The easiest and fastest way to keep a healthy mindset is to make sure we’re cleaning out the ‘little stuff’ before it becomes ‘big stuff’.
If we don’t clean our minds of the little niggles early on they tend to pile up and get out of control to the point where they can become overwhelming. By taking actions daily we’re going to eliminate small unwanted negative thoughts building up to become big all-encompassing negative thoughts.
3 key steps to a healthy mindset are as follows:
1. Focus
This is the most important thing to maintain a healthy mindset, because where you focus your energy and attention is exactly what you’ll get more of.
By focusing on what’s wrong, we’re going to find more of what’s wrong. If we’re able to focus on ways to resolve a problem or challenge then we’re going to look for opportunities and other ways to resolve the problem or challenge we have. It takes a conscious effort to focus on what’s right versus what’s wrong. Ask yourself better questions like “What am I missing here? What am I not yet seeing? What’s a better way?”
What’s WRONG is always available, but so is what’s RIGHT.
2. Meaning
The meaning we give to any situation is 100% responsible for how we see the way through it (or seeming like there is no way through it).
If we’re looking at an issue and then we say to ourselves ‘this is going to be hard’, or ‘it’s annoying’, or ‘it’s frustrating’, then we’re going to end up focusing more on hard, annoying or frustrating.
What we want to do is apply an empowering meaning to any situation. We want to look at how the situation is going to benefit us, or make us stronger, or make us better, or give us a lesson which will help streamline our life/business.
On a deeper level if we say ‘this means I’m failure’, or ‘this means I’m not worthy’, or ‘this means I’m not good enough’, then this is going to produce a more negative state of mind. By shifting the meaning to something more empowering, such as ‘there is a lesson here’, or ‘this is a weakness I need to work on’, or ‘this will help me become better at what I do’, then it means we will look for ways to grow and strengthen ourselves. And as we grow and strengthen our self we are then able to have a stronger mindset.
Only EVERYTHING has the meaning we give it.
3. Communication
How we communicate is very important to the outcome that we want. It is not just the way we communicate with others such as staff members or family, it’s very important to understand how we communicate with ourselves. The things we say to ourselves when we are by ourselves are the most dangerous things we will ever hear. Because if we’re putting ourselves down, saying ‘I’m a failure’, or saying ‘I’m hopeless’, or saying ‘I am no good’, then this will lead to more self-doubt, low self-worth and low self-esteem. When we shift the internal dialogue again to empowering statements, then we build up our self-worth, and self-esteem, and self-confidence. And isn’t it true when we are confident we believe we can handle any situation?
When we are speaking to others communication is also very important because the words we use directly are only responsible for 7% of how the communication is received, 38% of it is actually the tonality in which it said, and 55% is the physiology in which we hold ourselves. So if we are frustrated, angry or overwhelmed, our physiology reflects that, and the people we communicate with read our physiology more than the actual words we speak. If we are upbeat, or optimistic then our physiology reflects that and we will be more approachable and the conversation will be much more constructive.
Applying the three key steps to a Healthy Mindset will mean when we are stressed (and we will all face some sort of stress) then we can handle the stress with ease.
What can we do to lower and eliminate the stress that has been caused by not maintaining a healthy mindset? |
Prevention is the best medicine – every day we should apply these three ‘Daily Reflection Questions’:
If we are caught up in a negative mindset and need to process a situation, ‘Ask Better Quality Questions’:
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Written by Shane Bird
Published in Training and Events in WIRED Issue 66 / September 2022 by Fencing Contractors NZ