10 Strategies: How to Change Your Mindset and Achieve Success
This episode will share 10 strategies: How to change your mindset and achieve success. You might be wondering what mindset is. Or if it’s even possible to change it. I’ve got you–We’ll talk about a growth mindset, ways to try changing your thinking, and tips to be successful.
Welcome to the mindset for life podcast. This is Bethanie, your coach from DRBCOACH.COM. Here on the Mindset for Life podcast, we look at ideas that help you reclaim your power and purpose in life, relationships and work. This podcast is for you if you lead, teach, and serve others, you want things to get a little better each day, and you’re ready to focus on your mindset to make it happen.
Hey there, welcome to the podcast. This is Bethanie Hansen. And I’m so glad you’re here. We’re going to talk about how to change your mindset so you can be successful. I’ll give you 10 strategies on how to change your mindset so you can achieve success this year, this month this week. We’re going to talk about these 10 strategies that will transform your mindset and unlock all of your beautiful, untapped potential for your personal growth, and even your professional achievement. You could make some life changing strides toward achieving those dreams you’ve always wanted to move towards. And it all starts by shifting how we think about ourselves and about our goals.
Considering the Possibility of Changing Mindset
It is possible to overcome limiting thoughts or limitations that you feel you have, while embracing the challenges on the journey towards success in life and in work. Let’s get started. So I’m going to give you three things. One is how you can unlock your potential to achieve success by adopting a growth mindset. And the second thing will be how to transform your negative self talk into positive affirmations to boost confidence and self esteem. And the third one is to surround yourself with positivity, and develop healthy habits, seek support and celebrate success, some little things that will help punctuate this journey for you.
As an educator and a mother and a coach, I have often been asked about mindset, not specifically using that word, of course. But it is: “how do you have a positive attitude?” Or, “how do you change your belief about something?”
And that can feel really difficult for people. Honestly, I think mindset is the toughest thing we could possibly work on changing, because it’s sort of subconscious. It’s the way we look at the world. It’s the attitude we have, our outlook. And creating a positive attitude and outlook is what we’re aiming for here.
One of the ways that we can recognize our mindset is just noticing the way we perceive something like, what do we think about it? Is it hopeless? Is it hopeful? Is there a possibility?
You can start by recognizing negative thought patterns and attitudes, and then create a way to transform those into a positive space. One way you can do that is to step out of your comfort zone, that could mean that you’re going to try something new, or get up earlier in the day part your hair on the other side, it could be a very small thing.
And you could set achievable goals to foster some mental emotional, physical growth. And you can also surround yourself with inspiring people. That’s one of the most important things I advocate all the time, self care habits like taking walks, and talking things through with other people. And also noticing and reflecting in gratitude on your life and your experiences. All of these things are going to help you think about a mindset.
And also to change your mindset to a growth mindset or a more positive mindset. It is possible to change a mindset, it might mean that it’s difficult to but it can be done. And over time, it can become a habit, and it can actually become a healthy thing that will benefit you for the rest of your life.
I’ve found myself, in some experiences, having a pretty negative mindset. There was one time where I got some really bad news many, many years ago. And I remember imagining in my mind things that I expected to happen that were no longer going to be possible because of this bad news. And I felt pretty hopeless at that time.
Perhaps you’ve had an experience where you feel hopeless too. And I have learned over time to wait and see. Like, there actually can be change, there actually can be joy. There can be growth. There can be a lot of things happening that maybe we never imagined were possible. So I want to share these 10 ideas with you today to help you on your path towards a more positive mindset. And we’re going to start out with understanding what they are.
Understanding Mindsets: Fixed vs. Growth
So there are two well-known mindsets. One is a fixed mindset. One is a growth mindset. And we might find ourselves caught in some negative thoughts or self doubt. Those can be because we’re having a fixed mindset. And the fixed mindset means that our abilities and talents cannot be changed or improved. The truth is a growth mindset belief is believing that if we work hard, we can enhance our skills. We can improve our skills, we can strengthen and grow relationships, and we can improve ourselves.
