How to Change Your Mindset for Success

05 Jun How to Change Your Mindset for Success

If you’ve ever had goals and dreams that didn’t come true, you’re not alone. An incredible 92% of people say that the goals and resolutions they set for themselves each year never get achieved. With stats this high, there must be something in common that’s holding them back.

It’s important to note that the 8% who did achieve their goals come from all walks of life. They can be married, single, or divorced; highly educated or high school dropouts; middle class, wealthy, or even poor.  They are comprised of a variety of ages and ethnicities from all over the world. 

The key commonality among the top 8% is a similar growth mindset that guides their thoughts and actions. You may share some of these mindset habits, or you may be practicing opposite mindsets without even realizing it.

A surefire way to determine whether you need mindset help is to answer this question.  Are you regularly accomplishing your goals and living your dreams?  If you answered “yes,” read on, for a growth vs fixed mindset comparison.  If you said “no,” the following tips could be game-changing for you.

Here are 5 tips on how to change your mindset:

1. Accept that you need to change your mindset

We’ve all had goals and dreams that didn’t unfold the way we hoped or expected. When this happens repeatedly, we start to wonder what we need to change. But rarely do we look inside at our own thinking as the place to start making changes.

We live in a skillset-driven society that emphasizes learning new skills. Therefore, some people go back to school, others take workshops or read books.  People with a success mindset are always looking for that silver bullet skillset that will make everything fall into place.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not downplaying the value of skillsets; but more often, it’s our mindsets that need adjustment.

The good news is, it’s much less expensive to adopt a success mindset, than to go learn a new skill. So, step one is simply to acknowledge that you’re going to work on your mindsets first.

2. Identify your counter-mindsets

Mindsets are formed through prior experiences and emotional milestones, and the mindsets that aren’t producing the results you want are called counter-mindsets.

Some examples of these are self-doubt, limiting beliefs, and any other negative thoughts that get in the way of your fulfillment.  We have around 65,000 thoughts per day.  Unfortunately, in the case of most people, the majority of their thoughts are negative. 

These negative thoughts occur so often that you’re probably not even aware of them.  For example,  you know that little voice that makes disparaging comments when you look in the mirror?  We all know that voice.  It makes you hesitate before approaching someone you’d like to meet.  It makes you think twice before starting a business or considering a career change.

The way to start exterminating the negative thoughts is to begin paying attention to them. More than likely, you’ll find that your limiting thoughts can be narrowed down to a few key themes. Taking note of this is a major step because we can’t change what we haven’t acknowledged.

3. Turn off the Negativity

Once you’ve identified your top negative thoughts, you need a way to stop them from holding you back. The best technique I know for this is simply to turn off the negativity.  If I looked in the mirror and my inner voice was negative, I would add a positive thought.  I was in effect flipping the switch and turning off the negativity. 

It took some time to get used to it, but I noticed that slowly I become more and more positive.

4. Understand your “why” 

Changing your mindsets takes work because formed habits aren’t easy to break. This is especially true since many of our most harmful habits and counter-mindsets were established when we were kids, and we’ve been doing things the same way ever since.

Understanding your “why” is about starting fresh and deciding on one goal or dream.  So that, when you achieve it, will mean a transformational change in your life. Identify something that could make a huge impact in your life. Then go for it.

After all, if it’s going to take work to make it come true, it better be meaningful, right?  Write down your Why and look at it often!  This is an important part of building your motivation.

5. Start small so you can finish big 

This may sound crazy, but one easy way to change your mindsets is through setting ridiculously tiny, utterly achievable goals.

How tiny?  How about this: one push-up.  If your big goal is to get daily exercise, then your small, attainable goal is to do a single push-up each day.

If you want to reduce stress in your life, your tiny goal might be to meditate for one minute every night.

If you want more affection with a loved one, your mini goal could be one extra hug or kiss.

Each of these examples requires almost no motivation or willpower to accomplish.  And yet, each is a positive step.  Here’s the trick: Decide that your tiny goal is the minimum and that you can do more if you feel up to it.

A lot of the time, you’ll do more and will feel great because you’re overachieving. Some days you may do the minimum, and you’ll still feel great because you’ve met your goal. 

How can these tiny goals actually make an impact? It’s because massive change requires small steps, repeated daily, which create momentum and yield positive cumulative results.

The top 8% of achievers understand this, but most people never try this strategy because they think it seems pointless to start so small.  Wrong!  Over time, consistently hitting your small goals will form new mindset habits, and that’s real progress toward revamping your thinking so you can reach your biggest dreams.

Final Thoughts

Changing your mindsets doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by choice, with hard work, by changing your thinking and changing your habits.

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