Is it challenging lately to shift your mindset from negative, hopeless, worried to positive, hopeful and filled with possibility thinking? Now more than ever, mindset is an inner tool to not only cope with all that’s going on, but to rise above it.
What is a mindset, anyway?
Mindset literally means how your mind is set. It’s different than thinking about something. Pondering, planning, debating, logically figuring out. Mindset is your frame of mind, the way you are thinking, your attitudes, opinions, judgments and anticipations based on programmed beliefs.
Mindset is the context in which you hold things. It comes from experience, education, upbringing, and the society you are in. You can have a general mindset about life or the world, or a specific mindset about a particular topic, event, item or person.
Mindset is the lens you look through that determines how you perceive, interpret and approach things. If it’s positive, you see things positively; if it’s negative, that’s how everything appears.
With a negative mindset, you read the news, and your focus is drawn to how depressing things are. If it’s positive, you see possibility and opportunity in all that you read.
Mindset also defines how you see yourself. It determines your level of self-confidence and self-esteem as well as your willingness to be open to change and personal development.
A fixed mindset has you believe that your basic qualities are unalterable traits. Rather than trying to develop or enhance those attributes, you spend time justifying, quantifying and feeling hopeless about them.
Where Does Mindset Originate?
Your primitive consciousness, hardwired to make sure you survive, is the groundwork that develops the core of your mindset. Prior to the onset of your ability to think logically, incidents containing pain or loss programed your beliefs about yourself, others, and life. Those notions are stored subconsciously, and when they get triggered your mindset forms. From then on, it steps in to try to protect you.
Your mindset is always trying to prove it’s correct. Why? So you can be right and say told you so. This cycle continues even with experiences that go counter to your set beliefs, even when life repeatedly shows those notions as faulty.
Mindset Shifts
The aphorism “Change your mind and change your life” is simplistic and may sound easy. Truth is that a fixed mindset is a challenge to shift. Those long-held notions offer predictability, comfort and security, even if subconsciously.
However, if you have a strong, pure desire to change, with mindfulness, willingness and dedicated inner digging, even stubborn false beliefs keeping you stuck can be transcended. Not by simply recognizing and questioning them, but by finding their true origins. That’s your superpower and it’s well worth it.
Mindset and Manifestation
The basic law of energy is thoughts always manifest in a physical form. In other words, if your mindset lives in doom and gloom mentality, that self-fulfilling prophecy is what shows up no matter what strategies you apply.
The tremendous challenges of these past few years may have triggered a justifiable negative mindset. You could be living reactively, stuck in fear, anticipating the next tumultuous shoe to drop.
So here are twelve suggestions to help you come from a more positive, growth-filled mindset:
Be aware. An important first step in shifting your mindset is to consciously notice it. Take note of your attitude during the day, the automatic thoughts you have, your reaction to hearing news reports, your judgments about people, and any beliefs, resentments and fears about life in general.
Particularly observe the self-sabotaging, limiting thoughts constantly dictating false information about yourself and see the patterns manifesting to prove they are right. By observation and acknowledgment, you are starting to “bust” those thoughts as untruths, releasing some of their power to affect your life.
Counter them. Once you notice mindset-generated thoughts, it’s important to remove some of their oomph. Remind yourself that these are just false notions, untrue thoughts, and consciously, lovingly, thank them for sharing but let them know you don’t believe them. As you do that, feel any physical sensations indicating fear (such as your stomach tightening, your breathing getting shallow, etc.) and direct your body to relax. Use visualization, mindful inhaling and exhaling, a moment of meditation or prayer or whatever helps you feel calm and trusting.
For example: You read the latest economic forecast and notice a slew of negative thoughts. As soon as you can, breathe slowly and state something like this: “I choose abundance as my personal reality, and I am open to positive, infinite possibility. Thank you for helping me awaken to any false programming that I can now recognize and release.”
Allow positivity. Challenge yourself to recognize and verbally state at least three positive things that have happened each day. This helps train you to acknowledge opportunities for success, suggestions for growth, willingness to change and different ways to perceive things. Try keeping a visual score by putting a dollar into a jar only to be used for a special treat once filled.
Prioritize self-development. Take some time to do inner work that supports embracing success and expanding deservingness. Whether you meditate, do yoga, psychotherapy, spiritually based inner work or journaling, have the intention to grow past your set mindset to generate positive change. Locating the true origins of why your mindset is what it is means doing deep work.
Change your shoes. To help alter your mindset, experience what it’s like to approach your life from a different viewpoint. Try doing the job you hate the most – perhaps changing the bed — or have a heart-to-heart with the person who has been doing it – it can completely change your attitude.
Get feedback. Ask friends, relatives and employees what they’ve noticed about your mindset. Encourage honesty and be open to hear objective feedback. You might learn some important things about yourself.
Be emotionally vulnerable. Be open about whatever you are going through, feeling and sharing your feelings, expressing your needs. Expressing fears from an authentic, vulnerable place helps your mindset and can release the emotionally charged first layer. You may also discover that others feel the same way and are grateful you opened the door for them to honestly express.
Just let go. Being invested in your success is a good place to be. However, letting go of any sort of attachment is a universal spiritual lesson to learn. Consciously releasing the need for something to be a certain way (ie. to make you happy; to fulfill you, etc.) is not easy but is effective to “create space” for things to change.
Power of gratitude. Pledge to write down three things you are grateful for either at the start or end of your day. Notice patterns as to what you feel gratitude for – it can help you shift priorities toward what is truly important in your life.
Refocus your vision. Your overall “Life Mission” could be stuck in your negative mindset, preventing the manifestation of your long-term goals. It could be time to change, clarify or adjust your vision in some way. Is it still relevant? Does it fit with who you are or who you want to become? Does it need to expand in some way? Perhaps write or re-write your Life Mission Statement to see what comes to you intuitively.
Be gentle on yourself. Change may not come easily or quickly, and it inevitably brings up fear. If you are noticing resistance to shifting your mindset, allow yourself to feel and acknowledge fears, whether they are rational or irrational, big or small. Simultaneously, know that you have the power of creation flowing through you generating positive results and all that you deserve.
See it. Like looking at yourself in a mirror every day of your life, you may not notice subtle change. Same for perceiving inner changes. It’s often easier to see that you are not reacting as you used to, or people are responding differently to you. That is sure-fire proof that shift is happening
