Is Your Mindset Working?

“Mindset is the view you adopt for yourself that profoundly affects the way you lead your life.”  Carol Dweck

Why is mindset important?

Having a positive mindset can lead to increased resilience, motivation, happiness, and success. It can lead to greater personal and professional fulfillment. It enhances our mental and emotional wellbeing.

Having a negative mindset can lead to feelings of helplessness, frustration, overwhelm, and anxiety. It can lead to stress and depression. It keeps us from achieving our goals, making our dreams come true, and living the life we want to live.

Our mindset influences our emotions, our thoughts, our attitudes, our behavior, our worldview. It changes the way we perceive and react to situations. It affects how we approach challenges, relationships, and personal growth.

Our mindset determines whether we become the people we want to be and achieve our goals.

Do we have any control over our mindset?

Our mindset is not static or set-in-stone. It is fluid and dynamic.

I believe that mindset is heavily influenced by our beliefs – these are what Dweck means when she talks about the “view” we adopt for ourselves. We may have very different beliefs or views depending on what is going on in different parts of our life. For example, if someone has recently gone through a bad break-up or ugly divorce, their belief may be that they are never going to find lasting love. Conversely, if they have just fallen in love or gotten married recently, their belief might be that they have found their one true love and that life is good because they are in a loving relationship.  If someone is crushing it at work, they are likely to have a more positive mindset than if they just got a devastatingly negative performance review or just got fired.

That being said, we have a basic set point when it comes to mindset. We have a default mindset that we revert back to when we are in a difficult situation. 

If someone has a positive mindset, they are going to look at the situation through a positive filter. Maybe they’ll be able to trust that something good could come out of a difficult situation or that it could be a blessing in disguise.

If they have a mindset that leans to the negative, they are going to look at the situation through a negative filter. Chances are, they’ll think the situation is bad and that nothing good could possibly ever come out of it.  

Do you know what your default mindset is?

Here are twelve questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you feel like you aren’t where you want to be in life, are not living the life you want to live?
2. Do you often feel stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, disappointed, bored, angry, impatient, jealous, sad or irritated?  
3. If you often procrastinate on tasks?
4. Are you a worrier?
5. Do you often judge the way you look?
6. Do you often compare yourself to other people?
7. Do you criticize or judge yourself and other people?
8. Do you often feel like there is not enough time?
9. Do you often feel that you are not good enough?
10. Are you often indecisive?
11. Do you second guess yourself often?
12. Do you have a negative inner critic?

If you answered yes to many of these questions, chances are you have a negative mindset.

You're not alone, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Most of us have a negative mindset because most of us have a part of the brain – commonly called the Survivor brain – that is overactive.  Our Survivor brain is constantly activated, doing our thinking for us. It is constantly triggering the fight/flight/freeze stress response. This keeps us trapped in a vicious cycle of automatic and habitual negative thought patterns, judgement, anxiety, emotional reactivity, low self-esteem, relationship conflict, and unhappiness.  It keeps us are mired in negative emotions -- anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, regret, shame, guilt, anger, unhappiness, etc.

How do you shift from a negative mindset to a positive mindset?

We can’t think ourselves into a positive mindset. We can’t will ourselves into a positive mindset. However, we CAN change our mindset … through mental fitness training.

Now, you’re probably saying, “what the heck is mental fitness training?”

Mental fitness is the capacity to respond to life challenges with a positive rather than negative mindset .

Therefore, mental fitness training is how we build our capacity to respond to life challenges with a positive rather than negative mindset .

Mental fitness training is analogous to working out our muscles. If we want to build up certain muscles, we have to lift weights.  Our brain are muscles, too. The more we use certain parts of our brain, the more gray matter that part of the brain develops and the stronger that part gets.  If we only exercised our right bicep, it would get strong and muscular. But our left bicep would atrophy from lack of exercise.

Most of us have been over-exercising our Survivor brain for so long that it is overdeveloped and the part of our brain – what we call our Sage or wise brain -- is underdeveloped. The Sage brain is the part of our brain that generates positive emotions like curiosity, empathy, creativity, calm, and joy; when it is underdeveloped, it can’t possible compete with the overdeveloped Survivor brain for attention.

Through daily mental fitness workouts, we exercise our Sage brain which builds up the muscles, the gray matter, of that part of the brain. We rest our Survivor brain so that it is not getting as much exercise.  Over time, with inactivity, the muscles of that part of the brain get weaker and there is less gray matter.

In a nutshell, mental fitness training, done diligently and daily, weakens our Survivor or negative brain and strengthens our Sage or positive brain. We learn to halt the thoughts that are coming from our Survivor brain, deactivate the Survivor brain, and activate our Sage brain. As a result, our mindset improves and we are able to respond to life challenges with a positive rather than negative mindset .

I’ve been doing daily mental fitness training for almost a year now. The impact on my mindset has been nothing short of miraculous. 

I have turned the volume down on my Inner Critic and turned up the volume on my Inner Sage. I no longer let self-criticism, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative self-talk keep me stuck in bad habits, outdated beliefs, and negative thought patterns. Today, I spend far more time feeling grateful, happy, joyful, creative, and curious and far less time feeling depressed, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and unworthy.

Result your mindset

I am such a believer in the power of mental fitness training that I want to everyone experience the benefits of having a mentally fit mind and a positive mindset.

That’s why I became a mental fitness trainer. That’s why I offer my Reset Your Mindset Bootcamp. Reset Your Mindset Bootcamp is the best way to get into the habit of doing mental fitness workouts daily. The 8-week program teaches you the basic fundamentals of mental fitness. You’ll learn exercises that will weaken your Survivor negative brain and strengthen your Sage brain. You’ll learn to how to halt the thoughts that come from your Survivor brain, how to deactivate your Survivor brain, and how to activate your Sage brain.

This Bootcamp is for you if you want to …

… spend more time feeling grateful, happy, joyful, creative, and curious and less time feeling depressed, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and unworthy.

… shift your mindset from negative to positive.

… start living the life you want to live.

… stop procrastinating.

… stop judging the way you look, criticizing yourself, or comparing yourself to other people.

… stop second guessing yourself.

… stop listening to your inner critic.