The Right Mindset - Change Your Mind Set in 6 Steps

What is a Mindset?

Your mindset is the sum of your knowledge, including beliefs and thoughts about the world and yourself in it. It is your filter for information you get in and put out. So it determines how you receive and react information.

It’s often used for a specific part in your life, as in “the mindset of an entrepreneur” or “the growth mindset”. And having the right mindset for what you go for is often the biggest factor.

Developing the right mindset is then the way learning something new and strip out the most relevant information. Then you develop the beliefs that are most helpful for where you want to go or how you want to be. This belief-system is then your mindset.

And I think a good mindset will reflect reality and will help you. But not in that order. I think the order has to be like this:

1. Find the beliefs that are most supportive
2. Check if the beliefs are in harmony with (a potential) reality

You want to use your mindset to make a positive change. That’s why your beliefs don’t necessarily have to reflect your current reality. But of course the reality you believe in should be possible. That’s like a catch-22, but not really.

If you believe “I am a successful entrepreneur”, you will act in that way.
If you believe “I want to be a successful entrepreneur”, you will act in this way too: like you are NO successful entrepreneur.

I personally found adopting beliefs that seem slightly out of reach is very powerful. Because it changes your mindset and therefore how you behave. For the better. It let’s you grow.

How to Change Your Mindset

The following list can help you to develop the right mindset for your situation:

1. GET THE BEST INFORMATION ONLY

Try to find the very best information in your field. Then focus on learning this information only. I personally learned that in any worthwhile field there is more information available as needed, especially in the internet. You have to narrow down the information input to the most effective. I personally believe that one of the critical personal skills today is not to find information, but to select the best information and avoid the rest.

The Good: Reading great books/information products and some great blogs. Everything else is a waste of time.

The Bad: Mostly not worth it are forums, getting books/information products without researching the field, 90% of blogs. From my personal experience, those are usually things that support procrastination and information overload. The reason is that only a tiny fraction of the information out there is taking you really forward. You have to develop the skill of identifying this kind of information. We are talking about the right mindset here; part of it is not to get sucked into the mediocre area. You want to align yourself with the best out there.

2. ROLE MODEL THE BEST PEOPLE

Similar to #1 look for the best people in your field and try to model what they did right. Adopt their kind of thinking and mindset. Follow them. Of course, keep and only add what you think is right for you. That way you can actually improve and personalize their mindset to fit perfectly for you. It’s never copying, it’s taking what works for you by getting inspiration and quality input.

Now I realize that you can’t look into the minds of the best people in your field. But you can get plenty of information about how they are thinking, their advice, what they did. For instance if you are an entrepreneur or self-employed, here are the people that I role-modeled to a certain degree: Stephen Covey, Steve Jobs, Anthony Robbins, Michael Jordan (find more here). Reading biographies of people who inspire you is a great way to start.

3. EXAMINE YOUR CURRENT BELIEFS

Examine your mindset by looking at your current belief-system. Are these beliefs supporting you? Or are there self limiting beliefs? You have to identify those possible blocks and turn them around. Because whether you know about limiting beliefs or not, they are working in your subconscious mind.

To uncover your beliefs ask yourself the right questions about where you want to go and what is standing in your way right now. The key then is to turn those beliefs around by declaring supportive statements on the same belief. To internalize these new supportive beliefs you can make use of affirmations.

4. SHAPE YOUR MINDSET WITH VISION AND GOALS

A proactive approach to build your mindset is to clearly see where you want to go. Seeing a vision, images describing your end result clearly in your minds eye, will create a strong pull towards this end result. Then go on and break your vision into goals. It will shape your mindset to become conform with your vision.

Learn and adapt from your own experience and always try to look deeper for the real reasons why you get the results you are getting.

