Any time you do something that actually matters, it will feel hard. That's not a warning. It's a signal you're exactly where you need to be.
The problem is, most of us weren't taught to see it that way. We were taught that if something feels difficult, something must be wrong. That struggle means we're not good enough. That if it were "right," it would feel easier.
It doesn't. And it's not supposed to.
We all start as learners
I'm reminded of this every time I watch my daughter try something new. She doesn't avoid what challenges her — she leans into it. She chooses what's just out of reach. She hasn't learned to be afraid of not knowing yet. She's still in love with figuring things out.
Carol Dweck, the Stanford psychologist whose work on mindset has shaped decades of research, described this same observation. Looking at a colleague's photo of a five-month-old beaming with joy at a computer screen, she reflected: "That's what we were all like. We were all once that excited about learning something new."
We all start that way. Somewhere along the line, we unlearn it.
The cost of a fixed mindset at work
The research on what happens when we stop seeing difficulty as opportunity is striking.
Adults believe they could perform better at work if they weren't worrying about making mistakes — and over 40% experience fear of failure between 20–40% of the time or more. (Nyenrode Business University / IE University, 2019)
A UK study connecting mindset to workplace behaviour found that people with a fixed mindset tend to experience more impostor phenomenon at work — and this relationship is predominantly explained by their fear of failure. The belief that ability is fixed doesn't just hold people back from learning. It actively increases self-doubt.
Only 31% of US employees were engaged at work in 2024 — the lowest level in a decade. When people believe their performance reflects their worth rather than their current effort, taking risks feels genuinely dangerous. (Gallup, 2024)
Disengagement and fear of failure are not unrelated. The two tend to travel together.
What a growth mindset actually is
A growth mindset is not about forced positivity. It's not about telling yourself everything will be fine or that failure doesn't hurt.
"In the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn't define you. It's a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from."
That's Dweck's own framing — and it matters because the popular version of growth mindset often gets reduced to just try harder. That's not it. It's about being honest — about what's hard, about when you want to quit — and choosing to stay with the process anyway.
And the research shows it is genuinely learnable. A US national study of 12,000 students showed that even a short, self-administered growth mindset intervention can meaningfully change outcomes — particularly when the environment around them reinforced the message. (Nature, 2019)
Three questions that reveal your mindset
I come back to these often — in my own life, and in the coaching conversations I have with others.
How do you respond to failure?
Do you treat it as evidence of who you are, or information about what to do differently? Fixed mindset says the first. Growth mindset practises the second.
Who do you compare yourself to?
Fixed mindset tends toward comparison with people who confirm either superiority or inadequacy — both of which keep you from learning. Growth mindset is more interested in your own trajectory than someone else's.
How do you think about risk?
If taking a risk and getting it wrong would feel like proof of something about you — that's worth examining. The fear isn't usually about the outcome. It's about what the outcome would mean about you.
Your answers shape more than you think. And they're not fixed. That's the part people most underestimate.
Mindset is something you practise
You don't shift a fixed mindset through willpower or a weekend workshop. You shift it through repeated small choices — choosing to try the thing that scares you, choosing to ask for feedback, choosing to stay curious when you want to retreat.
And sometimes you don't shift it alone. Sometimes you need someone who can help you see possibility when you've convinced yourself there isn't any. Someone who can hold a different perspective of you until you can hold it yourself.
That's what I aim to bring — in how I lead my team, and in my coaching work.
If you're in a moment where things feel hard and you're questioning whether you're on the right path — it might not be a red flag.
It might just be growth.
References
Dweck, C.S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Random House.
Yeager, D.S., Dweck, C.S. et al. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature, 573, 364–369.
Noskeau, R., Santos, A. & Wang, W. (2021). Connecting the Dots Between Mindset and Impostor Phenomenon, via Fear of Failure and Goal Orientation, in Working Adults. Frontiers in Psychology.
Van Dam, N., Brassey, J. & Van Witteloostuijn, A. (2019). Fear of failure in the workplace. Nyenrode Business University / IE University.
Gallup (2024). State of the World's Emotional Health.