MIND

We all know success doesn’t have a specific definition. Everyone defines it in their own way in life. Habits decide a person’s future and thus lead to success or failure. The success of accomplishing the task, the success of executing, the success of achieving expected results, or the opposite depends on consistency, the right strategy, and the right approach. When I used to lead my life with my old behaviors, I got those kinds of old results. My approach to life was carelessness, old-fashioned, and indifferent. As a result, I got outputs as given old inputs. Those same habits and beliefs took me to where I deserved to be—in actual failure, in my health, study, career, and relationships. When I started to identify each wrong habit and slowly replaced them, I got new results that led me to the success of my life. One cannot make pizza by following a hamburger recipe; a pizza recipe will lead you to make pizza. Habits define a person. An athlete won’t be a junk food eater because their habits involve eating healthy, following nutritionists’ advice, learning more about healthy food, and adding nutrient-rich foods to their diet. What are habits? Habits are the repetitive behaviors of a person. They are the result of conscious and unconscious beliefs. Current habits create future results. There are good and bad habits. For instance, daily consumption of smoking, drugs, and alcohol are bad habits. Following a good diet, eating nutrients, and avoiding junk foods are part of good habits. How do they help you? Habits are the determinants of life. They help people achieve their goals: the goal of fitness, the goal of a good relationship, the goal of a successful career, and the goal of good results. Every well-established person is defined by their habits. If you see Bill Gates, he always carries books with him, retaining his reading habit and increasing his intellectual capacity. You can achieve your life goals by replacing bad habits. List the habits that bring the same results you want to replace. Importance of process: Results are determined by taking actions. Old actions will not bring new results. For example, if you want to improve concentration, using social media for 8 hours will not help you. You have to replace that time with mindful activities to improve concentration. Process determines the outcome. If you follow the right process, you will get right results. Start small and stay consistent with the tiny habits you build for future success. Bring small changes in your everyday life towards good. If you want to be fit, then walking for 10 minutes would be the first tiny step you take towards your fitness goal. The bigger your dream, the smaller the steps, the bigger the results will become. Identity based habits: First, imagine what kind of person you want to be, then visualize yourself as that person and doing daily activities that the person would do. Imagine yourself as punctual, a fitness freak, confident, focused, and intellectual one. Now, do all the activities that such a person would do. Punctual people don’t get late to any meetings; fitness freaks don’t grab any junk food; focused people don’t scroll on phone unnecessarily; intellectual people dedicate a part of their day to learning something. Celebrate small wins: You must appreciate yourself for small wins. When I completed my 15-day goal of waking up early, I treated myself a snack at the park and say to myself, “Bravo, you did it!” I make a fist and say, “Yes, I am superb.” These small wins will fuel you to keep going and enjoy the process, whatever the outcome will be. No one has seen the future, so enjoy your wins. If you think you will only celebrate once you reached your goal, then your mind will perceive the process as hard and assume that success is not achievable. Your mind will put you under stress, make you abandon the habit. Progress equals happiness. So, give importance to it. Habit stacking: Keep adding new habits to existing ones. If you want to build a habit of morning walk, then you must stack it with an existing one. For example, if you wake up early, keep your shoes beside your bed before sleeping. When you wake up, you can wear them and go for a walk. New habits can be built with existing ones by stacking them. But building two habits at the same time will be tough. You cannot build the habit of waking up early and going for a walk simultaneously; after some days, you will find it difficult and go back to your old habits. How to stay focused and increase focus: We plan big and get motivated with the plan, but after some days, we go back to our old life and lose motivation. Why does this happen? It’s because we feel overwhelmed by trying to accomplish the goal at once with big steps. But big steps don’t bring the expected results; smaller steps do. One step at a time will make us reach our destination, as the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Staying motivated requires keep going along with the plan and reach the destination. Small steps at a time, celebrating wins, and tracking habits will keep us motivated. Power of group and community: Having a group with common goals helps one stay on track. A person who has drunkard friends won’t help him to leave alcohol. He has to change his group of friends and join a new group where people are health-conscious and practice fitness. The role of the environment: The role of the environment is significant in our lives. Problems created in the environment won’t be solved there; one must get out of that environment to solve them. Some people look for a beautiful place, but smart people make it. You can create your best environment; it’s in your hands. You will become the person you want to

