Setbacks are an inevitable part of life, and it’s often said that your happiness is largely dependent upon how you respond to those bumps in the road.

Nowhere is this more evident than when searching for a job, where you are often faced with a great many rejections before you even get an interview, let alone an offer.

A recent study highlights how important your mindset is in overcoming such setbacks and eventually securing the job you dream of.

The researchers followed over 100 people as they hunted for a new job. Each week during their search they completed a survey that gaged their mood, stress levels and job search activities.Viewing setbacks as a learning opportunity

The researchers hypothesized that a bit of stress is often no bad thing, providing that is that we approach it with the right mindset, ie the growth mindset of Carol Dweck lore, whereby setbacks are seen as an opportunity to grow rather than a damning indictment of ourselves.

It emerged that most of the participants experienced similar stress levels, but those with a growth mindset responded to the stress and rejection of their job search very differently to those with a fixed mindset, which resulted in them maintaining an effective strategy for much longer.

Those with the fixed mindset appeared to take rejection personally and gave up far quicker than those with a growth mindset, who responded creatively to their setbacks.

“Because individuals with higher learning goal orientation see ability as something that can be developed, they are likely to respond to adverse events with increased effort following perceived failure,” the authors write.

Suffice to say, the study didn’t look at how successful each applicant was in their search, but previous studies have highlighted how those with a growth mindset tend to succeed through their perseverance.

Developing the growth mindset



One, for instance, found that growth mindset folks were much more likely to succeed in their job search, but also that the growth mindset was something that could be developed.

The authors found that unemployed adults given training in growth mindsets reacted much better to rejection than their peers who had more fixed mindsets.

This resulted in them managing the stresses of unemployment more effectively and rejoining the workforce earlier than their peers.

“Job seekers, who think they can learn from failure and who are more aware of different strategies, were found to be more likely to plan job-search activities, resulting in higher probabilities to find a job,” they conclude.

With setbacks an inevitable part of professional life, not least when you’re striving to be innovative, a growth mindset could prove an invaluable aid in ensuring you react productively to them.