TOW#595 — Mindset
Every life has more than one potential reality. Every life! Could it be true that the only difference between a normal life and a life filled with amazing achievements is simply in the way we think!?
Napoleon Hill
For those who haven’t heard of Mr Hill, he was the first motivational author/speaker and the inspiration for many similar speakers, writers and personalities. In the 1930s, he wrote the very popular (to this day!) Think and Grow Rich, which has become a ‘Bible’ for many entrepreneurs and business people. The book was written over 25 years, on the basis of more than 500 interviews with super-successful people like Edison, Henry Ford, Carnegie et al., and it summarises the secrets to any success in 17 principles.
Without getting into more detail, what stands out and in a way unites all the principles he outlines, i.e. the one thing that sets one person apart from another, is our thoughts or the way we think.
There’s a very nice word for “way of thinking” in English, and so you’ll often hear ‘mindset’. It’s perhaps best explained as a ‘way of setting up the mind’, because it should come as no surprise that the way we think is determined by the way we set up or direct the mind to think.
If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you can’t. Simple!
In her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford, points out that one of the core beliefs we have about ourselves is how we view and perceive what we have inherited, and what we say is our character/personality.
There are two types of mindset or ways of setting up the mind:
• Fixed mindset — believes that talent, skills and intellect are predetermined and can’t be changed;
• Growth mindset — believes that talent, skills and intellect can be developed through work and perseverance.
The difference is evident, in terms of the different aspects of working and dealing with everyday situations. When facing an obstacle, the fixed mind immediately gives up (thinking that it is not smart enough), while the growth mind does not give up and believes that it will be able to easily overcome the obstacle by using another strategy. In relation to criticism, the fixed mind ignores negative yet useful criticism, while the growth mind feels that it learns from criticism. In general, the differences relate to all aspects of living and working (desires, motivation, initiative, discipline, professionalism, responsibility, etc.).
It’s up to us which mind we choose. However, it should be known that it is much easier to choose a fixed rather than a growth mind. This is mostly because having a growth mind requires a lot of work, courage and perseverance. Alas, we humans find it easier to blame others, to sit in our comfort zone and play the victim.
Still, it should be clear by now that any personal, professional and/or spiritual growth inevitably means switching on the growth mind.
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
Petar Lazarov
Member of the Team
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