It’s not always easy to self-motivate on the path to success. Sometimes, we need a little help to keep us on track.
When you hit a rut with your thinking, you can always come back to your mindset hacks. These are useful tools to help reset and guide you, even when you feel lost. But they’re also a great way to try on new concepts and break bad behaviours so that you can take inspired, intentional actions towards your goals.
In this two-part series, I’m sharing the 7 mindset hacks you need to succeed. These can help you work towards whatever you desire in your life and in your business, and help turn your dreams into your reality.
If you’ve already read part one, you’ll know the drill – grab a pen and paper as I’ll be giving you some exercises along the way. Visit this post to discover the first three mindset hacks, then hit play or read on to find out the next four…
4. If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you’ve always got
Your behaviours can be the key to success, or they can hold you back from it. So, it’s important to take stock of your results and consider what needs changing to get you where you need to go.
You’re constantly learning and evolving. If you take the approach that there is no failure, only feedback, you can use this to move forward. Business, in particular, is all about continually developing and growing to achieve better results for your clients and yourself.
But the results you get are based on your actions. Whatever you’re currently doing will lead to certain outcomes. If these outcomes aren’t what you desire, then it’s imperative to change your behaviours.
There are some key things that we know will always happen when we take a certain action. These fixed means and fixed ends can be great for your business. They reliably underpin systems and processes to give you guaranteed results every time.
If you’re expecting different results from the same behaviour, we call this fixed means and variable ends. This, however, is more like wishful thinking. Repeating the same action is very, very unlikely to generate different results.
If you flip this around to variable means and fixed ends, you get flexibility. This is where you can take multiple actions and achieve the same results. In coaching, it’s incredibly powerful to have behavioural flexibility with your clients. We teach many different modalities in The Mindset Coach Academy because how one client responds to a technique may be completely different from how another client responds – even if they have the same presenting problem.
So, what happens when we have both variable means and variable ends? In this case, different behaviours lead to different results. This is a creative and experimental way to build flexibility within your business.
I want you to think about a goal you’ve wanted to achieve for some time but haven’t yet. Write it down, and then list everything you’ve done to make it happen. Now, write down some creative ideas for what you could do to make it a reality. Think outside of the box and be flexible. Consider all the possible ways you could achieve your goal.
5. My past does not control my future
Hack #5 is all about learning from the past, but not living in it. As we’ve seen, it’s good to take your past experiences into account, but it’s not helpful to dwell on what’s gone wrong, opportunities you’ve missed, or lingering negative emotions. It’s not empowering or resourceful. When this happens, you get stuck and can’t move forward.
We have to learn from the past, live in the now, and look to the future. Carl Jung famously said, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become”, and I believe this is a powerful sentiment. So much of coaching is about choice. You help your clients recognize that everything they do, whether at the conscious or unconscious level, is a choice and we can move closer to our desires with each one.
If you get trapped and feel like you can’t move forward, a great thing to do is create an achievement log. This is where you record every goal in your life that you’ve turned into a reality. As you write down each one, take the time to celebrate it. Acknowledging your achievements is incredibly important and helps you reinforce the knowledge that you can do anything you set your mind to.
6. You have all the resources you need to succeed
When I talk about resources, what I’m referring to is the mental, emotional, physical, and physiological state that’s available to you. Maybe it’s your current state or one that you can move into. But either way, within you is the personal power to create or achieve whatever you want.
What you think, how you feel, and how you carry yourself has a direct impact on how well you use these resources. Find out what lights up these resourceful emotions. For example, if you sit up straight, does it make you feel more empowered than if you were slumped over?
Think about body language. Certain positions exude confidence and motivation, while others indicate apathy. There’s a mind-body connection here that you can tap into, which could help you access a more resourceful mindset.
I also want you to think about resources in terms of your skills and abilities. How can you apply your knowledge and talents to other areas of your life? If you have a creative personality, is there a way to apply this to your business? Being mobile with your skillsets enhances your agility and flexibility for overcoming challenges, problem-solving, and moving forward.
Consider a time when you were in flow. This is when you’re so absorbed in your activity that you don’t even realise time is rushing by. Perhaps you’re writing a blog post for your business website or coaching a client. In this situation, you’re completely in a resourceful mindset. The key now is to work out what ingredients helped you get there.
We call this your strategy. Working out what this is becomes your own personal recipe for resourcefulness. So, think about a time when you were last in flow, and then answer these questions:
- What did you see?
- What did you hear?
- How did you feel?
- What were you saying to yourself?
The answers to these will help you start developing this resourceful recipe. Next time you drop into that flow state, be mindful of what’s going on so you can reproduce it again in the future. In fact, you can do this for any emotion. Just focus on building your self-awareness, and you’ll be able to replicate the emotion or mindset time and time again.
7. If someone else made it happen, it’s possible that you can make it happen to
A key mindset mantra that I encourage you to adopt is, “I can do it”.
You may find it easy to look for evidence for why you can’t do something, but one of the quickest ways to dispel any beliefs about your own capability is to look to what other people have achieved. Once you know that your goal is humanly possible, you’ll know that it’s achievable for you too.
There are so many examples of this in history. Take Roger Bannister, for example. After he’d run the first four-minute mile, many other athletes also started running four-minute miles – because they knew it could be done!
Henry Ford is attributed with saying the oft-repeated phrase, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” I talk about self-belief a lot, but this quote really hits the nail on the head. When you think you can achieve something, that’s when it becomes possible.
This is why role models are so useful. You can use people who’ve already achieved your goal, or similar ones, and use their experience as a guide. I encourage you to do this. Choose a desire you have and think of someone who’s already attained it. Then, closely examine the steps they took to get where they are. If it’s someone you know, perhaps you can interview them and pick their brain. But if it’s not, then I want you to imagine what it was like to be in their position. What did they think, feel, and say to themselves to achieve that goal? Then apply what you’ve learned to your journey.
However, I caution you not to use this as an excuse to compare yourself to others. This can halt your progress and even take away your joy. The best form of comparison is when you compare yourself to yourself. So, use yourself as your benchmark.
Remember that progress is more important than perfection. Even just a small amount of progress every day will eventually, inevitably lead you to achieving your goals.
I hope this post has given you lots to consider on your path to success. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this two-part series so do let me know what you think to these 7 mindset hacks.
If you want to learn more mindset hacks and find out the best ways to teach them to your clients, check out The Mindset Coach Academy!