How can you shift your views
How are you today? Exhausted from home schooling and zoomed out? Maybe missing the usual drive and motivation? Yup, I hear you. Last week was a very tiring for me. By Thursday, my eyes were squared from all the webinars and online meetings. Still, I was grateful and would like you to experience this feeling with a reframed mindset.
Recent complaints
Over the last weeks, you’ve probably seen it, too. We’re stuck at home. No, we’re not stuck at home. Reframe that expression: We are SAFE at home. How many discussions must there have been when two people with different views argued this? I’ve seen it also for different topics. You’ve seen the protesters in the US, demanding hairdressers to open up to get their roots done. I’ve heard someone locally cry “We need to go outside and move our bodies.”
Let’s be honest. If you haven’t coloured your hair in the last 6 months, you don’t need to risk your hair dresser’s health and demand that they colour it now. If it’s that important to you, you should have gone to your appointment 3 months ago. Or learnt to colour it at home! When it’s 37 C/99 F outside, are you really going out to stretch your legs?!
The mindset
That’s where the mindset shift happened. You’ve probably heard about the different mindsets. A mindset is a set of assumptions, systems, beliefs and views. For years, countless of articles have described fixed and growth mindsets. John Spencer summarised the differences between these two mindsets in this video.
So if you can reframe your mindset and develop a growth mindset, why is it still so challenging? After all, you can only benefit from a growth mindset.
The challenge
At the moment, there are so many articles asking you to become resilient and almost embrace the current challenges. That sounds great, right in line with the growth mindset, but what if you aren’t there?
Many are crying out for normalcy and it’s just not there. Neither do we know when life will be as we know it. I doubt it’ll ever go back to how it was before COVID-19. We all need to come to terms with that and yes, some of us are mourning that life!
Remember the days when you could take bottles as a carry on onto a plane? I remember taking 6 bottles of something special to my cousin in the US. That was obviously before 9/11. Nowadays, it’s all limited to 100 ml/3.4 oz. Just like 9/11 changed our world, COVID-19 has changed our life.
Let go of the fixed mindset
A fixed mindset wasn’t developed over night. Reframing your mindset to a growth mindset will therefore take practice.
Change your self-talk
Did you know that the average person has about 80% negative thoughts a day? That’s a massive amount of negativity and especially in today’s world, it can feel like a heavy weight on your shoulders. Be mindful of your thoughts and when you notice a negative of self-limiting thought, change your language.
Give your self a daily pep talk
Deep Patel recommends a daily pep talk. Here, you are using positive, encouraging and inspiring language to boost your confidence and recognise your accomplishments. Getting out of bed these days counts as an accomplishment!
Turn off the news and social media
In the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, many of us (me included) consumed the news 24/7. We checked what’s happened and how it’d impact us. It was overwhelming and for some of our clients, too much. A radical action: They stopped using some apps. They’ve spent this time looking after their children and helping them with their online learning and have additional play breaks. All noticed a substantial improvement when limiting their daily news intake. For them, as busy parents before the corona virus outbreak, it meant an opportunity to re-connect with their children.
Surround yourself with your inspirations
Have you heard that you are the average of the five people with whom you spend most of your time? Choose well! Though in times of a lockdown, you may be limited. Then again, you can remove yourself from mailing lists that no longer serve their purpose for you. You can mute What’s App conversations and you guessed what’s next. You don’t need to answer every message, text or call from your family or friends. Soak in the vibes of people you admired, who inspire you, who give you inspiration of who you want to be.
Recognise fallbacks
You’re most likely not making a 180-degree-change overnight. Changing your mindset requires practice, willpower and the desire to change. Developing new approaches and views can take time and it may be difficult to understand other sides. You may not always agree with them and that’s okay. Sometimes you may hold your hands on your head questioning the why. On other days, you may fall back into old mindsets. Be prepared for those occasions. You can still get up and continue to develop and alter your mindset.
Embrace challenging tasks
You may not remember the days you started crawling or walking. Not every step came easily and you needed to learn how to go from those wobbly steps to the speed runner you became as a toddler. Your parents were surely excited and proud of you. None of you questioned how challenging and frustrating it was at times.
It’s time to think of those days again and learn to see challenges as an opportunity. Through practice, you develop new skills and approaches that will help you to move forward.
Your mindset influences everything. It can be simple and overwhelming to reframe it. What is the one thing you wish you could change about your mind?
Until next time,
Agni