Does your self-talk ever sound like this? “I can’t do anything right,” or “I’ll probably just fail again, so why bother trying,” or “I’ve done so many bad things in my life that I don’t deserve to succeed.” If so, you’re not alone. Here’s the good news! When you change your thoughts, you change your life.
According to the National Science Foundation, an average person has between 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts. If we repeat those negative thoughts, we’re thinking negative thoughts much more than we’re thinking positive thoughts.
Negative thinking is what holds most people back from achieving any real measure of success in life, because our thoughts create our reality.
If you think you can, you’re right. If you think you can’t, you’re also right. When you believe you’re capable of doing something, you’re much more likely to be successful. When you believe that you can’t do something, you’ll more than likely fail.
The good news is, when you change your thoughts, you can change your reality! The thoughts you choose to focus on will determine how you experience the world.
7 Mindset Habits of Highly Successful People
Highly successful people have created these mindset habits to help them stay motivated and focused on achieving their goals, no matter what obstacles appear along the way.
- Practice mindfulness. Become more aware of your thoughts, paying attention to the things you frequently say to yourself. To get started, choose a day and set a timer for every 15 minutes throughout the day. When it goes off, stop whatever you’re doing and briefly jot down what you’ve been thinking for the last 15 minutes. This will help you increase your awareness of your thoughts. For a deeper dive on this, read my blog on The Power of Mindfulness.
- Reframe negative thoughts into more positive ones. Reframing involves changing your perspective on a given situation to give it a more positive or beneficial meaning to your life. Reframing can be used to help remove limiting beliefs, to help appreciate positive moments that you might otherwise miss, or for letting go of negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones.
A dramatic example of reframing comes from Victor Frankl’s book, From Death Camp to Existentialism, where he writes about his three years living in four concentration camps, where he survived starvation and torture. He lost his entire family and observed most of his fellow prisoners die. Despite all this, Frankl kept his mind active, planning the lectures he would give after his release, using the material from the death camps to illustrate points he wanted to teach. As a psychiatrist and devoted teacher, his careful and deliberate planning of his future lectures, as well as his optimism, kept his spirit and body alive in horrific conditions. He survived the death camps and went on to realize his vision of using his experiences as a great healer.
Your perception of reality is what creates your reality. The key to changing your reality is to practice realistic optimism by shifting your focus. Here’s an interesting exercise that exemplifies the power of focus:
(1) Tell someone your life story or a life experience as if it were a tragedy, emphasizing all the terrible aspects of that experience.(2) Now, tell the same story as an uplifting and delightful experience, focusing on all of the positive aspects of that same experience, without denying the facts.Notice how your perception of the same story changes by shifting your focus. If you’re unhappy with how you see life, shift your focus and it will change your perspective so you can view your life through a different lens.
For a deeper dive on this topic, read my blog Is Negativity Bias Running Your Life?
Focus on what you want. Whatever you focus on, that’s what you’ll get more of! In order to focus on what you want you must be willing and able to let go of thoughts that keep you focused on what you don’t want. To support you in doing this, limit input from negative people in your life and limit what you read, see and hear in the news since most of it is negative.
Your language or self-talk is a very important part of this process. When you stop saying BUT and replace it with AND, you’re ready to shift your focus. Here’s an example:
I hate my job, BUT I don’t have time to look for a new one.
OR
I hate my job, AND I’m actively seeking new ways of putting my talents to good use.
- Visualize the outcome you want to experience. The more clearly you can see it in your mind, the easier it will be to manifest. This is what kept Victor Frankl alive. In the book The Gender Gap and Goal Setting, Mark Murphy tells us that people who “very vividly describe or picture their goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to successfully accomplish their goals.” To help with this, create a vision board that has photos and words on it that keep you focused on what you want.
- Think of all that you are grateful for and acknowledge it. By definition, the practice of expressing gratitude involves a focus on the present moment, on appreciating your life as it is today.
What is gratitude? The average person associates gratitude with saying thank you for a gift or benefit received. I invite you to consider a much broader definition.
Gratitude is appreciation; it’s looking at the bright side of a setback; it’s feeling abundance with whatever you have now; it’s thanking someone in your life; it’s thanking God and counting your blessings. Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation.At the end of each day, take five minutes to focus on gratitude. You may find it helpful to write in a gratitude journal. Regardless of what kind of day you just had, you can always find something you are grateful for. This practice keeps you focused on what you want more of, rather than on what you don’t want.
While it’s great to remind yourself about wonderful things in your life, successful people turn gratitude into action. If you are grateful for your job, show up 15 minutes early one morning to get a head start on the day. Employees who think and act in a positive way are three times more likely to succeed. If you are grateful for the people in your support system, send a text or a card telling them how much you appreciate them. Be specific about what you appreciate.
Not only will your gratitude and positivity rub off on the people around you, but you will begin to create a positive brand for yourself that people will be drawn to.
For a deeper dive on this topic, read my blog The Power of Expressing Gratitude.
- Stop reading or listening to negative news. This was mentioned earlier and is worth repeating. Devote the time you would normally spend on reading, watching, or listening to negative news by repurposing that time to focus on self-improvement and things that are important to you. This shift will have a significant impact on your mindset.
- Carefully select the people you spend the most time with. When striving for greater success, examine your network – the people with whom you surround yourself.
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn
If you want to know someone really well, simply get to know the five people they are closest to. Everyone in a person’s life acts as a mirror to some part of themselves. We become like the people we spend the most time with. Do the people closest to you reflect who you want to be? Are they positive and uplifting? Do they support you and your goals? Are they achieving their own goals?If you find yourself surrounded by negative, low-energy people who pull you down rather than lifting you up, reconsider who you’re allowing into your inner circle of influence. A couple weeks ago I wrote about my own personal experience working with a negative contractor for several days. It served as a great reminder of how important it is for me to be selective about who I spend time with. You can read more in my blog, What Being a General Contractor Taught Me About Life.
The people you let into your life will have a lifelong impact, so consciously choose to surround yourself with motivated, positive, high performance individuals. Doing so will help you achieve what you’re capable of and fulfill your dreams.
You’ve just received seven ideas you can implement. I encourage you to start with one idea you will take action on TODAY.
If you’d like to explore getting some support as you work toward living more mindfully, let’s schedule a no-cost, no-pressure Discovery Call.
Additional Resources
- Blog: The Power of Mindfulness
- Blog: Is Negativity Bias Running Your Life?
- Blog: The Power of Expressing Gratitude
- Blog: What Being a General Contractor Taught Me About Life
- Guide: Banish Stress from Your Life: Your Guide to Living More Peacefully
- Guide: Creating New Habits
- Guide: Cultivating Happiness: Living Life on Your Terms
- Guide: Find Your Strengths & Choose Your Success
- Guide: Reclaim Your Power: How to Deal with Toxic People in Your Life & Business
- Guide: Living With Purpose
- Guide: My Gratitude Journal
Thanks for your help. Awesome 7 Mindsets. You are a wonderful person and God bless you and your family.
Dear Kathy, very helpful as usual.
Will help me a lot. Thank you very much.