5. FIND YOUR VOICE

One of the most beautiful things is when you find your very own way, something what you could call finding your voice. Stephen Covey wrote a book about that and called it The 8th Habit (see a post from him about finding your voice):

To help you find this, answer these 4 question.
1. What are you good at? That’s your mind.
2. What do you love doing? That’s your heart.
3. What need can you serve? That’s the body.
4. And finally, what is life asking of you? What gives your life meaning and purpose? What do you feel like you should be doing? In short, what is your conscience directing you to do? That is your spirit.

Your voice is what you express 100% authentically, it is the unique thing that you can add to the world, because you are who you are. A great way to success and to develop the success mindset. Looking to find what is really you and being critical about every input you get should be part of your mindset. Stay open and flexible in your mind. Don’t judge too soon. It gives you something unique and helps you to build integrity.

6. PROTECT YOUR MINDSET

One thing you have to do is to protect your mindset against the naysayers and people who want to drag you down. You also have to protect it against bad information and against overload (see #1). Keeping your confidence is a big thing. So please stay on the right path, look to improve yourself and to help others along the way. You can’t go wrong with that.

Source: http://www.myrkothum.com/mindset/

Visualization - why we should all be doing it

The importance of creating a clear mental image of your desired goal.

How the subconscious mind works -
All of our results have and are being dictated by our subconscious
Our results in life will always be congruent with the beliefs that we hold at a subconscious level.
These beliefs - more often than not are self limiting
Installed as a child
Inherited from our parents
Operate from a level that we are unaware of.
In order to change our results we need to  change our beliefs about ourselves
Maxwell Maltz - Psycho Cybernetics
Our subconscious is a cybernetic device
This means our subconscious, through whatever course of action we take will lead us to the destination that we have stored in our minds.
How does this happen?


The beliefs we hold at a subconscious level influence our conscious thoughts which influence our actions which influence our results - SIMPLE!


When we change our beliefs we influence the whole chain of command from the deepest level.
E.g. A student that is told they are only capable of a D grade may achieve an A in one exam but will gravitate back because of the  belief that has been installed that they are only capable of a D
In order to be an A student that person must have the belief that they are.
Effectively the majority of us are running on subconscious beliefs that are stopping us for reaching any kind of self potential.
These beliefs work constantly in the background influencing your conscious thought in order to be upheld.
Most of the time without even realising. How does this happen?


The beliefs we hold at a subconscious level influence our conscious thoughts which influence our actions which influence our results - SIMPLE!
When we change our beliefs we influence the whole chain of command from the deepest level.
How can visualisation help this?
Our subconscious has no ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not.


The language of the subconscious is images and feelings
If we close our eyes and imagine with feeling then to our subconscious it is real!
By visualizing we can change the self limiting beliefs that do not serve our interest and replace them with empowering beliefs
Our subconscious will strive to make that belief a reality
through changing the thoughts that arrive in our conscious and thus influencing us to take different action and as a result creating a new reality based on the new belief
What to visualise
Decide what you want, what you want to be, whatever it is, and then hold that in your mind as if it has already happened.
Try to use all your senses to emotionalise the images.
Here’s an example - You want a new car
Picture every detail, listen to the engine, feel the leather on the steering wheel,
Smell the air freshener, experience every detail.
Here’s another example:
You want to earn crazy money..
See your bank statement with the balance you desire, imagine eating in the expensive restaurant you could never afford before, taste the food, listen to the conversation, look at the decor.
Picture your dream 5*  holiday, feel the sand under your feet and the sun beating down on you, listen to the sounds and absorb every detail.
21 day of repetition and it's done!
A repeated action for 21 days becomes an ingrained new habit.

As stated before your subconscious cannot differentiate between these emotionalised images and real ones.
In  a very short period of time your subconscious will be working with these thought in the background and doing everything it can to bring them to reality through the process of conscious influence - action - reality creation.
Build Self Confidence
This is not only important for material purposes.
Self limiting beliefs and lack of self worth hold us back in all areas
Picture the person you would like to be
Love, confidence, abundance, self worth - create the image and really allow yourself to feel that.
With a little time and practice old beliefs will begin to be replaced with the new and your subconscious will go right to work to make that your default reality.