What is mind training? Just as there is physical training for physical fitness, there is mind training for mental fitness. It is better if you don’t always depend on self-help books or speeches because they last only until the end of the video. The mind works like other organs in our body; it’s a vital part of our personal improvement. You have an amazing, miraculous organ in your body, which is the brain. The mind and body work together. When you control your anger, your mind is being processed. When the mind gets trained, it helps us achieve our life goals. Basically, there are six topics that can help you train your mind: 1. The practice of living consciously:    When was the last time you consciously did a task? If you try to recall your way of drinking water, you probably drank it the same way as you did the previous day. Most people live life unconsciously. You first have to fix what you want in your life; otherwise, no training will be helpful for you. You should notice the way you open your car door, brush your teeth, wash your hands, open your main door, and which finger you use in the lift to press the button. You have no idea why you are scrolling subconsciously for 3 to 4 hours. When it comes to focusing on important work, your brain refuses to do so because it says that you didn’t train it to do so. You can put your phone on “do not disturb” mode to avoid notifications popping up and distracting you. You will now decide that you want to practice everything consciously. You will know how much you want to say in a conversation, how much and what to eat, and where to invest your time. 2. The practice of self-acceptance:    It’s about accepting yourself the way you are and also keeping affirmations that you are not skilled ‘yet,’ which means you can achieve that by working towards it. Never compare yourself to anyone. If you first accept yourself, you’ll feel better than anyone else in the world. Imagine you said to yourself, ‘OK, I’ve accepted this; now, how can I make progress from here onwards? Whatever I learn from now on, I will work on myself. Make yourself believe that you will improve your life from now on. 3. The practice of self-responsibility:    Nobody can change your life until you change it. The great creator will help you do so. What actions will you take to take responsibility for your life? It’s only your sole responsibility to make your life better. The practice of self-responsibility is to remove the victim mentality. Have the courage to decide that from now on, every step will be towards a better life, and you will make sure of that. 4. The practice of self-assertiveness:    Be stubborn. If you feel that you should accomplish a task but are not implementing it, then you should be stubborn. All the people who brought change in history were stubborn and crazy about their vision. For example, Elon Musk. 5. The practice of living purposefully:    One must ask ‘why’ in every task he or she does. Why am I doing this? Don’t do anything randomly. Create your identity that you are a meaningful person. You are a good student who never neglects his studies. Make your identity according to your goal. 6. The practice of personal integrity:    You must have a value system for yourself, a standard for yourself. You will achieve only as much as the standard you set for yourself. “People with low self-esteem protect themselves by not taking risks. High self-esteem gives you the power of confidence to take chances.” – Dan Peña.    

How does Mindset work? Mindset is the certain thing that changes everything about you. It’s a complicated interplay of many things, including beliefs, values, identity, frames of reference, physical and emotional aspects, and the rules you hold in your life. Fixed vs Growth Mindset Since 1987, the 100m sprinter world record has never stood for more than three years and three months until Jamaican legend Usain Bolt set the current world record in August 2009—almost 13 years ago. People for 13 years thought that this record couldn’t be changed, but Usain Bolt didn’t limit his goal by thinking, “No one has succeeded in this, so I can’t.” He tried to break that fixed mindset and built a new record.  Friedrich Nietzsche says, “To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities – I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt. The torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I do not pity them because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not – that one endures.” Life was never easy. Life will be 100 times harder, throwing suffering, hardships, agony, and problems toward you. The only thing that’s going to help you go through is mindset. The mindset that you’re going to persevere, you’re going to push through, you’re going to be capable of seeing things to the end.  Your mindset is one of the important features of your perspective. I had tough times in my life: a toxic family environment and a lot of miseries, and I suffered a lot due to the sick mentality of my family. They always hurt me and broke me apart; I couldn’t muster the courage to try different activities, or make friends, and I got depressed a lot. I felt I was not good enough, not good-looking. I started to get over those beliefs slowly when I finally convinced myself and made myself believe that the universe is working with me, not against me. I have been prepared strongly for a bigger goal in my life, becoming resilient for my future battles. The one thing in favor of us is how we respond to situations. Mindset is the subset of belief about what you’re capable of and what the world is. It affects the outcome. The only belief that matters is that you can learn, improve, fail, and again learn and improve. Once you believe that, everything gets unlocked. Mindset is going to allow you to flip things from negative to positive.  Either you allow a limited mindset to get you, or you choose a growth mindset to improve your life for the better.

