Monday Morning Motivational Message - Positive Mindset

What does it mean to have a positive mindset?

A mindset is a set of beliefs and attitudes that shape the way you view the world and live your life. Your mindset, more than anything else, determines if you will be successful at something or if you will fail. 

Mindset is the single most important thing that will determine if you live a life of significance or a life of ruin.

According to Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, there are primarily two types of mindsets, fixed and growth.

A fixed mindset is one where you believe your principles and attitudes are static and unchanging. A growth mindset is one where you believe your abilities and values can be developed and improved through effort, learning, and hard work.

Through her research, Dweck found that a mindset is developed through two primary means, Praising and Labeling.

Process Praise puts the emphasis on the effort the person puts into accomplishing a particular task and is much more beneficial to developing a growth mindset than Personal Praise, where a person receives recognition for mastering a task.   

Labeling, which involves assigning associations with certain groups based on abilities or stereotypes, can lead to either a fixed or growth mindset.

Here are 5 Learnable Mindsets of Highly Successful People from psychologist, Christopher Friesen:

1. They know and accept themselves - They understand their strengths and weaknesses.

2. They set goals that are congruent with their personalities, values, interests, strengths, skills, mission, and purpose - Their goals are not based on immediate urges or gratification.

3. They know they have much more control over their life trajectory than others realize - They grasp they can only control their actions and not what the world throws at them.

4. They accept that they will repeatedly go through tough times - They value that without difficult obstacles, there is no learning and growing.

5. They realize that once they get to their goal, they will find another one - They appreciate the struggle and recognize the journey is the destination.  

Please leave me a comment about how you go about developing a positive mindset in your life.