you will stay stuck in your life, on every level. It keeps you in your comfort zone, and caps the amount of happiness, wealth, and success you can have in life.
On the other hand, a growth mindset empowers you to change and improve yourself in your pursuit of success. And adopting this positive, forward looking mindset will not only open your own life to the major breakthroughs and rapid transformation you long for…
You’ll be able to create a profound impact on your coaching clients – paving the way for a thriving business, a meaningful career and a life you absolutely love.
Not sure how to adopt more of a growth mindset in your life?
Well, the first step is to know this: It’s never too late to start the learning process!
With that, here are some examples of what a growth mindset looks like in everyday life.
Examples of Growth Mindset Phrases and Concepts
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by author Carol Dweck, is one of my favorite books I recommend to anyone serious about becoming more successful in all areas of life, especially as a life coach.
Carol gave groups of grade-school students problems that were too difficult for them to solve and then observed their responses.
Students with a growth mindset understood that their abilities could grow through their hard work and transformed the meaning of effort and difficulty into a chance to get smarter.
Those with a fixed mindset, however, saw the challenge as catastrophic and tragic, and felt devastated that their core intelligence was being tested.
In Carol S Dweck’s words, “students with a growth mindset defined difficulty as ‘not yet’, while those with a fixed mindset were gripped by the ‘tyranny of now’.”
“Not yet” has an air of optimism around it, whereas focusing on only what you know “now” creates a feeling of being stuck.
As an example of this incredible concept, I often look back to the power of optimism and growth on the golf course.
Growth Mindset in Action
Like most golfers, I long dreamed of hitting a hole in one.
So one day, while playing golf with a good friend of mine (a professional golfer), I told him “Today’s my day. This is the hole — I’m getting a hole in one!”
I swung, hit the ball, and watched its trajectory all the way down until it rolled right past the hole.
My buddy, Rob, praised my shot and shared this thought:
“Although you think you got close to a hole in one, let me tell you something. I’ve been playing golf for more than 30 years. I’ve been a golf pro for 20 years. I’ve played 15,000 par threes in my career, and I’ve never had a hole in one.”
“It’s tougher than you think, John, to get a hole-in-one.”
I replied, “You know what, Rob, I hear you. I know that it’s difficult — but I know that it’s not impossible. And I know that of all the people that I’ve ever played golf with, if there’s one person I know who can get a hole in one, it’s you.”
“You might not want to stand up here and imagine that you’re going to get a hole in one — but I’m going to imagine that you get a hole in one.”
In doing so, I identified his fixed mindset and challenged his paradigm.
Because he was stuck on the idea of his past experiences and limitations, he wasn’t initially open to considering he could actually improve.
But the very next week, Rob played in a professional golf tournament with the grand prize of a Cadillac Escalade for the person who could get a hole in one.
I remember Rob calling me and saying, ““John, you’re not going to believe this — but I got my first hole in one in a professional tournament, and I won the Cadillac Escalade!”
Having sown this seed of optimism in Rob’s mind, he then developed it and was rewarded with this win after just four days.
The solution to his fixed mindset was to introduce growth mindset language.
Ultimately, this enables us to rephrase and reframe our attitudes towards circumstances, situations, and conditions.
With this solution in mind, I encourage you to use the following growth mindset phrases to help you welcome success in your life and coaching business.
31 Growth Mindset Phrases For Life Coaches
The first thing to remember before we dive into these phrases is that your thoughts are what create your reality.
Low vibrations attract more negative outcomes and higher vibrations manifest more positive results.
On the other hand, gratitude creates a generative frequency that is much more helpful in cultivating success in life and business.
So, in order to help shift your mindset and change your vibration, I’ve prepared 31 growth mindset phrases – one for each day of the month. I’ve also categorized these phrases for you, for easier integration.
Reading and coming back to these phrases regularly will transform any lingering fixed mindset areas keeping you stuck.
Rewiring Your Thoughts
- I am open and eager to learn something new, even if I think I already know everything about something.
- It’s never too late to change my mind and if I do, that doesn’t make me any less true to myself.
Taking Risks
- I will take this risk because even if it fails, I can try again from experience.
- Being open to risk about something I love is worth the journey to my inevitable success.
Rejection
- Even if I face rejection, that just leaves more room for higher-quality, heart-centered clients.
