“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
Your beliefs determine your life. If you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything, but the opposite is also true: If you think you will fail, you probably will.
Beliefs come from mindset, so if you can change your mindset, you can change your life.
What is Mindset?
Mindset is a subconscious set of rules that guide your thoughts and actions. Your mindset reflects your deeply held beliefs, which turn into thoughts, habits, actions, and behaviors.
Types of Mindsets
Research into mindsets developed numerous mindset pairings, each reflecting a different area of our lives. Some speak to psychological attitudes about how the world works, while others seem more like corporate jargon to describe ideal candidates.
Here are some examples:
- Growth: A growth mindset describes a mind open to learning and improving. Those with a growth mindset believe anything is possible.
- Fixed: A fixed mindset is the opposite of growth. It describes a mind that believes in strict limits. If you can’t do something, you will never learn it.
- Abundance: People with abundance mindsets believe in a world of plenty. There’s more than enough for everyone, so they don’t have to hoard resources.
- Scarcity: Scarcity is the opposite of abundance. People with scarcity mindsets believe resources are limited. They fear sharing because they believe they will end up with less overall.
- Positive: A positive mindset looks on the bright side of everything. They’re optimistic about life and the future, seeing setbacks as challenges to overcome rather than insurmountable obstacles.
- Negative: People with a negative mindset only see the bad in things. Everything is against them, and they see every challenge with fear.
- Business: A business mindset describes people who are laser-focused on business. They dedicate their entire lives to the company, seeking profits, growth, promotion, and prestige.
- Entrepreneurial: An entrepreneurial mindset is about big ideas and striking out on your own. People with an entrepreneurial mindset thrive on working for themselves.
- Fear: Fear is one of humanity’s most powerful motivators. People with a fear mindset are afraid of any type of change. They seek the comfort of the familiar, even if it’s harmful, because any deviation might be worse.
Other Mindsets
The growth in research into mindsets and its explosion as a corporate buzzword led to the description of many other types of mindsets, which may or may not be rooted in real psychology.
How To Change Your Mindset
Some of these mindsets prevent people from achieving their dreams. The good news is that you can change your mindset.
Here’s how.
Reflect on Your Current Mindset
You must know how your mind works before you can make any changes.
The first step to changing your mindset is understanding your current beliefs. Reflect on your thoughts and attitudes to determine where you currently stand.
Understanding your current state of mind is a challenging, sometimes painful task. You may discover aspects of yourself you don’t like or realize that you’ve been holding yourself back for years.
You can’t let your ego stop you from doing this important work.
Here are some ways to discover your current mindset.
Shadow Work
Shadow work involves digging into the deepest, darkest portions of our minds to discover the worst aspects of ourselves. While conducting shadow work, you’ll uncover your worst character traits, biggest flaws, and deepest regrets.
It’s a painful journey that can help you reveal why you’re stuck in an unproductive mindset. You can conduct shadow work via journaling and meditation.
Therapy
If you can’t uncover your mindset independently, you may need professional help. A therapist can help you work through lingering trauma that’s preventing you from living your best life. They can guide you through your shadow work, providing a safe space to work through those complex emotions that hold you back.
Decide Which Mindset You Want to Cultivate
Once you understand your subconscious belief system, you must decide how to change it. What type of mindset do you want?
If your shadow work showed you that your fear mindset is holding you back, you should work on building confidence. You probably want to cultivate growth if you’re stuck in a fixed mindset.
The practices in shifting your mindset will differ based on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Put in the Effort
The final step is doing the work. Changing your mindset is a long process that may take months or even years.
But if you commit to doing the hard work necessary to change, you’ll wake up one day to discover that you naturally behave according to your new perspective.
These tools can help you shift your subconscious beliefs and cultivate a new mindset.
Mindfulness
Behaviors caused by mindset are often subconscious. Mindfulness helps us identify and acknowledge them.
Practice mindfulness in all your interactions, and pause when something triggers your unproductive mindset. Accept that your thoughts and feelings aren’t accurate but are driven by subconscious and untrue beliefs about the world.
When you identify the specific areas where your mindset causes the behaviors you want to change, you can make a conscious effort to behave differently.
Practice
When you discover a negative thought based on mindset, practice dismissing that thought.
For example, if your friend gets promoted over you, your fixed mindset may tell you you’re not good enough. Acknowledge that thought, but take a breath and push back against it. Tell yourself you are good enough; you just need to grow a little more.
Your subconscious will fight against your conscious mind. It’s been secretly developing that security blanket for years. Keep up the practice, and eventually, your subconscious will believe it.
Act Against Your Mindset
Sometimes, you must push against the negative thoughts to prove them wrong. In the promotion example, you may want to ignore the friend or lash out against them. Those feelings come from envy – you’re upset because you think you’re incapable of doing what they did.
Act against those feelings. Push them down, and instead, reach out to your friend to ask for advice and mentorship.
Prove to your mind that you can learn and grow.
Journaling
Journaling about what you want can help drive the message home to your subconscious. Journaling can help with any type of mindset change.
If you want to cultivate abundance, start a gratitude journal to celebrate all the wonderful things in your life. Journal about your accomplishments and strengths to develop confidence.
The more you write about how your behaviors reflect the mindset you wish to cultivate, the more your subconscious will believe it.
Meditation
A meditation practice grounds us and helps us acknowledge all our thoughts and feelings without acting on them. Meditating for 20 minutes a day can help you uncover the nasty thoughts that build your mindset, allowing you to dismiss them or work them out in your journal later.
Coaching/Mentorship
You don’t have to change your mindset alone. A life coach or mentor can help you work through the negative thoughts associated with your current mindset and guide you toward actions that cultivate change.
Find a life coach specializing in self-development to get started.
Self-Love
Many negative mindsets are rooted in fear and insecurity. Learning to love yourself will help you fight back against those insecurities.
Self-love is about treating yourself with compassion and grace. It means taking care of yourself, even when things go wrong.
Acknowledge that it’s okay to make mistakes. Those mistakes don’t define you as a person. You can love yourself even if you’re flawed.
Accept Setbacks
Mindset shifts don’t happen overnight. You may feel like you’ve conquered the negative feelings, but one day, something new happens that triggers the insecurities all over again.
That’s okay. You don’t have to be perfect. Setbacks will happen. Don’t let them derail all the hard work you’ve accomplished.
A Mindset Shift is Possible
You don’t have to accept your subconscious beliefs about yourself. You can change your mindset and cultivate the life you deserve.
What are you waiting for?