From the Archives: Building a Strong Mindset
A post I made back when I was in Wordpress, here's an important post on building a strong mindset
(Note: this is an old post I made when I was still blogging on WordPress. I’ll be busy throughout July and I feel like this is a post that still holds up. I have a few more WordPress posts that will reappear here on Substack. There are not too many but I feel they’re worth republishing.Here’s one from the archives: A post on the importance of building the right mindset. Enjoy!)
Having a strong mindset is key when it comes to getting a job, managing stress, developing relationships, and overall success and happiness. A mindset is a set of attitudes that influence how we think about our talents and abilities. A mindset can dramatically shape how we view ourselves and how we view our lives. A strong mindset is needed when it comes to tackling life's biggest challenges, especially the ones now, and it can help develop resilience and strength in ourselves. Before discussing how to build a strong mindset, we need to talk about the differences between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.
Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset
Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, spent a multitude of her research on the idea of a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is where we assume that our character, intelligence, talents, and abilities are static. They do not change over time. They do not grow over time. What we are born with is what we got. In contrast, a growth mindset is where we assume that our character, intelligence, and talents grow and are dynamic. They grow and change over time and with enough teaching, practice and effort, you can succeed in anything.
Dweck spent two decades researching the topic and it was tested on both children and adults. The findings can be summed up:
A fixed mindset believes intelligence is static, leads to a desire to look smart, and therefore a tendency to avoid challenges, give up easily, see effort as without benefit, ignore constructive negative feedback, and feel threatened by the success of others. As a result. they achieve less than their full potential.
A growth mindset believes intelligence can be developed, leads to a desire to learn, and therefore a tendency to embrace challenges, stand back up despite setbacks, see effort as the path to mastery, learn from criticism, and find things to learn from others who have succeeded. As a result, they reach seemingly ever-higher levels of achievement.
How you view yourself is very important not just with you succeed in life, but how you deal with challenges, how you deal with failure, how you view yourself among others, how much effort you put into what you're working on, and how much you utilize your potential. A strong mindset doesn't mean mindless positivity or ignoring your problems, it means tackling issues head-on and having a series of attitudes that can help face the challenges of life.
So how do you develop a strong mindset? How do you develop a series of attitudes meant to encourage growth and how do you let go of a weak mindset that hinders our progress and leaves you living a less than satisfying life? There are many steps that can help foster a strong mindset.
The very first step is to acknowledge the thoughts inside your mind. Try this exercise. Close your eyes and observe the thoughts inside your mind for thirty seconds.
Ready...
Set...
Go...
Did you notice the voice inside your head? Did you also notice that most of the thoughts you had were negative? If that sounds like you, you're not alone. It has been found that about 75% of the thoughts that the adult human brain has are negative. Our brains were never designed to make you happy. Our brains were designed to protect us and keep us safe. Our brains can do amazing things such as make us feel the senses, perform motor tasks, manage attention, and so much more. In fact, researchers have noted the remarkable plasticity of the brain in the last few decades. However, the brain should not be able to dictate to control everything, especially not your thoughts.
The one thing you have to remember is that you, yes, YOU, are the boss, not your brain. Go against Descartes's famous statement and remember, I am, therefore my brain thinks.
In order to have a strong mindset, you must first realize that you have full control of your thoughts. If you want to control your thoughts, you first need to observe the thoughts in your head. Don't resist them-just observe them and let them go. You don't have to give your thoughts any power unless you give them power. Keep doing this and as soon as you master it, your brain will run out of topics to bring up. Once that happens, your mind will be at ease and you can spend your time and management on more productive things.
Finding something you enjoy doing
One of the misconceptions we have in the modern world is that we need to focus on work only and that work has to be arduous and grey and we need to put all the activities and hobbies we used to enjoy doing away when we become adults.
That can't be further from the truth. We need to find work that gives us meaning and happiness. In fact, happy workers are 12% more productive at work. Don't just find work. Find work based on your interests and your skills. The best way to do that is to get into a hobby.
Find hobbies you can get into, preferably hobbies that can help you gain new skills and test your mind. Whether it's physical activities like weight lifting or yoga, or mental activities like crossword puzzles, chess, or reading books. Even stuck at home, you can find plenty of hobbies where you can develop important skills and develop that strong mindset. Physical activities aren't just important for your body, they're important for your brain, especially when it comes to fighting off depression and anxiety. Mental activities, meanwhile, keep your mind in the now, they help moderate against developing future emotional problems and instability and they can eliminate unnecessary stress and strain on the brain. It's incredibly important to train your brain and body and to develop good habits.
Manage your Attention and Focus
When you do activities you love, it's important to have undivided attention and focus. That sounds easy at first, but in an increasingly distracted, noisy world, it can be difficult to finish your workout if you constantly have to hear your notifications go off.
The good news is that we don't have to be constantly distracted. There are changes we can make to build a resilient lifestyle without having to be distracted by a phone.
