What is a Mindset?

Mindset is the foundational lens through which you view your life and the world around you. It informs the decisions you make, the way you feel about yourself and the way you feel about others. 

In cognitive behavioral terms, we refer to it as the set of core beliefs. These beliefs shape the automatic thoughts you have every day. Your mindset is your unique lens. It shapes how you see every opportunity, every challenge, and even yourself. 

Your mindset dictates how you interpret and respond to events in your life. If you believe in your ability to overcome setback or learn from failure, you are more likely to try again. If you believe your abilities are fixed or opportunities are fleeting, you won’t act to create new circumstances for yourself. You are more likely to just accept your current position. 

I think the hardest thing for humans to do is maintain consistency without immediate reward. Small consistent actions is often the difference between success and failure. Your ability to maintain consistency is a function of your motivation and perseverance, and both depend on mindset. 

Understanding that mastering mindset is the deciding factor is success or failure, means being intentional about crafting it. Psychology, behavioral science, and neuroscience are key fields for developing a healthy mindset. Using these disciplines will help you build a strong foundation for success.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  

~Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Characteristics of Success Mindsets

Resilience

A resilient mindset means believing you can bounce back from setbacks. You keep going through tough times. It also means you can stay positive when things get hard. 

Resilience aids in moving forward and not dwelling on your setbacks. It keeps you focused on your goals rather than your pressures and helps you handle stress. 

“Fall down 7 times, stand up 8.”  

~ Japanese Poverb

This mindset helps you see experiences in a positive way. It allows you to keep moving forward. It is essential in moments of uncertainty when you must have faith in outcomes you can’t yet see. Resilience helps us stay connected to our purpose above any challenges we face. 

Albert Einstein was largely considered an underachiever in school and struggled for a long time in academic settings. His perseverance and resilience led to the publication of his theory of relatively, one of the most influential theories in physics. 

This is also a great example of persevering against judgement. I doubt he had many cheerleaders telling him he could do it. More likely he had several people giving him excuses to sit down. When we refuse to let other’s perspective become our own, we remain true to ourselves. We realize that success comes in many different packages. 

Can you think of a time you overcame a setback? How did you do it? What were your thought patterns as you navigated it?

Adaptability

Adaptability is about being open to change and evolving as circumstances change. It is stepping outside your comfort zone and being proactive in responding to shifting conditions. This is difficult for some as it truly requires leaps of faith as we maneuver with changing conditions. Few things last forever, but change is one of them. 

“What we resist, persists”

~Carl Jung

An adaptable mindset understands that if we aren’t embracing change, we will get left behind. You will face challenges often. Being adaptable helps you find opportunities in these challenges. 

It also helps you create new paths and is the foundation of innovation and creativity that guides us. 

Some of us fondly remember Netflix by the red envelope in the mail. Innovating, Netflix showed us that we could order from home instead of driving to blockbuster. 

That was short lived as they had to quickly adapt to the next iteration, online streaming. They have been a leader, bringing entertainment into our homes at the click of a button, on demand. 

Think back to your last major change or transition, how did you navigate it? Did you notice any areas where you felt resistance or discomfort in the change?

Intrinsic Motivation

Motivation is a key topic in self-development and business. How you get motivated and direct your energies makes all the difference. When you are seeking an external reward, your motivation is generally fleeting. 

For example, if you are motivated by a raise, you might cut corners to get there, you might give up once you get there, or you may be easily swayed by the neighboring business’ signing bonus. 

Motivation that comes from within aligns with your values and gives you a sense of pride. It is an internal drive to improve each day. That is a motivation that gets you out of bed and anchors you for the day. It is the foundation for passion and discipline. 

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential…these are the key that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

~Confucius

Most of our examples likely involve individuals who had intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation. Examples of intrinsic motivation might be the sport you play for the enjoyment of it, the hobby you work to improve in, the clean space you keep because it makes it you feel better, or the organization systems you use because you value being efficient. 

The best example will always be a job you choose because you are passionate about it. It brings a sense of pride in a job well done. Most entrepreneurs feel motivated by a passion for their work and a desire to create their legacy. They want to build something that is truly their own. 

Think about the activities you do in your life. Which ones truly bring you joy? Which ones do you do because you actually enjoy them, not because of the reward at the end (or worse the obligation)?

