Practicing a healthy habit like drinking a lot of water or waking up early takes effort but does show results as well. What most people tend to forget is that the source of your outer habit is your inner energy – Your mindset. It can work for you or against you if not harnessed well. Regardless of what your desires or wishes in life, the art of training the mind opens up a realm of possibilities to radically transform your life. These easy yet powerful mindset habits will help you access the power that lies in their thoughts and beliefs to ultimately live a better life.
7 Mindset Habits That Will Change Your Life
1. Don’t let your circumstances define you
Between stimulus and response is space, in which lies our power to choose our response. And there is our growth and our freedom. Life is happening, life will continue to happen, whether it’s to our benefit or whether it’s not, it’s going to go on.
In the book, Play Bigger, the author uses the analogy of how we all are dealt a set of cards right at our birth. We’re dealt with a unique set of cards this first step when you’re being dealt with cards it’s purely luck. This is the reality of our life. It is something that we can’t change, but despite that, the second and arguably more important part is how we choose to play our cards. Because this is something that is fully within our control.
So let’s not sell ourselves short and surrender our identities to external conditions.
2. Manage Dichotomous Thinking
Dichotomies or polarities have always existed all around us in nature. Day and night, rain and shine, hot and cold, sun and moon, birth and death, etc. but you cannot have one of the extremes without having the other. With the positive, they’ll be negative; with the dark, they’ll be the light. In between these extremes of black and white, however, is the grey area of life. Ironically, it’s not just one but more than 50 shades of grey.
It’s very easy to be very narrow-minded and to pigeonhole ourselves into one specific thing or one specific narrative that we’ve been telling ourselves for our whole lives. In any situation, there are many other shades of the same color. The goal is to make a mindset shift to manage polarities over time so that we can experience the dynamic values of each pole which ultimately helps us become better people. By acknowledging these polarities we’ll also be able to see these polarities in other people and be able to appreciate their dynamic values as well.
3. Know Your Worth
We all have heard the quote, aim high, and expect the best, energy flows where the attention goes, etc. but to put these into practice you first need to understand your self-worth. What defines you. Is it your job? Your possessions? The guy/girl you are dating? If yes, then it’s time to change that mindset. This quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “We accept the love we think we deserve” sums it up. You need to know what you deserve before anything else can happen.
If we’re constantly putting ourselves down. If we’re constantly doubting ourselves. If we’re constantly questioning whether we’re doing the right thing or not. How can we expect other people and the world to treat us any differently?
4. Embrace your fears
Fear’s good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. The step you take out from your comfort zone will present you with the greatest gains. Leaving your comfort zone will cause a lot of fear. But it’s a vital mindset shift to understand that fear is a part of life. It’s a part of growth. It’s a part of the expansion. If you want to move mountains, if you want to go places, if you want to do all the things that you want to do, fear is very much going to be along for the ride.
Instead of using it as this thing that just holds you back and makes you put on your seat belt and just sit in a corner and just stay in a corner forever, choose to use it as a compass and guidance. Master it before it masters you.
5. Realize The Displacement fantasy
Happiness is an inside job. So many of us struggle from what is called ‘Destination Anxiety’ or ‘Displacement Fantasy’. It’s the idea that if you move somewhere, if you get this car, if you have this partnership, if you buy this house, if you make this certain amount of money, etc., you will finally be happy, but the problem with this is that it always takes away from the only moment that we have, which is the now.
“No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.” -Haruki Murakami. While yes, moving to new places and cities and apartments can bring you new experiences, your coping mechanisms, or their lack of, your views on the world still follow you wherever you go. Displacing your problems, will not resolve them. Rather get real about how you feel so that you can heal.
6. You Are Many People
This might shake you off-grounds a little because we have all been told that we are unique, different, one of a kind and no two people are the same, which is absolutely true. But your personality is not entirely consistent. There is no definite you. Think about it, in every single different situation you’re in is always going to bring out a different version of you. It’s still very much “you” but it’s just one part of you and that’s okay.
This means that the people across your lifetime and the experiences you have become a part of your personality. Your friend circle builds your character. It’s important, hence, to look at the people who build you, to save yourself from destruction.
7. Its Okay To Take A Detour
Stay committed to your decisions, at the same time, stay flexible in your approach. Plans might fail. Things won’t always go as you envision but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a detour. For example, if your favorite highway is closed down and you still have to get from point A to point B, you’re going to find a way there.
Get rid of the scarcity mindset. If one door shut, a million others open. Your failed plans are a lesson to learn and to believe that there is a concrete reason for why that plan didn’t work. Take a detour, look for fresh ideas, give yourself a chance to explore, and trust the process because, in its end, the jigsaw puzzle gets fixed no matter what.
Read Also: Are these Common Lifestyle Habits Good or Bad?