The more we’re aware of the difference between a fixed mindset a growth mindset, the more we’re able to grow personally and be more successful. A growth oriented outlook encourages us to try new things without worrying about failure. And it also leads us towards better mental health and mental fitness. It lets you confront difficult scenarios head on and achieve some great accomplishments personally and professionally.
Now, if you want to have this kind of attitude, there are some strategies you can use, like reframing negative thinking, cherishing every good thing that others do, and that you achieve yourself. And setting realistic goals and objectives like learning from your mistakes and continuing to grow. And moving forward. You can do all these things if you really want to adopt a growth mindset.
Another thing that I love about people that I’ve met is when you have a growth mindset, you just never stop learning, you believe you can learn more, you always think you can learn more, and you try to learn from people around you and experiences around you as well. There’s a lot of value held within all kinds of different mindsets. So a person with a fixed mindset is not necessarily bad or wrong. But a growth mindset is going to help you to achieve happiness and growth, and move in some new directions, if that’s your goal. Chances are because you’re listening to this podcast, that’s definitely your goal.
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
So let’s talk about overcoming limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are things that hold us back, like we don’t deserve love, or we don’t deserve to be successful. And we have to analyze those thoughts and challenge them and overcome them. This kind of negative thinking can come from poor self talk, the kinds of thoughts we have in our minds about ourselves. And it can also hurt our overall attitude towards life.
We have to break the cycle. You can change your mindset by replacing those thoughts with empowering thoughts, affirmations that will help you look at your potential and use your gifts, talents and strengths, and your positive attributes. And lean into those and achieve your goals more successfully.
Nancy is just an example who believes in her ability to beat this discouraged outlook, which led her to new accomplishments, both professionally and personally. Because she built better habits around positive feedback loops of thought, instead of remaining stagnant, doubting herself. So every time those doubts came up, she challenged them and reminded herself, no, she had the strength. So you could do this. And that just that’s a really great example showing how important it is to overcome mental blocks when you’re trying to achieve something.
If you want something different from what’s been getting in your way, then I suggest focusing on getting conscious about providing yourself some positive self talk, instead of doubtful thoughts about yourself. Push through those challenges that you face. And ultimately, you’re going to have a lot better chance at overcoming those limiting beliefs, and believing some more positive things about yourself.
One more thought about this is, it’s okay to give yourself permission to believe in yourself; to say positive things about yourself.
You don’t ever need to wait for somebody outside of you to affirm you, validate you, or tell you that you’re good at something. You can just decide. And you can just observe yourself. Other people’s feedback is nice and helpful, and you can take it into consideration. But you don’t need to wait for it.
Sometimes, I think those negative self talk, negative self thoughts come into our minds because we’re waiting for someone else to tell us we’re right. When really, we actually were the experts on ourselves. So we need to stop waiting.
Transforming Negative Self-Talk into Positive Self-Talk
The next idea is that transforming negative self talk into positive self talk is a habit we can do. So if you want to reach your potential and be successful at your goals, you have to manage this negative self talk and develop that growth mindset.
Self talk is so influential when it comes to shaping your attitude towards the world and building on the thought patterns that you have, to take charge of transformational words and use phrases that you hear. Make note of them. Write them down. Say them to yourself.
You can use quotes. You can use compliments someone pays you that are based in reality.
A useful way to replace all of your negative thoughts with positive ones are affirmations. Affirmations could be something like, I’m going to learn through this challenge. I’m going to grow through this challenge. It’s going to be hard, but I was made for this.
So you can think about ways that you can motivate yourself through positive self talk. The next idea is that you can embrace personal growth through new experiences.
Embracing Personal Growth through New Experiences
One of the things that is kind of a differentiator among people is whether we seek out adventure or we seek out sameness. Like, maybe you have a comfort zone of routine, and you want to have that routine every day, because you can rely on it.
Or maybe you want to have something new and different every single day. Well, you don’t necessarily need to do that here. But to grow personally, you have to have new experiences. It’s the most important thing because it stretches your comfort zone, and it keeps your brain functioning incredibly well. It can help you be more resilient.
