What is Mindset and How Can it Affect Me?
Mindset – the set of your outlook and attitude. Our mindset can and usually will determine how we go about our day. Mindset can contribute to our daily behaviors, influencing how we think, feel, act toward others, and what we accomplish. So yes, mindset matters and can affect us more than we realize.
Simply put, if you have a productive or creative mindset you will most likely get more done and feel more outgoing and energized throughout the day. If you have a negative or fixed mindset; telling yourself that what you do doesn’t matter, you or your work will never be enough, or that things will never get better. Then you will most likely drag yourself through the day feeling hopeless, helpless, unmotivated, and ultimately end up being that negative person that others don’t enjoy being around.
Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a doctor or specialist. But I am someone who has personally struggled with mindset setbacks, especially over the last two years. That is why I felt inspired to focus on this topic in my first blog post. I definitely don’t know everything there is to know on this subject but wanted to at least share a bit about what I have learned and found helpful when trying to change my own mindset and overall, just live in a more hopeful way.
I have found that in many ways your mindset is controllable, something only you can choose and change. But adapting to a positive mindset can take effort and practice, especially if you are already prone to or even addicted to giving in to a more negative way of thinking. After all, giving in to what we already know and are comfortable with is easier than making the change, right?
If you are also dealing with mindset setbacks but hoping to make a change (and if you’re here then I am guessing that you are) then I think you need to be honest with yourself. Start by ask yourself the following…
• Is my mindset a choice, something I have control over?
• Am I happy with the mindset I tend to adapt to in my day-to-day life?
• What things cause my mindset to change, for better or worse?
• Am I ready to embrace a mindset change and break my habit of seeing the negative and instead build a habit of more positive thinking?
• What steps can I take toward training my mind to look past the hopeless to see something purposeful and hopeful every day?
Changing a Negative Mindset
First, let’s recognize the reason behind your bad-attitude-funk. This is going to be specific to each individual and may take some real honesty and digging up of your own heart and mind before you find answers. However, tackling an issue at its foundation can be the ticket to building better habits from the ground up.
Here are my suggested steps for recognizing where negativity is coming from in your own life and different measures you can take toward building a habit of positivity.
- Recognition: I mentioned it already but recognizing and accepting that change is needed is a necessary first step. Second, recognizing that you, and you alone, are the one who can make the change happen is the only way you can start to move forward.
- Make the Decision: Actively deciding to create and build upon the change you desire is key. We can all recognize when something in our life needs to change, but until we actually make the decision to do something about it that change is never going to come.
- Gaining Clarity: Creating a list of your own personal “negatives”- those things that are causing stress, discomfort, unhappiness, anger, or distraction from what truly matters – can be a refreshing exercise and help you to put things into perspective.
- Reimagining: For every one of your negatives, see if you can identify a positive solution. Your solution(s) may not be clean and simple and may not be a quick fix each time.
- Build upon positive takeaways by asking yourself what you are learning through a negative experience. What can you take with you when you ultimately leave that negative situation behind that can contribute to building a positive situation in your future? After all, if we aren’t learning through mistakes and difficulties then how will we ever be able to make things better?
- Remind yourself that certain negatives may be related to a season of life and not permanent.
- Attack Plan: With negatives realized and reimagined into positives, setting goals and creating a personal attack plan can help break down how you want to work toward your new mindset while also keeping you accountable.
- Look at your goals as baby steps to your overall, reimagined picture. Create goals that will not only allow you to reach the finish line, but will also help you to break down bad habits and replace them with healthier ones along the way.
- Identify toxicities that need to be cut out of your life. These could exist in relationships, work, or the images and media that we surround ourselves with.
- Practice and Work: Continuing to make the decision each and every day to work for the change you want to see in your life. Some of these changes may be smaller and others may be much larger. And you may find that the steps you thought would work don’t and you need to make a change to your attack plan. It’s all part of the process, a process in which you are hopefully learning and growing through.
- Don’t be afraid to fail. If something doesn’t work then that is your opportunity to try something different.
- If you think it may help, keep a journal of your progress. Record your thoughts and feelings, your mindset at the open and close of the day, and what exercises you implemented throughout and whether or not they made a difference. Reflect back on your journey at a later date. You may be inspired by how far you’ve come.
Well then, am I just expected to stay positive all the time?
I am not saying that bad days won’t happen. Perfection is not meant to be found here on earth. Only in our time after this life may we find that. We are imperfect people living in an imperfect world and shouldn’t deny that bad days exist. As a believer, I need to recognize the fact that we all have the right to have bad days. It’s part of being human and living separately from God. Each of us will face heavy things that can affect us very deeply during our time in this life. I would never approach someone who had just lost a loved one, received an upsetting diagnosis, or watched their home burn to the ground and tell them that they should just choose to be happy.
The thoughts that I am expressing here are not going to relate to every situation. They are more meant for those of us that are carrying around pessimism that we know is unnecessary and needs to be dropped. Yes, there is evil in the world, evil that we can’t even begin to make sense of or explain. But there is also good. Grief, disappointment, and fear are natural here on earth, as are wonder, excitement, and happiness. I worry that sometimes we miss the good because we allow ourselves to get so overwhelmed by the bad.
On those days when the world isn’t necessarily shattering under our feet, why do we sometimes feel like it is? Is it a vicious cycle we are allowing ourselves to fall into? I ask this for myself as well. Sometimes I wonder why I have let myself get so down. Why have I let myself get so absorbed in the things I can’t control, may never come to be, have already passed, or aren’t truly important? Why have I let those things distract me from the billions of things in my life that are truly amazing?
There is so much that we can’t control in life, but our own mindset doesn’t have to be one of them. Most days you can choose to see things in a different light, to let the good things build you up while finding better ways to deal with the bad.
I hope that sharing some of what I have found (and continue to work on) is helpful to those seeking to make a similar transformation. And if you enjoyed this please stay tuned for my next post where I will be diving into some quick ways to reset your mind and head back into your day feeling refreshed a recharged.
Thank you, friends. I wish you joy!
