Building A Winning Mindset: The Habit Changes You Need To Make Today
“Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armoury of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.”
James Allen (British Philosopher)
Mindset refers to the general attitudes and typical thought patterns we, ourselves, adopt. It is the lens that we choose to view life through, and often decides the outcome of our endeavours. Cultivating a positive and strong mindset influences how you perform in life, your mental and physical health, your financial status and how you cope with adversity.
Despite the obvious benefits of being positive, it is clear that a strong mindset isn’t just about thinking positively. Yes, ingraining a positive philosophy is a solid foundation, but we need more than that. We need to build strong mindsets that are resilient, open, compassionate and determined. Developing a strong mindset doesn’t allow us to do anything we want, but it does allow us to do everything better.
Building a strong mindset is dependent on focusing on the right things and consciously ignoring the wrong things, but additionally about focusing on the right things in the right way.
PERFECTIONISM
Ahh perfectionism my old “friend”, we meet again.
At first glance perfectionism appears to be a desirable quality, suggesting a meticulous and detail orientated persona. However, remove the cloak and underneath you will find nothing but fear. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of criticism. Fear of failure. Possibly even fear of success. Or as American thought leader Mastin Kipp says, “Perfectionism is a dream killer, because it’s just fear disguised as trying to do your best.”
I used to consider this trait as a strength. As a completely desirable attribute. Likely born of admiration for sporting heroes who were casually labelled “perfectionists” by commentators and pundits. Perhaps they were right. Maybe the athletes they were waxing lyrical over were perfectionists, but once you stop to think about what being a perfectionist means I have some doubts. Perfectionism, simply, is setting extremely high standards (unachievably high) and pairing it with a highly critical evaluation of the self in pursuit of these standards. A potent combination.
In The Imposter Cure, Dr Jessamy Hibberd further highlights the self-limiting nature of perfectionists: “…[they] set excessively high standards for themselves and believe they should deliver a perfect performance 100% of the time…” It is simply not possible to sustain and maintain these levels. It is not healthy to be perfect. Added to this, it is not necessary to hit perfect performances for success. When you pin your definition of success to perfection you will seldom find success satisfying.
Additionally, the very nature of perfectionism involves self-criticism and concerns of mistakes and negative evaluation by others. It has even been linked to mental health problems including depression. If we are to build a strong mindset, we need to remove the fear and self-criticism that perfection brings with it.
COMAPRISON
In today’s digital age it is harder than ever not to compare our lives to others on a daily basis. Currently 3.96 billion people use social media with an average of 8.2 social media accounts and 60% of Facebook users visit the platform daily. With this continual onslaught of snapshots into other people’s lives it is no wonder we are drawn into comparative mindsets.
The problem with comparison is we are either comparing ourselves up or down. If we compare up, we see all the people who are “ahead” of us and feel bad. If we compare down, we see people in situations that we think, “at least I’m not in their position!” Neither perspective is helpful for our own development. When you are comparing yourself, you are focusing on what other people are doing. You are focusing on their achievements. On their failures. On their lives. When your focus should be on you, on what you are doing and where you are going.
Just a stone’s throw from comparison is the ‘I’m not enough’ narrative. This is particularly toxic to developing a strong mindset. How can we be mentally solid if the voice in our heads doesn’t think we are enough? What is this even based on? A snapshot of someone else’s life that has been filtered and edited to death that we compare to our own situations and conclude our life isn’t as good as theirs.
SELF-JUDGEMENT
There is a difference between self-assessment and self-judgement, and it is essential we recognise this. To accurately and honestly self-assess is to be kind to ourselves. The answer to our assessment might be that we could have applied ourselves better. Or we could have been more disciplined when we decided to skip that gym session. But it is an objective and constructive process. It highlights how we are performing compared to how we would like to be performing. By being honest with ourselves we can evaluate, without judgement, our actions and address any problems.