Self-Compassion 

By now I’m sure you’re beginning to see a pattern. Self-development and entrepreneurship are not easy. There will be setbacks and how you respond to them is the difference between success and failure. When you choose to spend the mental effort on scolding or criticizing yourself, that is energy you are choosing to take from your goal. Over time, that choice repeated, becomes your inner dialogue and it will lead to you quitting. 

It is exhausting fighting with a negative inner dialogue, and we all have one. In many cases, this mindset is the hardest to develop. However, it is also the most helpful. It is connected to lower stress and burnout. One could say that the other mindsets are less effective without it. 

“It becomes understood that happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be, or on ourselves being exactly as we’d like to be. Rather, happiness stems from loving ourselves and our lives exactly as they are, knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the human experience.”

~Dr. Kristin Neff

Dr. Kristen Neff, is a pioneering expert of self-compassion and helping others cultivate self-compassion. A research psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, she led the way defining and researching self-compassion. Her website is rich with information worth checking out. 

How do you show yourself compassion in tough times? Are you kind to yourself or hard on yourself? If you struggle with how to show yourself compassion, think about how you show others compassion when they are struggling? How can you do that for yourself?

Creativity/Innovation

Creativity is the cornerstone of the ability to adapt, problem solve and innovate. It allows you to see problems from differing perspectives and find novel ways to solve them. 

Part of the ability to see different ways through is the ability to work smarter which boosts productivity. Creativity allows business leaders to think beyond the boundaries of convention and create new spaces. 

For example, the idea of having a computer in your pocket was unthinkable just 40 years ago. Now it’s almost weird if you don’t. 

“Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought”

~Albert Einstein

To harness and cultivate your best levels of creativity, you need to create a space of curiosity, and the self-compassion to let it unfold. Creativity is also what allows you to generate different ways of viewing failures. 

When you can generate multiple perspectives for experiences, you are cultivating mental flexibility. This improves your odds of finding a positive view that fosters your resilience, adaptability, and self-compassion. 

Believe it or not, everyone has some form of creativity. Maybe it’s an artform, a style of dress, a way of seeing things or a problem-solving style. What’s your creative superpower?

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a vast topic and arguably one of the most important factors in the psychology of success. It is largely understood to be your self-understanding and your social acumen. It is comprised of five main components; your self-awareness, your ability to self-regulate, your social skills and ability to communicate, empathy and motivation. 

Your self-awareness encompasses your ability to understand yourself realistically, including your unique strengths and weaknesses. It encompasses your ability to know what you are feeling and how it impacts those around you. 

Your ability to regulate your emotions means you can check in with your emotional system before acting impulsively. Your decisions are driven by the emotional reactions mixed with the reasoning and interpretation necessary to ground them. 

Social skills include being a team player, factoring others into your decision making, listening to other points of view and acknowledging others. It is very much those skills we see in others that make us say they are a ‘people person’. 

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand their experience or perspective. You can acknowledge and respond differently when you first understand the other person’s point of view, especially if you disagree with it. 

Finally, motivation is about your drive to achieve and the standards you set for yourself. It is about your ability to connect to your goals and take consistent action towards achieving them. 

It’s easy to see why emotional intelligence is so powerful. It informs your communication with and understanding of others, improving your power of persuasion. EQ improves your flexibility when faced with challenges. It allows you to truly understand the impact of all options to make the best choice for you and the team. It also fosters trust, support and buy-in. 

You can likely remember a time in your life when you had a job working for someone who didn’t understand how their decisions impacted others. Maybe someone who was always leading with their emotions. These are the bosses that wear their emotions on their sleeves and seem oblivious to the impact their mood has on the rest of the team. 

These characteristics form the foundation of a success mindset. However, how they are applied, or which are emphasized applies on the context. For instance, a growth mindset emphasizes adaptability and intrinsic motivation, while an entrepreneurial mindset leans more on creativity and resilience. Let’s explore some of the popular success mindsets and how they bring these characteristics to life. 

Popular Mindsets

You’ve probably heard of some of the most popular mindsets such as the growth mindset or the entrepreneurial mindset but there are several.  Let’s look at some of these mindsets and the role they play in success. 

