The Growth Mindset Coaching Model

A Coaching Model By Mariam Alloush, Growth Mindset Coach, CANADA

What Is the Growth Mindset?

The Growth Mindset Coaching Model is a model that takes a client through a 360-degree journey starting with where they are now in their current state, identifying what is their desired state, and then rewiring the mind by creating new thoughts, feelings, and beliefs along with behaviors, goals, actions, accountabilities, and self-reflections that will help move the client towards their desired state.

This model is designed for entrepreneurs who are finding themselves in new and uncomfortable situations every day and are challenged to move from a fixed to a growth-oriented mindset around their professional and personal life.

While as a coach it is imperative to understand the gap between the client’s current and desired state, much of the coaching revolves around the concept of mind-rewiring. The ability to create new neural pathways in ways of thinking that better support the client’s desired results.

As a mindset coach, my philosophy is that our past does not dictate our future, and everyone has the capacity to change their current thoughts, habits, beliefs, and perspectives in order to create a new reality for their life.

As a coach, I believe in what’s possible for my client, I believe in their potential, and I support them in their journey toward a growth mindset by helping them navigate their current thinking limiting beliefs in order to expand their current levels of thinking and make new connections that are oriented toward a growth mindset.

The Growth Mindset Coaching Model

The Growth Mindset Coaching Model is a visual representation of the client’s coaching journey and the seven stops that we will make along the way. 

Current State

Understanding the client and where they are currently at in terms of their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, and mindset. This initial step is also about taking the time to understand the client’s self-perceptions as well as the realities of their worldview. Often this is the place where the client can make some deep discoveries around where they might hold some fixed thoughts about themselves and the world around them that are hindering their forward movement.

Desired State

The next step is working together to understand the client’s desired outcomes. What they truly want in life, what makes them feel most alive, and what future they envision for themselves. This also involves who they need to become in order to create that reality, an exploration of how they would need to feel, think, and act in order to achieve their desired state.

Goal Setting

Once the client has explored the mental, emotional and behavioral gaps between their current reality (who they are today) and their future reality (who they need to become), we then work together to identify a list of short, medium, and/or longer-term goals that will help support the client in the achievement of their desired state. While goal setting is a very important aspect of creating clarity around where the client needs to go and how they are going to get there, the growth mindset coaching model focuses the client on the incremental progress towards the goals instead of the end state. This is particularly important when it comes to the medium- and longer-term goals that will require patience, consistency, and commitment and where the client will need to accept delayed gratification when the results are not immediate. Goal setting will also involve having the client anchor their goals to their “why” in order to ensure that they are able to tap into their intrinsic motivation as they strive to achieve their goals. 

Mindset Rewiring

Mindset rewiring is the process of looking at the gaps between the client’s current and desired way of thinking, feeling, and acting and helping them rewire their disempowering thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and emotions into a more empowering growth-oriented mindset. This involves asking powerful questions that evoke awareness, and self-reflection and create change in their perspective about how they view themselves and the world around them. It involves eradicating limiting beliefs about who they are and what they are capable of achieving by challenging them to expand their worldview, challenge their perceptions, help them visualize their next level, and support them in developing the habits, rituals, and behaviors that will support their growth mindset. 

Actions

Helping the client commit to actions that will progress them towards achieving their goals. This also involves creating rewards mechanisms for acknowledging and celebrating their effort and progress and not just the attainment of the goal. It is about continuously building momentum and focusing on the forward movement of the action which is getting the client closer and closer to the attainment of their goal. 

Accountability

Committing to an accountability framework that will support the client in their commitment towards their actions and overall goals. Partnering with the client to navigate how they will keep themselves accountable for their actions and also creating contingency plans when things get off track. Navigating the client through what they need from themselves, what they need from their coach to help hold them accountable, and what supports would be most useful to be put in place to ensure success. 

Self-Reflection

The last stage is participating in deep self-reflection in order to determine if the mind rewiring, goal setting, actions, and accountabilities have yielded the client’s desired results. This involves having the client take the time to acknowledge and celebrate all that is going well but also stepping back and finding the lessons and opportunities to refine and improve in areas that are not going well in order to identify where further mindset work is needed. Clients that embody a growth mindset model are committed to self-reflection because they recognize that their work is never done, there is always another level of growth waiting for them if they are willing to put in the effort and work for it.