TRANSFORMING YOUR HABITS TO TRANSFORM YOUR HEALTH PART 11
Mindset is a broad topic that includes many concepts that are rooted in the mind. For this article, I’m focusing on mindset as a basic thinking orientation about life. What I’m talking about is whether you are open and growth-minded, or whether you’re fixed or close-minded. There’s a great book called Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfill Your Potential, written by Carol S. Dweck, PhD. We cite this work in my book, Authentic Health, and we give a brief description of these ideas.
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“A growth mindset is always thinking about how to grow stronger, and better, and more content in life. It is open to new information, and to reexamining beliefs that no longer serve the individual.”
What Is a Closed Mindset?
If you have a closed mindset, if you are in a knowing mode versus a learning mode, if your life is oriented to only serving yourself and not others, then you’re just not going to succeed on this transformative quest we’ve started.
What Is a Growth Mindset?
In order to succeed, you need a growth mindset.
You have to have a growth mindset that is in a learning mode and is focused on service to others. This is the path of contentment, and this is the path towards your best health.
A growth mindset is open to new information, tends not to judge oneself or others in a negative way, and does not view life through a lens of success or failure but instead by simply learning and growth.
A growth mindset does not get upset when it sees others performing better at certain tasks than we can. It celebrates their accomplishments and delights in the fact that human beings are so capable of great things.
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“Generally speaking, when you’re in a growth mode, and you’re open, and you’re living in service to others, you’ll feel good regardless of circumstances.”
A growth mindset is always thinking about how to grow stronger, and better, and more content in life. It is open to new information, and to reexamining beliefs that no longer serve the individual.
Where Does Mindset Come From?
Your mindset has genetic underpinnings, but also strong nurturing underpinnings. If your mindset is closed and judgmental, then you can change that. It’s challenging because it’s a hardwired system of neural networks in your brain. But you can create new networks that support an open mindset. Your feelings will provide you clues about which mindset is controlling your thoughts.
Generally speaking, when you’re in a growth mode, and you’re open, and you’re living in service to others, you’ll feel good regardless of circumstances. When you’re in a closed state, and self-absorbed, generally speaking, you will find that you don’t feel as good.
Rather, that you wrestle with negative emotions.
How Do I Change?
We want you to feel good. That’s why we encourage you to adopt a growth mindset. You have to be open and ready to learn. You have to be ready to discard beliefs and thoughts that don’t serve you and you have to be ready to serve your fellow human beings on their own journeys.
View your own efforts as though you are simply making progress on a long-term quest. Do not judge yourself from the standpoint of succeeding or failing. You are simply taking the next best step and learning from the results. Be a curious observer and not a critic. Be a friend to yourself. Let negative thinking go.
If you want to understand these concepts better, you can read my book and watch my video series. I also encourage you every day to cultivate a mindset that is open and growth-oriented and non-judgmental. I promise you won’t regret this.