Growth Mindset

Originally coined by Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, the growth mindset is based on the belief that we can develop our abilities. It’s a belief we can get better through dedication, hard work and learning. She contrasts it with the idea of a fixed mindset which essentially says that our skills and abilities are innate and therefore unchangeable. 

A growth mindset embodies a continuous improvement belief that says if you are open to learning, there is no failure. I think it is also the basis for the ‘fail forward’ mentality. If you adopt a core belief in your ability to change and adapt, then you also feed the motivation to act, the hunger and curiosity to learn, the dedication to stay with it, and foundation to stand on when things don’t quite go as planned. 

If you think about it, no one successful will tell you about all the lessons they learned from their successes. The podcasts you listen to aren’t people telling you how to succeed, they are imparting their lessons learned from their failures. They hope you can then find other, more creative ways to fail and learn. When we frame our failures as rich experiences for growth, they become the golden nuggets on our journey. They may sting momentarily, but truly propel us forward. 

A great example of the growth mindset in action is Michael Jordan who is often considered the greatest basketball player of all time but was cut from his high school basketball team. He continued to train and refused to let that one setback define him. His mindset provided the fuel he needed to remain steadfast in pursuit of the goal. Can you imagine if he would have given up there, thinking he wasn’t good enough? Think back through your life. Can you identify an experience where you could have given up but instead found a learning lesson? Where you turned the failure into a temporary setback? How did it feel when you succeeded? I bet it felt even sweeter when you learned what was missing and was able to put that lesson to use in your success. 

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Entrepreneurs tend to embrace risk; they use creativity to seize opportunity. It would be hard to discuss the psychology of success, without discussing entrepreneurs. They will certainly embody the above but also have a unique perspective on how to creatively solve problems and bring new solutions to market.  They will embrace failure as an opportunity to revise and reassert. Often, entrepreneurship is described as learning process of continual failure where you fail until you succeed. Then you figure out a new way to fail until you find greater success. Everything you use today was once an innovation and likely questioned by many people. Someone had to persevere to show people the utility of their innovation and prove it’s benefit. From the first car to the electric car, or soon the flying car. 

Elon Musk embodies the entrepreneur’s mindset in his relentless pursuit of innovation. He set ambitious goals and relentlessly pursues them evident in his making electric cars mainstream and colonizing Mars. He is known for thinking outside the box and while not every one of his ideas is a homerun, or even entirely relatable, some of them are altering our daily lives significantly. 

Leaders’ Mindset

The leader is often compared to the manager. A manager oversees implementing the day-to-day policies and procedures in pursuit of a goal. They delegate and direct activities of the rest of the team. A leader is generally not involved the day to day running but rather is the visionary who charts the course. They hold the vision for where the company is going and maintain the purpose. With the highest vantage point, they can see as much of the whole landscape as possible. Leaders set the culture of the company and its relationship with key stakeholders such as their staff, the customers they serve and the communities they operate within. They set the mindset for the company and empower people to operate autonomously towards the goals that are laid out in service of achieving the vision and the mission. 

A leader’s mindset can help you whether you want to have your own business or not. It begins with you becoming the leader of your own life and running You Inc. like a company. Set your vision and mission then distill it into the goals and daily activities but never take your eye off the big picture. 

Bill Gates not only showed his entrepreneurial mindset with Microsoft but continues to embody the Leadership mindsight in his philanthropy and mission to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life. He is guided by the driving principle that every life has equal value. He is truly looking at the largest picture and striving to take actions to work toward that aim. 

What’s Next

It’s easy to see how these mindsets are key to success in life and business. They really set the stage for growth, innovation, success and happiness. Mindset forms a basis for the psychology of success. Knowing which mindsets are key is only the first step in the journey, the next step is learning more about how to capitalize on principles of psychology and neuroscience to implement the tools needed to cultivate and harness these mindsets in your own life. Every characteristic we reviewed can be learned and implemented with practice. 

Thriving Potential is my journey to overcoming my own limitations, to helping even more people live the life they only dreamt was possible. It is my belief that if you are going to elevate yourself, you take as many people with you as you can. I’m inviting you on a journey to become the best version of yourself and setting the stage for letting your true potential thrive. 

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