The first is to ask if your tech is serving you and not the other way around. Do the threads and people I follow give me value and make me a better person? Or are they harming me and making me feel worse? If the answer is not the former, then it's time to unfollow.
Get rid of news sites and apps dedicated to the small form, flashy, emotionally-driven content designed to generate clicks instead of informing you. Seek out longform, challenging reads that question your views and inspire you to be curious. After cleaning house, remove apps that are redundant because you've done the steps above.
After this, schedule your time. Ensure you make the good habits and activities above easier to access by scheduling time for them and within reach. For example, whenever I wake up and grab a cup of coffee, I make sure I have a book right in front of me so I can have something to read in the morning. Conversely, whenever I go to sleep, I make sure I do not have a phone near my bed. I, instead, put the phone in the kitchen and leave it there to ensure that I have a good night's sleep.
These are all very simple, easy-to-utilize techniques that can make big results if you stick with them. For more reading, I recommend following Cal Newport and Nir Eyal. Both of them take managing your attention seriously and have a lot of knowledge on the subject. I also recommend Mark Manson's the Attention Diet as well.
Embrace Challenges and Setbacks
We all go through setbacks and challenges. Sometimes they're external events, other times they are challenges we impose to ourselves. When that happens, we need to embrace the idea that we'll all go through hardship in our lives. It's not about living life without problems, but about living life with meaningful problems to solve.
Think of it like a video game. Most video games (with exceptions of open-ended video games such as Sims or Animal Crossing) focus on having a goal you need to reach. Sometimes it's as simple as getting to the end of the level to defeating a certain number of enemies before heading to the next stage. When you're going through the level of a video game, chances are you'll have no idea how to solve that level unless you try different ways in order to pass through. In some cases, usually at the beginning of a video game, the path forward will be easy to figure out and easy to solve. The more you progress through a video game, however, the problems become more complex and you'll have to find new, alternative ways to solve them. While it might be challenging at first, once you execute the action and find the way, not only will you have beaten the level and move on to the next stage, you'll find happiness knowing you've not only moved on to the next part of the game, but you found a way to do it.
That's not only how you should look through life, but how you should approach it. When you go through adversity, don't try to control it. It is what it is, this is the hand we're dealt with. What matters the most is how we view our situation, our belief in it, and how we respond to it, our actions. As noted above, you need to take control of your thoughts about our situation. Is there anything I can do it? Is it as bad as I think it is? How can I dispute it? And most importantly, how can I use this situation to propel myself upward?
The most successful people out there all dealt with rejection, failure, and disappointment in life. Thomas Edison famously said he failed his way to succeed when many of his inventions were either failures or misfires, Stan Lee's idea for Spider-Man (initially inspired by a fly) was rejected by his editor and called it "the worst idea ever," Amelia Earhart went through serious health and financial problems before her famous Transatlantic flight. The examples are endless.
The point is, to understand what you can and can't control. Once you do, focus on the things you can control, create an action plan and propel yourself towards success. No matter what goal you set yourself, whether it's as simple as getting good grades or losing weight or something more personally important and life-altering, embrace whatever life throws at you and ride the wind.
Build a Social Support Network
The bedrock for all of these steps is that you need to have a group of people that will help you and give you meaning and value. By that, I don't mean just following your friends on Facebook, Twitter or any other socials. I mean spend effort to have meaningful interactions.
We all need to connect, interact, and build support with friends, family and your community. This is an important step as it’s key to building happiness, climbing higher on the job ladder and it builds a stronger community.
The first thing you need to do is to get out there and find people that share interests similar to yours. It can be difficult at first, but you need to make a conscious effort to make new friends or else, you won't get any. If you need a boost, this is where self-talk comes in handy. Tell yourself "I am good at making friends," "I can make meaningful relationships," "I know others will like me," or any variation of the above.
Once that happens, show up and initiate the conversation. Don't be afraid that you might embarrass yourself and face rejection. Say hi, introduce yourself, ask for contact information, follow up on it, and schedule a hangout. Rinse and repeat.
Following the cycle can be daunting if you're shy or out of practice, but like all good habits, it's something you actively have to do in order to achieve long-term friendships. It's like a performance, you have to practice if you want to get better at it. These all sound like simple things, but they can make huge strides when it comes to building the strong social support needed for strong minds. In fact, all habits are small, but they can all make a huge difference in your life and the people around you.
Conclusion
As you can tell, all of these steps build on each other when it comes to building a better mind. We need a strong social support if we want be held accountable for our habits. We need a clear mind if we want to turn the tide to our favor. We need to find something we enjoy doing in order to find others that likewise do the same. All of these steps are interconnected and while they may be small actions to take, they can all make a difference in your life, especially when you do them all together. It may not be easy at first, but once you put them into practice, it can make a tremendous change to your mindset and how you approach whatever challenge you face in life. Go ahead and give them a go!