Transform your mindset to accelerate results.
The relation between success and the right mindset
When a person goes into a job to achieve some definition of success, s/he constantly focuses on refining their skills, widening their knowledge, and mining talent to further their experience. Many people succeed in developing unique mastery in their profession, and somewhere along the way, they pick up toxic habits and end up being the noxious team member. Consequently, your habits impede the development of the right mindset, which is critical for your success.
On the other hand, the right mindset influences the ability to win more than skills, knowledge, talent, or experience. Developing the right mindset will enable you to rise to the challenge and become the Game Changer your organization needs. Furthermore, the key to improving performance is a deliberately cultivated mindset of success, backed by the bold action it takes to make things happen every day.
What sets a five-car-Freddy, the underachiever apart from 25-car-Ted, who constantly leads the sales board?
You might guess intelligence, experience, or appetite for risk. Those are all sensible-sounding suggestions, but that’s not what researchers have found.
According to research by renowned Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, the best predictor of success in life is none of those usual suspects- it is your mindset. You or someone in your team may possess highly developed skills, good knowledge of products, and abundant talent. But with a flawed mindset, all those qualities are never fully utilized. Thus, failing to uplift themselves as well as the dealership.
The good news is that no matter where you are in your career, you can fight back and develop a winning, unstoppable mindset. Notably, good, great, and elite performers do similar things. What often separates them from one another is the consistency and excellence with which they do them.
There comes a time when you must give up what is holding you back so you can grow and realize your potential. However, it is essential to acknowledge, lying to yourself is a recipe for evaluation failure and eventual irrelevance. It would be best if you were brutally honest with yourself in assessing your assets and limitations. Subsequently, you would be able to utilize the helpful solutions and strategies to level up your performance.
Here are some practical strategies to help you develop an unstoppable mindset.
1. Choose growth:
Maintain a healthy fear of not improving, not changing, and being left behind. How you interpret obstacles and challenges is your choice. You can interpret them in a rigid mindset that points out your lack of abilities and disables you from taking risks. Or you can interpret the challenges from an unstoppable mindset as an opportunity to grow yourself. To put it another way, consider it as fruitful learning experiences that you would not get otherwise. You must pull yourself up and expand your capabilities.
Remember this: The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you will make one. – Elbert Hubbard
2. Add this tiny but powerful letter:
The next strategy to create an unstoppable, growth mindset crucial for success is adding the words ‘yet.’ A Stanford study by Dweck found that putting phrases like ‘not yet’ or ‘yet’ can really boost students’ motivation. So, if you say, ‘I am not a 25-car-Ted go-getter—yet.’ It puts your statement to an unstoppable mindset context of not quitting.
Remember this: Take the first step, then another. “It always seems impossible until it is done.” ― Nelson Mandela
3. Renounce excuses:
Consider analyzing yourself to gauge which excuse you have been leaning on to rationalize not being more successful or productive than you are. Excuses such as—
- An ineffective leader that you are suffering under.
- Your team’s competency
- The economy, the time of the year, where you were born, your company, and the like.
Now attempt to answer these questions for yourself—
- Have you chosen the right attitude, work ethic, level of discipline, and character?
- Do you spend more time thinking about the problem or getting to the solution?
- Will you spend more time with people that elevate you and challenge you?
- Will you proactively seek out, insist on, and act because of feedback?
- Do you choose to help yourself grow or get envious of other’s efforts and success?
Honest self-insight is necessary to transform your thinking and develop an intentionally cultivated winning mindset.
Remember this: No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself. – Fulke Greville 1st Baron Brooke
4. Change your thinking and develop a robust “I own it” philosophy:
To bring a change in perspective and attitude, you will need to change your associations, your habits and routine, what your read and listen to. This will not happen overnight, but process and consistency certainly bring change—the one who daily does less than he can gradually become less than he is.
Additionally, changing your philosophy matters as it drives attitude, attitude drives actions, actions drive results, and results drive lifestyles. Thus, if you do not like your lifestyle, consider working on changing your philosophy.
For instance, if your philosophy is that you own your results and renounce excuses, it will positively impact your energy and body language and prepare you to do more.
Remember this: “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.” – James Allen
5. Determine your WHY:
Karate champion Johnny Gyro describes how desires, direction, and determination shaped his ‘why’ to become the number one ranked fighter globally. Ascertain what drives you, why do you want to achieve the fighting status and rank.
Without focusing on a relevant, compelling WHY, you will distract from your goal and focus on minor things. Finally, when you feel less motivated, remind yourself of the powerful ‘why’ and get back to achieving your goals.
Remember this: Your focus determines your reality. – George Lucas
We are here to help:
The PRO team has been training people to improve their performance and result because we believe that change is possible. Even if you take small steps and attempt to transform small things, you are sure to reap the compounded benefits.
Given these points, it is never too late to start and bring a positive change. All you have to do is ‘just do it.’ Reach out to us to find out how we can further help you become the professional you always wanted to be.
Inspired by the insights from Dave Anderson’s book Unstoppable.