And when you take on new challenges, it also helps you have a healthy state of mind. So you’re going to take small steps, like trying something small, that is new, like I mentioned earlier, you could just part in your hair on a different side, or maybe get up 20 minutes earlier.
Every time you take on a new challenge and stretch that comfort zone, you’re becoming more resilient. And you’re creating a healthier mindset, probably a growth mindset in this case. It’s gonna give you a lot better feeling of mental fitness as well. So some of the things you can do to stretch with new experiences are to journal about them, plan ahead for them, think about them, prepare for them, and surround yourself with optimistic people or positive people that are interested in growing themselves in those new experiences.
Surrounding Yourself with Positive Influences
Maybe something you’re going to do is join a group or take a class or try coaching. A lot of times, you can find groups of people who just like you want to make themselves better, or overcome a certain challenge.
When you do that, and you surround yourself with people who are also trying to grow, it really strengthens you, especially in your hardest times. I’ll give you an example of this. Yesterday, I was talking to one of my life coach friends, and this person was listening to me talk about something that I have been talking about for four years now. And it was a challenge, a personal challenge, one that I wanted to overcome. And I brought up this challenge and was talking about this challenge.
And my my coach friend said, “You know, I’ve heard you talk about this challenge for four years now. And four years ago, you decided to overcome this challenge in the following way….” And my coach friend said what I had told them. And that person simply looked at me and said, “Are you doing that?”
It was amazing to be that direct. But also it was so helpful. Because really, I was being challenged with a past version of myself quoted by my friend. But that friend was being super positive and interested in my growth, right? Because I’m surrounding myself with coaches and learners and teachers and students and all kinds of people that are trying to grow themselves and move in a new direction.
So you can take small steps by yourself, setting small goals. Or, you can surround yourself with positive people who are also trying to grow. And all of that can help you shift your mindset in a new direction.
Just like you’re going to surround yourself with positive people, you can surround yourself with all kinds of positive influences, and that’s the next area. So if we surround ourselves with negativity, people who really are ruminating and a challenge that do not want to change the challenge, you can develop a really negative space, right, you can develop a negative sense that things will never change. And you can have a more and more fixed mindset. But when you put yourself with optimistic attitudes, growth, learning, and all of those things, you’re gonna find a substantial difference with how you feel every day.
Never let your setbacks keep you from your goals. And if you surround yourself with people who are also interested in your growth and resources, materials that you’re reading, listening to habits that are promoting your success, you’re going to be feeling a lot more positive from all those influences in your life. And you’re going to make more progress towards whatever it is you’re trying to achieve. Be aware of what’s surrounding you in your environment, both the people and the tone of everything that you’re watching, hearing, reading, etc.
Developing Healthy Habits for a Positive Mindset
The next idea is to develop healthy habits to have a positive mindset. So some of these could be daily exercise, journaling, a gratitude habit of being thankful.
You can also focus on your overall wellbeing having work life balance, enhancing feelings of joy and happiness, reinforcing your good attitude as you are developing it. The more you have healthy habits in your life, the more you’re going to be able to cultivate them and rely on them in the harder times. One of the ways you can develop a healthy habit to bring in a positive mindset is to think about your experience in the present moment. That, we would call a “mindfulness habit”.
Noticing how you feel in the moment, what is going on in the moment. A lot of times when we have a negative mindset is because we’re afraid of the future. Or we’re worried about the future, when the truth is, the present moment is actually just fine. So noticing what is going on right now can be extremely helpful.
Tackling Mental Health Challenges
Another area that is especially helpful when you’re trying to shift your mindset or change your mindset is to focus on any mental health challenges you’re facing. Now, there used to be a lot of stigma around addressing mental health challenges. But if you are facing some serious psychological, emotional and social challenges, you can benefit a lot from therapy,
Therapy, coupled with some kind of behavioral adjustments, like looking at your routines and your lifestyle choices. And adding more of those choices that bring joy versus stress can be extremely helpful when you’re getting help for your mental wellness, which is also a way to shift into a growth mindset way of thinking.
