Can daily struggle be actually good for you and add to your growth? Study says mindset is everything

When you see struggles as indicator of personal growth, it can help in improving overall character and wellbeing. As per a study, here's how it works.

Do you view struggle as a setback or as an opportunity for growth? According to a March 2025 study, adopting a mindset that sees struggle as a catalyst for progress can significantly boost your chances of success. When challenges are perceived as stepping stones rather than obstacles, they can strengthen character, refine the spirit, and foster meaningful personal development.

Findings of the study

The study, published in Self and Identity, observed the patterns of motivation that people follow to challenge their struggles and shape character and personal growth, or choose to give up. To understand how motivation and mindset works in initiating personal growth and success, the researchers conducted four daily diary studies.

For the study, 382 university students were selected. Each participant was asked to complete an online survey before bedtime. The survey was designed to understand how the participants viewed their daily struggles and if they saw it as a challenge that can improve their growth. The survey also analysed multiple aspects of daily well-being, including life satisfaction, self-esteem, coherence (the sense that life makes sense.

Here's how you can cultivate a growth mindset. (Pexels)

The study results were surprising:

The study authors observed that participants who subscribed to the difficulty-as-improvement mindset, reported higher motivation, well-being and growth mindset. They also demonstrated greater life satisfaction, a stronger sense of meaning, more coherent life narratives, and higher self-esteem.

In the paper, the study authors added, “People vary in how much they endorse difficulty-as-improvement, believing that suffering unbidden life difficulties can sanctify, strengthen, build character, or elevate their spirit. On average, people reported experiencing difficulty on 88.16% of the days they filled in a diary. Within-person daily variability in difficulty-as-improvement scores was associated with daily action, outcomes, and self-judgments, controlling for the positivity-negativity of daily events in multilevel analyses. Endorsing difficulty-as-improvement supports meaning (difficulties happen for a reason) and worth (you are good enough); lagged analyses suggest small-sized effects of yesterday’s difficulty-as-improvement on today’s self-esteem and sense of life as meaningful.”

Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.