You may not be able to “cure” anxiety and depression or magically make the stressful things in your life go away, but if you want to improve the overall state of your mental health, having the right mindset is a key starting point.
Evidence suggests that having a so-called “growth” mindset, where you believe your personality and skills aren’t fixed but can always be improved, is beneficial to mental health. In one meta-analysis (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25462109/), researchers looked at multiple studies into how children and teens coped with stress, what their academic performance was like and their mental health outcomes more generally. They found that children who were fixed in their mindset were the ones whose mental health suffered more.
Similar results can be seen in another study, this time of university students (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25149141/). It seems mindset isn’t just about how you feel, but also about more tangible outcomes in terms of cognitive and academic performance. Improving your mindset may improve your mental health, which may, in turn, improve your quality of life more widely.
Your mindset is the framework that underlies how you respond to the world. We’re all going to encounter hard times that can contribute to depression and anxiety. A growth mindset, however, means we see those troubles as challenges to overcome with the potential for learning, whereas a fixed mindset may encourage us to despair that the whole situation is hopeless.
Of course, you can read this kind of thing until you’re blue in the face, but actually changing your own mindset is not so easy, especially if you’re an adult. Children tend to have a more malleable approach to the world in general. It’s not until you grow up that you start losing that openness.
Improving your mindset can be a lengthy process, but you can start with a few simple steps. Instead of saying “I can’t do it,” say “I can’t do it yet.” Don’t just focus on results, but try to enjoy the process whether or not you succeed. If you’re not sure what you’re doing or it seems impossible, there are counselors who specialize in just this kind of thing.
Approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy aren’t about telling you how to think. They’re about identifying your own thoughts and feelings, figuring out when they’re unhealthy or irrational, and developing new coping mechanisms, such as a growth approach.