What is a growth mindset?            A  growth mindset is the belief that you are not confined by the limitations of your skills, traits, or talents fixed at birth. It allows you to think that your potential is limitless and that you can become skillful and talented through learning and continuous improvement. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” What happens when you believe in a fixed mindset?       You give up easily. You never push yourself, thinking that your abilities are limited, and you settle for less. When you have a growth mindset, you start to use “yet” after the sentences you have achieved so far. Your abilities and IQ are limitless and expandable, capable of improvement, as Carol Dweck, author of the book “Mindset,” explains.       Everyone gets stuck at some point in life and faces failure. Whether I’m Bill Gates, Den Penna, or Barack Obama, I can always get better. The only belief that matters is that once you think you can get good at anything and you work towards it, giving an immense amount of effort to it.    The Required Beliefs to Build a Growth Mindset:  Set your value system to the fact that will continuously challenge you and demand that you leave your comfort zone. Make changes in those areas which will protect and boost your self-esteem.     Take ownership of your life. Don’t make excuses; figure out how you can make changes that will impact the situation. Don’t think you’re not talented enough or that you’re gifted with talent. Thinking of yourself as roughly average will help you best serve your goals and give you a different perspective because if you are average, you can work on yourself and get better. Adaptability to changes, to new things, is important. Accept that you will not succeed at first, you will make mistakes, tell yourself it’s fine, then learn from your mistakes, grow, and try again. Your IQ, brain, is not fixed; your brain plasticity can improve, as science has proven. You cannot understand something without execution. You have to take action and learn from the results. Don’t hesitate to take action; don’t be late in taking action. Some of your questions will be answered by your actions. Leave your comfort zone. Try the hardest things, push beyond your limits, see that your bound is limitless. Try things that you fear, like starting a business or asking for something from someone. Your beliefs are not formed by accident; stop thinking that. It’s actually your choice. Your perspective, mindset, is changeable towards anything. Believe in solutions. Be optimistic that there’s nothing without a solution. Someone has done it, or you’re going to figure it out. There’s always a way out. Use the word “yet” in everything. Open the possibilities of the future so that your life can move out of the darkness of pessimism. You’re not supposed to learn at the first place. When you are in the position of not knowing something, then your reaction should be to learn and move forward or be cowardly and stay unlearned. Acknowledge yourself. You don’t need praise from someone else. If you are making progress, pat yourself on the back because you deserve it. Choose your internet surroundings carefully because you are affected by the Facebook accounts you follow, the YouTube channels you watch, and the type of reels you see most of your time. Their beliefs, attitudes, actions, and energy will affect you and have an effect on your growth and overall personality.  Answer these Questions:   What fixed mindset do you currently have that you think has been holding back your growth all these years? What are some fixed mindset things that have happened to you, bother you the most, and trigger your old fixed mindset? List the YouTube channels and social media content types you spend every day on. Are they benefiting you? If not, then who are your ideal gurus that you should follow and set your environment around them? Praise yourself for 10 good tasks you accomplished and changes you made, and list 3 punishments for your laziness or not taking responsibility for an important task.