7 Practical Tips to Achieve a Positive Mindset

The “power of positive thinking” is a popular concept, and sometimes it can feel a little cliché. But the physical and mental benefits of positive thinking have been demonstrated by multiple scientific studies. Positive thinking can give you more confidence, improve your mood, and even reduce the likelihood of developing conditions such as hypertension, depression and other stress-related disorders.

All this sounds great, but what does the “power of positive thinking” really mean?

You can define positive thinking as positive imagery, positive self-talk or general optimism, but these are all still general, ambiguous concepts. If you want to be effective in thinking and being more positive, you’ll need concrete examples to help you through the process.

Here are seven:

1. Start the day with positive affirmation.

How you start the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. Have you ever woken up late, panicked, and then felt like nothing good happened the rest of the day? This is likely because you started out the day with a negative emotion and a pessimistic view that carried into every other event you experienced. Instead of letting this dominate you, start your day with positive affirmations. Talk to yourself in the mirror, even if you feel silly, with statements like, “Today will be a good day” or “I’m going to be awesome today.” You’ll be amazed how much your day improves.

2. Focus on the good things, however small.

Almost invariably, you’re going to encounter obstacles throughout the day—there’s no such thing as a perfect day. When you encounter such a challenge, focus on the benefits, no matter how slight or unimportant they seem. For example, if you get stuck in traffic, think about how you now have time to listen to the rest of your favourite podcast. If the store is out of the food you want to prepare, think about the thrill of trying something new.

3. Find humor in bad situations.

Allow yourself to experience humour in even the darkest or most trying situations. Remind yourself that this situation will probably make for a good story later and try to crack a joke about it. Say you’re laid off; imagine the most absurd way you could spend your last day, or the most ridiculous job you could pursue next—like kangaroo handler or bubblegum sculptor.

4. Turn failures into lessons.

You aren’t perfect. You’re going to make mistakes and experience failure in multiple contexts, at multiple jobs and with multiple people. Instead of focusing on how you failed, think about what you’re going to do next time—turn your failure into a lesson. Conceptualize this in concrete rules. For example, you could come up with three new rules for managing projects as a result.

5. Transform negative self-talk into positive self-talk.

Negative self-talk can creep up easily and is often hard to notice. You might think I’m so bad at this or I shouldn’t have tried that. But these thoughts turn into internalized feelings and might cement your conceptions of yourself. When you catch yourself doing this, stop and replace those negative messages with positive ones. For example, I’m so bad at this becomes Once I get more practice, I’ll be way better at this. I shouldn’t have tried becomes That didn’t work out as planned—maybe next time.

6. Focus on the present.

I’m talking about the present—not today, not this hour, only this exact moment. You might be getting chewed out by your boss, but what in this exact moment is happening that’s so bad? Forget the comment he made five minutes ago. Forget what he might say five minutes from now. Focus on this one, individual moment. In most situations, you’ll find it’s not as bad as you imagine it to be. Most sources of negativity stem from a memory of a recent event or the exaggerated imagination of a potential future event. Stay in the present moment.

7. Find positive friends, mentors and co-workers.

When you surround yourself with positive people, you’ll hear positive outlooks, positive stories and positive affirmations. Their positive words will sink in and affect your own line of thinking, which then affects your words and similarly contributes to the group. Finding positive people to fill up your life can be difficult, but you need to eliminate the negativity in your life before it consumes you. Do what you can to improve the positivity of others, and let their positivity affect you the same way.

Almost anybody in any situation can apply these lessons to their own lives and increase their positive attitude. As you might imagine, positive thinking offers compounding returns, so the more often you practice it, the greater benefits you’ll realize.

Source: http://www.success.com/article/7-practical-tips-to-achieve-a-positive-mindset