- Not everyone is going to like me, but the right people will like me and value my services.
Imposter Syndrome
- I have accomplished so much, and I can always improve and grow my coaching business from where I am.
- I am a life-long learner and that means I get to experience a lifetime of constant transformation.
Comparison/Jealousy
- If another life coach is doing better than me, I celebrate their wins because my proximity to their success means it’s coming for me next.
- I use social media to promote and attract clients, not to compare myself to others (comparison comes from lack and scarcity)
Creating New Habits
- I am open and capable of change, especially if there’s a chance it will improve my life coaching practice.
- I coach myself with each and every day, and I exchange what doesn’t work for me for habits that serve my highest good.
Embracing Change
- Change happens all the time, all around me, and I am a part of that flow and natural growth.
- Each day is an opportunity to start fresh.
Non-Judgement
- If consistent, small steps can bring people to the top of Mt. Everest, it will also take me to new heights in my coaching business.
- It’s okay not to have everything figured out, but I won’t let it stop me from doing something that could improve my coaching.
Embracing Failure
- Failures create stepping stones and guide my path to a successful coaching business.
- Failure is an opportunity for growth, not a dead-end.
Fear
- I may not have all the answers for my coaching clients, but my Spirit is connected to the Infinite (which has all the answers).
- Even though I still feel like I am figuring things out, my coaching clients recognize the unique value I bring.
Doubt
- I make an impact even if the results aren’t immediately evident or obvious.
- I charge for my expertise, not my time, and I am worthy of an even greater flow of money.
Dissuasion
- I am confident in the services I offer even if they’re still a work in progress.
- I answer the sacred calling to coach every day, which means I am always a student of transformation.
Distraction
- There’s a lot of other things I could do, but I choose to take a small step towards what will bring success in my coaching business.
- In the face of difficulties, instead of doing something that is easier, I will commit even more deeply to what will grow me.
Delay
- What I do today invests in the person I am becoming and the expertise I am growing.
- A part of me doesn’t feel capable or ready, but another part of me believes in my success – and I choose to serve the latter.
Giving Up
- Up until now, I’ve struggled with marketing my business, but I know I’m capable of more.
- If it doesn’t happen now, it’s actually because it hasn’t happened “yet”, and I welcome success in spite of my circumstances.
And the 31st growth mindset phrase to keep in your back pocket is this:
“Every mistake is an opportunity to grow.”
Again, I encourage you to read and come back to these phrases regularly!
Doing so will change the way you perceive and respond to challenges in your experience of life.
How A Growth Mindset Makes You Stronger Than Circumstances
By now you’ve learned that having a fixed mindset can spell defeat in the face of failure, especially as a life coach.
But it’s that fear of failure that forces us to stick with what we’re good at and never take a step forward.
Equipping a growth mindset, on the other hand, helps you step out of your comfort zone and embrace challenges and imperfections as learning opportunities.
In short, the journey is more important than the end results and who you become transcends the momentary failure, a.k.a. the “tyranny of now”.
It’s about enjoying the learning process, cultivating your sense of purpose, and modeling healthy behavior for your coaching clients.
So my invitation for you today is to fully tap into the power inside you that is greater than any circumstance, situation, or condition.
And you can get support in that by downloading our FREE ebook: Stronger Than Circumstance.
In this book, you’ll learn about the principles of human psychology, the physics behind your thoughts, and 3 proven mental strategies to help you shift your mindset and take action.
As a result, you’ll be better able to empower your thoughts instead of letting mistakes, challenges, or failure determine the course of your life.
If you would love to tune into that ,I encourage you to get on the frequency of success and growth here.
To your exponential growth,
John Boggs
I’ve been having a hard time growing as a person, and I’m not sure what to do about it. It makes sense that I would want to get a coach to help me out with this. That seems like a good way to ensure that I handle things properly.
Getting a coach is a smart choice to grow and transform, Braden. Please let us know how we can help!
To me Growth Mindset is all about empowering beliefs. “Change beliefs, change behavior and change results” is the mantra I use to help people discover their true potential.
When people adopt a Growth Mindset and discover their gifts, skills and talents and their life-purpose, sky is the limit for them to achieve success in whatever they choose do.
Phrase No 19 is my favorite BTW!
Jopaulson
We love that one, too, Joseph, and we love your mantra!