I encourage you to think about that if you have some things that you’ve been dealing with for a while that you haven’t faced. And remember that therapy is not a bad thing. It’s essential for healing and growth for certain things, and it can be incredibly valuable.
Another way to tackle mental health challenges is to focus on mental fitness. And I’ll talk about that in future podcasts. Another area I want to address is seeking professional support for mindset change outside of therapy.
Seeking Professional Support for Mindset Change
I mentioned therapy, but one other way is to get a coach. Coaches give you access to guidance and tools to help you open up your potential and shift your perspective towards growth-mindedness. Now, I want to just say that I’ve seen so many people change in this way through coaching, that it really is a testament to me that coaching can make a difference.
One of the ways that I noticed a person changing the other day was that I had this client named Sally (I’m just making up that name because I would not tell my clients’ real names or their real details to protect their privacy). But Sally was a PhD working in an industry where she was expected to be a subject matter expert. And in this industry, there were PhD-level workers from all kinds of industries.
She would find herself in meetings where she needed to represent a certain part of the business, and would find herself tearing down other people’s ideas and walking away thinking that they just couldn’t see the answers.
Ready for Your Own Coach?
During coaching, we uncovered the fact that Sally thought that she needed to prove her intelligence every time she was in a call, because she thought that was why she was there. She was hired for this expertise, her intelligence, her background. And she wanted to make sure everybody knew what her viewpoints were.
Once she realized that that was her mindset, her direction, she actually stopped doing that. She asked other people a little bit more about what their thoughts were so she could understand them before moving on in the conversation. That one step alone changed everything for Sally, and now she’s calmer.
She has so much less anxiety going into meetings. She doesn’t feel like she has to over prepare, and she doesn’t have to have all the answers right away. She can even pause the meeting and come back to it at another time. I think coaching is useful for mindset change and it can be helpful in adopting new attitudes and habits. And I highly recommend it. Of course, I am a coach. So that’s something you would expect me to tell you, right?
Measuring Progress and Celebrating Success
Lastly, measure your progress and celebrate success. So when you’re trying to develop a new direction with your mindset, or new attitudes or new thoughts, keep track of your progress. Set some goals for that. Like, how could you actually notice your own development over time?
You want to see that journey and you want to see your own growth. Recognizing your growth can keep you motivated, and it’s going to reinforce your positive changes in your attitude. Celebrating your success can also be a huge part of shifting that mindset.
When you acknowledge accomplishments personally, you’re validating your ability to make that progress and keeping up your own enthusiasm. So in the end, those internal drivers and the internal recognition that you’re gonna give yourself is the most important thing you can do in shifting your mindset. It’ll help you stay away from seeking external validation from other people, waiting for other people to tell you you’re doing a great job and beginning to be driven internally so that you can evaluate yourself. Your own performance, your own life, your own direction, much more confidently.
I know I’ve said a lot here. Mindset is something I’m super excited about. The takeaway I’d really like you to walk away with today is that you can change your mindset. You can adopt more positive thinking in your mindset. It doesn’t mean that you ignore reality or you stuff away real feelings. Acknowledge those feelings, and then work on these strategies to help reframe things and move forward. I wish you all the best this coming week. I thank you for listening. See you next week on the mindset for life podcast.
Mindset is not something ambiguous, out of your control, or unchangeable. You can change your mindset to keep learning and growing, stretching your comfort zone, and achieving your goals. Join me for today’s episode of Mindset for Life!
This episode’s theme song is “Sunshine Club,” by Ishan Dincer. Used with Permission.
Like what you read here? In this podcast, I’m sharing some core principles I’ve learned in coaching that have completely changed my life. These ideas restore personal power and bring the confidence to grow our unique traits, strengths, and attributes, to live with purpose and joy as we make each day a little better. And when we do that, we’re putting good into the world. Right here, you have the tools to take one small step. And with a personal coach, you can take it deeper, to make these changes a lasting part of your life. You can live your true purpose with joy, every day.
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