5 Words that Change your Mindset in Incredible Ways

Chatting to Leo at life drawing class, I noted he said how ‘getting it right’ and creating lines that successfully show the weight and essence of the subject, can leave you feeling great all day – can in fact make your day.  Conversely being unable to produce a good drawing  – being off your mark, can make everything seem difficult for the rest of the weekend.

We can all understand how our feelings are susceptible to doing a ‘good job’ or not.  Previously I have discussed this kind of emotional response in relation to the two modes of brain circuitry – reward or threat.

Performance that does not reach our expectations can put us into threat circuitry where everything looks more difficult and frustrating and we have less empathy for others.  As if life isn’t hard enough, our own mindset can work against us to make the day tougher than it needs to be! 

Heidi Galvanthansom has some really useful advice to help us break that circuit. 

Heidi has done extensive studies on how our mindset influences performance.  Her work shows us how to frame our objectives and goals to change how we perform and feel.  What’s more her advice on how to achieve this is simple.

In a key study, she gave a group problem solving tasks in order to ‘prove how smart’ they were compared to the rest of the group.  The second group were given problems to solve in order to ‘improve’ their problem solving skills.  She then proceeded to constantly interrupt them as they worked (like real life). 

The first group got increasingly upset and did increasingly worse at problem solving.  The second group whose objective was to ‘improve skills’ did much better at solving problems and were less upset by the interruptions.

The difference is the mindset.  The first group had a goal of doing better compared to others and the circumstance made them increasingly stressed.  The second group wanted to improve against themselves – what Heidi calls the “get better mindset” they got better results more easily.

The key is in measuring how you get to your goal not what you achieve.  Focus on the process and learnings more than comparing yourself with others. 

The shift is simpler than you might think.

Think of your goals.  Write them down.  Then rewrite them using these key trigger words:

o   Improve

o   Progress

o   Develop

o   Become

o   Grow

Now say them out loud.

I want to manage my time productively – becomes…  I want to improve my time management.

Once you become curious about how you are engaging with what you are doing – something else changes too.  Life becomes much more interesting. Give it a go...

If you want to see Heidi’s 25min presentation on the Incredible Benefits of a Get Better Mindset see http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/resource/the-incredible-benefits-of-a-get-better-mindset