Are you stuck in the same old habits, spinning your wheels, and wasting precious time and money?
Are you paralyzed with indecision, self-doubt, and lack of confidence and motivation?
Are you full of ideas that you never put into action?
It’s probably time to learn how to change your mindset!
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about your success mindset, your business mindset, leadership mindset, or entrepreneurial mindset, mindset is mindset, and until you learn how to change your mindset, things will continue to stay the same.
If you search for, “What is mindset” on Google, you’ll find all sorts of definitions and descriptions and even reference to Carol Dweck who apparently coined the term, ‘mindset’.
Essentially, when we talk about ‘mindset’ we’re referring to all the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and points of view you have about anything.
You can easily find and read more all about that if you’re interested, but I’m more interested in how to change it your mindset. Not just know what it is.
What I’ve learned in my 20+ years as a personal and professional development consultant, coach, and facilitator, is that the mind is something that can be helpful to differentiate from our brain. The reason for this is that when you are set in your mind…mindset…you literally are no longer activating any of the neurons in your brain.
This is important because the brain controls every area of our body. It starts as an electrical burst of activity in the cerebral cortex and moves to the motor cortex, which sends out nerve signals to specific parts of the body. The signals then move down the spinal cord, along the motor nerves, to the muscles. The signals go to every part of our body and control every action. More complex activities that need body parts with finer control, such as fingers or lips, have bigger areas of the motor cortex.
So, let’s focus on how to how to change your mindset by accessing more of your brain’s functionality and capacities and you’ll see just how much more becomes possible…in any area of your life.
The brain is an amazing creation. Its functionality goes well beyond what we can even fathom.
But there are some interesting facts about the brain that can give us insight into how to change our mindset so that we can be more productive, creative and overall successful.
Our brains have vast potential - you may have heard that we only use about 5% of our brains. That's true. But there are techniques you can use to maximize your brain power. By the end of this article, you'll know a lot more about how to maximize your thinking and even your life.
Our brains have developed over thousands of years. Their basic construction can be divided into three main parts:
1. Primitive brain - this region of the brain is about the size of an apricot and controls our basic functions like blood circulation, reading, and indigestion. It also controls our "fight or flight" response to danger and decides whether we will stay and fight or run away. It's also believed that when we are in stressful situations, the other parts of our brain shut down and leave everything up to the primitive brain, which is why we might find it more difficult to think clearly when we are stressed.
2. Cerebellum - this part of the brain is called the mammalian brain. It surrounds the primitive brain and processes our emotions and long-term memories. It also processes information learned through our senses.
3. Cerebral cortex - this covers the primitive brain and the cerebellum and makes up about 80% of our brain area. It determines language, thought, reasoning, complex movement patterns, and other things like appreciation of poetry and music.
In addition to these three parts of the brain, we all have millions of brain cells called neurons. Each neuron has its own special function. Neurons use electrical impulses and chemical reactions to and from the central nervous system and within the brain.
Neurons store information and work together in groups to generate actions and reactions and control specific thoughts. Each neuron has the potential for one million billion connections with other neurons. So, even though we only use 5% of our brain capacity, you can see that there is still an enormous amount of activity in our brains.
The more you get into question, the more you will be activating your brain and accessing more of your own capacities for change and eventually, you will change your mindset to one that is full of lies and limiting points of views, to a different way of being in the world.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to gain more insight into what your current mindset is so that you can change it:
1. What kind of thinker am I?
2. What do I tend to believe about myself, the world, etc.?
3. Are those beliefs and points of view limiting or contributing to me?
4. Are any of those points of views really true or have I bought them as such?
5. What types of things stress me out? What points of views do I have about that? Are those really true? Can I change any of them? If so, how?
It doesn’t matter what area of life you’re dealing with - becoming more aware of your mindset and how it’s being wired - is what really counts and what will really begin to change things.
Beliefs, attitudes, even values, are just thoughts that you’ve made significant and true – and only you can change them with conscious intent.
If you don’t believe you can, that’s something to become aware of because your brain will literally translate that programming everywhere else. Unless you start to question your beliefs and attitudes and points of view, you won’t change the programming.
Give it a try and then let me know in the comments how it goes!