Mindset Mastery
What you think, you create.
The #1 factor for determining success is mindset. The way you think shapes your actions and your life. If you believe you’ll be successful, you will be. But if you believe you’ll fail, you’re setting yourself up for failure. This applies to everything you do – your work life, your personal life, and even your fitness.
Your thoughts have a huge impact on your behavior. So it’s important to work on your mindset in order to live a more successful, fulfilling life.
Mindset is defined as the established set of attitudes held by someone. These beliefs are what shape how you perceive the world and yourself. Mindset influences the way you think, feel and behave in all areas of life.
Why is mindset so important?
Your mindset is what builds your self-esteem. It doesn’t matter if others believe you can achieve something. What matters is how you perceive yourself – capable or incapable. Your internal narrative is what informs the way you perceive and evaluate your value.
Mindset is what creates a winning perspective. Your mindset – your beliefs, attitude, perspective – affect whether you view a glass as half full or half empty. An optimistic mindset is key to creating a winning perspective.
Drive is what pushes you to succeed in every situation in life. People who are driven have the motivation needed to achieve their goals, build a vision for their future, and take action to turn that vision into reality. Your mindset is what makes you and keeps you driven.
Grit is passion and perseverance for long term goals. Let’s face it, obstacles will come up. The way that you behave when faced with adversity determines whether or not you’ll succeed. When life throws obstacles at you, do you push through when things get hard? Or do you throw in the towel? A positive mindset gives you the grit and the stamina you need to keep moving forward in the face of adversity.
There are many ways to master your mindset. Meditation, gratitude practices, and self-care are all good places to start.
Here are seven things you can start doing today to work on your mindset.
1. Take daily positive actions.
Take a look at how much positivity versus how much negativity you’re consuming in your life. If you turn on the news, you’ll be inundated with negative things happening in the world. This doesn’t mean that you should stop learning about the happenings in the world – it just means you need to balance that out with positive intake.
Listening to podcasts, reading books, meaningful conversations, and quality time with the people you care about are all great ways to increase your positivity intake.
Exercise is another positive action you can take each day that will help you to feel better, and think better.
2. Abundance versus scarcity mindset
Avoid limiting yourself with a scarcity mentality. Abundance mindset is all about being open to opportunities. Believing that opportunities are endless and possibilities are infinite puts you in abundance mindset.
Scarcity mindset comes up in work life often. People looking to start new businesses or get into a new career often see the amount of competition out there, a saturated market, and develop fears around making it in their new career. The truth is that even though a particular market may be saturated, and it may be competitive, there are billions of people in the world. There may be hundreds of people doing what you do – but no one else is exactly like you. If Steve Jobs decided there were too many tech companies out there and lived with a scarcity mindset, he never would have pushed the status quo and created what he did.
We all have had different lived experiences, different education, and different personalities and these all create opportunities for us if we’re open to them.
3. Manage your emotions
Meditation has been shown to help with stress, anxiety, depression, and managing negative emotions.
Meditating leads to better decision making and helps to keep you out of fear mentality. Meditation can be so simple – you don’t have to sit for an hour long meditation, or even use any specific meditation technique to reap the benefits of meditation. Simply sitting or lying down for five to ten minutes and focusing on your breath can be enough.
The reason that meditation is so beneficial for mastering your mindset is because it helps you to create space between your thoughts and your reactions. It helps you to slow down and take the time to respond to situations, rather than reacting to them without considering consequences.
Gratitude practices like writing in a gratitude journal or listening to guided gratitude meditations are another great way to increase your positive emotions and tame the negative ones.
4. Write your own story
You are the main character of your life. You are the one who gets to write your story. Your mindset is the narrative that plays in your head.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What is my vision for my life?
- What are the necessary changes I need to turn this vision into reality?
In order to get to point B – your vision for your life – you have to be honest with yourself about where you are now. Point A is where you are right now. Look at point A honestly to decide what changes you need to make in order to get to point B.
