I recently appeared as a guest on the Strong Enough podcast and the host, Claudia King, asked what is a success mindset? Mindset is a complex concept made up of thoughts, feelings and actions.
In response to the question, I broke my approach to developing a success mindset into my 3 step formula,
1. notice your repetitive thoughts,
2. choose a replacement positive thought and
3. feel better,
I wanted to break down the formula to you today as a follow up to my previous blog post.
1. Notice repetitive thoughts
Throughout our lives, we are influenced by our parents, families, friends and colleagues and, especially as babies and children, have no way to filter out what thoughts, beliefs and habits are our own vs those picked up from the people around us. As a result, we could be running a program of thoughts that affect our mindset – our thoughts, feelings and actions – that is not even our own.
This program of thoughts, habits and beliefs affects every aspect of our lives, and especially our mindset. You may notice this yourself if you catch yourself repeating something that a parent or family member said when you were a child. It could be something as common as “money doesn’t grow on trees” or “you have to work hard to get ahead”.
Once you have noticed that your thoughts, habits and beliefs are not actually yours, this is when you can consciously choose a new thought that you want to think vs continue to regurgitate practiced thoughts, habits or beliefs that no longer serve you.
2. Choose positive thoughts
This is such an empowering step! Once you notice that you are running someone else’s program, recognizing that you can choose to replace repetitive thoughts with thoughts you want to think, you are a conscious creator.
I recommend you start with general, soothing positive statements that will not cause your program to notice the change to your practiced thoughts. Start with something really easy like “I can totally do this!” and “Everything is going well for me” or “things are falling into place for me”. If you try to add in dramatically different thoughts, your program will notice and fear will bubble up.
When fear bubbles up, it will feel like doubt “this is stupid!” “This can’t work!” “What’s wrong with how my life is going?” “What was I thinking?” “This is too hard! I’ll never figure this out”. You may also notice your family and loved ones start acting fearful and say things that will potentially knock you off balance. Be prepared! This is actually great news that change is happening!
As you progress, you can start adding in more specific thoughts depending on what aspect of your program you want to address first. For example, if you wanted to increase your financial abundance, you could start adding in “I like freedom” “I like fun” and “I like the idea of financial freedom” “Financial freedom would be fun”
3. Feel better
As you replace old, outdated practiced thoughts with new, positive thoughts of your choice, you will begin to feel better. You will notice new ideas, insights, people and circumstances in your life that are only possible because you have begun to change your program. You can’t possibly expect new things to happen from the same old practiced thoughts. So when you do notice a new idea, insight or circumstance, be sure to celebrate!
As you continue to work on difference aspects of your mindset to replace old practiced thoughts and beliefs with new, positive thoughts, you will literally become a new person. All the old programming that was running unconsciously in the background will be stripped away.
This is an ongoing process!
This will be an ongoing and continuous process and each time you begin to work on a new area in your program, fear and doubt will pop up. As long as you’re prepared and recognize when this is happening, you can continue to move forward as a conscious creator of your success mindset!
If you’d like to have me speak to your team, group or organization about how to consciously create a success mindset, book a call with me on www.vickymcgrath.ca and I would be glad to discuss what you have in mind!