“Willpower doesn’t work” — Benjamin Hardy

Benjamin P. Hardy is the #1 writer on Medium and pursuing his PhD in Motivational Psychology. Specifically, he studies the difference between successful entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs. You can check out his writing on Medium here, which I highly recommend.

My favorite part of this conversation was talking through growth mindset vs. fixed mindset.

A growth mindset is when you believe you can grow, develop and improve all facets of your life — or at least the ones that you care about.

This inspires action and action drives confidence. Many people believe that confident people are successful but Benjamin says that it’s actually the reverse. People that are successful and take action will develop their confidence.

For example, if you begin to wake up every day at 5 am, that action will help to develop a new persona. You will think “I am someone who wakes up early and therefore, is disciplined”. This can carry over to all aspects of life and can be extremely beneficial.

On the flip side, a fixed mindset is when you believe all of your talents are instilled in you at birth. “I’m good at math but I’m bad at basketball.”

Though there are certainly things that come more naturally than others, there are clearly cases where you can improve an area of your life by working hard and taking action.

The fixed mindset is a story you tell yourself.

How do you develop a growth mindset?

Take action and change your environment. Be around people who inspire you and who motivate you to improve yourself.

We’ve all heard that “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”.

It’s true, so choose wisely.

“If you want to change your life, change your environment”