Self-judgement on the other hand is to tear into ourselves. It is grading ourselves, often applying a comparative criteria. It is dishing out thoughts such as “you’re an idiot”, “you’re not good enough” and “you can’t do this”. Self-judgement is self-criticism and this is commonly associated with emotions of contempt and disgust for yourself. Imagine that! Emotions and feelings that we probably wouldn’t show towards anyone we know — even those who may have crossed us at one time — and here we are bathing ourselves in contempt and disgust. These strong emotions are hard to deal with and can lead to the development and maintenance of low self-esteem and mental health problems.
Trying to build a strong mindset in the presence of self-judgement is like trying to build a skyscraper on quicksand.
Now that we have shed ourselves of those three harmful habits, let’s look at some positive ones that are worth our time.
SELF-COMPASSION
Someone once asked me how many friends I would have if I spoke to them the way I speak to myself. This brought a bashful smile to my face and a sheepish “not many I s’pose” response. I have always been my own worst critic. But in the unhealthy self-judgement sense rather than the productive self-assessment sense. My response to my perceived failures has often been to attack from within.
Self-compassion means being kind, understanding and supportive to oneself in all circumstances including the painful ones. It is to acknowledge the effort and the triumph of just “being in the arena” as Theodore Roosevelt might say. That turning up and attempting to achieve something is in itself a victory.
Research indicates self-compassion is related to lower rates of psychotherapies (such as depression) and higher levels of positive well-being in both adults and adolescents.
In fact, self-compassion has been linked with multiple benefits including:
- Increased strength
- Improved resilience
- Better management of chronic health issues
- Handling pressures of parenting
- Successfully managing the pain of relationships ending
- Better adjustment to going to college
- Dealing with peer pressure
- General health improvements
- Better perception of body image
- Less frequent depressive episodes
To build and maintain a strong mindset we need to eradicate the negative and critical habits. We need to ‘kill with kindness’ and be liberal with self-compassion.
GRATITUDE
Complaining about our circumstances is easy, natural even. It is probably healthy and functional too as it helps us to vent frustrations. The key is not dwelling on complaints for too long. Falling into the complaining habit develops a negative mindset and we automatically start looking for faults in situations. After all, in the words of B. J. Thomas, “I’m never gonna stop the rain by complaining”.
Flip the complaining coin over, and we find gratitude. This is the ability to actively notice and appreciate the good in each situation. Practicing gratitude is said to give peace of mind, happiness and better personal relationships. More than just popular opinion, these points are supported by research.
One study showed those practicing weekly gratitude demonstrated better feelings about their lives, were more optimistic and exercised more frequently compared to groups who documented weekly complaints. Another study explored the effects of gratitude on feelings of hope and happiness.
Findings showed higher levels of both hope and happiness in those who practiced gratitude regularly. This is important because each of those elements is concerned with a different time period. Gratitude relates to appreciating the past, happiness is enjoying the present and hope focuses on a better future. To build a strong mindset you need that continual positive timeline.
You can get started today by keeping a gratitude diary or maybe even just spend 60 seconds thinking about what you are grateful each day or each week. I guarantee you’ll be surprised at the difference it can make.
CONSISTENCY
Turning the tide — to change a situation, especially so that you begin to win instead of losing.
That is what practicing positive actions on a consistent basis does. More than likely you will have come across these behaviour change suggestions before, but perhaps you haven’t been able to make the shift in mindset. If this is you then it could be that you aren’t doing the right things as frequently as you need to. When we try to change something initially, we go against momentum and our current habits therefore it requires more effort to remove negative behaviours and replace them with positive ones.
But the great thing about consistency is that it breads more consistency. The more disciplined you are the easier all these things become. Additionally, as your mindset becomes more positive and stronger, practicing these things will better nourish your mind. You will automatically feel the need to focus on gratitude and self-compassion.
Consistency is linked with habit forming. To make this easier try keeping a physical record of your daily practices. Record how the days you practice gratitude and self-compassion and review how many times a week or month you managed it. You might be surprised how infrequently you do this to start with. Once you have done this for a few months you will start to have some targets to beat. There is nothing like a bit of competition with yourself to try and improve that consistency.
Simple, small changes that are consistently repeated bring big results.