Journal on these two questions and create an action plan for yourself to help you realize your vision for your life. Small, sustainable daily steps are worth more than one big leap.
5. Language Check
The words you use are so powerful. How do you talk about events in your life? Are you using empowering or disempowering language?
“He made me so angry.” “She ruined my day.” “You messed up my plan.”
Blaming others is a trap. Complaining about your situation without taking action to change it is a waste of time. Taking responsibility for yourself and your reactions gives you back your power.
Instead, phrasing things like, “This happened, and I reacted in this way.” may seem like a small change but it empowers you to take control over your life. It puts the onus back on you. Blame is easy. Taking responsibility is hard – but you can do hard things.
“I can’t” is another disempowering phrase that’s used all too often.
“I can’t draw that, I can’t even draw a stick figure!”
“I can’t do yoga, I can’t even touch my toes.”
“I can’t do a pull up, I don’t have upper body strength.”
Replace “I can’t” with “I’m working on”…
“I’m learning how to draw. I’d love to be able to draw like that someday.”
“I’m willing to try yoga. I’m not flexible yet but I’m working on my flexibility.”
“I can do an assisted pull up. Someday I’ll be strong enough to do one unassisted.”
6. Surround yourself with people who uplift and inspire you.
Jim Rohn once said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.
The people you spend time with affect the way that we think and behave. If you’ve ever spent a lot of time with someone and started using more of the words or phrases they use, you’ve experienced these effects.
We are greatly influenced by the people we spend time with. They affect the way we speak, our self-esteem, and our decisions. We can’t always choose who we spend time with, like coworkers and family members, but we can set boundaries with those who negatively impact us.
If someone close to you doesn’t believe in your dreams, or doesn’t respect you and your journey, it’s time to set boundaries. Not everyone is entitled to full access to your life.
If you’re on a diet for example, and your best friend constantly makes fun of you for eating rabbit food or spending time you’d usually spend with them in the gym, you may need to set a boundary around talking about food or your workouts. Or if a family member doesn’t support your career goals and advises you to quit and find a job they think is better suited for you, you may have to limit what you share with them about your new venture. There are plenty of ways to set healthy boundaries that will benefit your mindset without ruining your relationships.
Seek out people who inspire you. And spend more time with those who uplift and support you. Follow people who you’re inspired by on social media and mute or unfollow those who bring you down.
7. Leave a legacy
There’s an Iroqouis principle called the Seventh Generation Principle. It’s a philosophy that essentially states that the decisions we make today should result in a better future for the seven generations who will come after us.
It asks us to take time to consider our actions and the effects they’ll have on future generations.
Consider what you’re contributing. What stories will you leave behind? What traditions will you pass down? Will the generations that come after you be inspired by your story?
Empower yourself by thinking of the stories you want your grandchildren to tell their grandchildren and beyond!
Mastering your mindset doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Work on these seven steps as slowly as you’d like. Implement one strategy at a time. Mindset doesn’t change overnight. When you catch a negative thought come up – celebrate the fact that you caught it. Then replace it with a positive one. Over time, those negative thoughts will come up less and less frequently. With a strong, positive mindset, you can do anything you set your mind to.
Adriana Lee
NeoraFit™ Ambassador Adriana Lee is a Las Vegas born yoga teacher and yoga teacher trainer. She is all about self-discovery and empowerment through yoga. She teaches her students how to breathe, how to feel and how to get reacquainted with their bodies. As a teacher, she breaks down big concepts and complicated poses into bite-sized pieces to make them more accessible. Her teaching is based in anatomy and biomechanics. Students leave the class feeling refreshed, connected to their bodies, and empowered — and now she brings her skill and experience exclusively to you.
Great read!! Thank you!!
Wonderful read!!
Fantastic read – thank you
This is wonderful! Thank you!
Awesome tips on how we can empower ourselves, shift our mindset and the importance of taking action every day. Perfect read for #mondaymindset.