4 Practical Tips for Growing Your Success Mindset
Bennie Fowler III
Super Bowl 50 Champion I Simplifying. Clarifying. Helping Business and Leaders Grow. Director of Strategic Development at Caprock. Leadership Coach and Consultant. I Advisor, Venture Partner, and Board Member
The world is made up of three kinds of people. Those who are successful, those who are not yet successful and those who will never be successful.
You can see the truth of this simply by looking at people who try and try, and who just never seem to make it even though it’s clear that they possess the knowledge they need.
So why are there people in this world who dream big and have hopes for a successful future, but it all comes to nothing? The answer is that their mindset held them back, just like the way that the mindset of the successful propelled them to greater heights and towards the achievements of their dreams.
That's why, if you want to make it in anything, you must have a success mindset.
Why a Successful Mindset Makes Your Goals Achievable
Having a success mindset is an important tool because what you think is in control of what you’ll do. If you think you can’t, you won’t. If you think you’re a failure, you are. If you think dreams come true for other people and not for you, then you’re right.
You’re creating your own version of mental roadblocks that then lead to physical roadblocks because you develop the mindset of “Why bother to try when you’re only going to end up failing?”
You think this way because you haven’t yet realized the power of mindset. It can guide or affect everything you do in your personal or professional life. The reason that it has this power is because you are the fuel that feeds into the belief. Then you will act according to your mindset. You’ll act like a failure or you’ll act like a winner. You’ll act defeated or you’ll act triumphant.
The reality is, you might not have the same education as the next person. You might not have the same level of talent. You might not have a lot of money. You might not have the same outgoing personality. But that doesn’t mean that your chances of success are any lower, because your mindset will determine that, not your station in life.
Don't believe me?
Do a quick search on people who became millionaires or who build a successful business from nothing. You'll find results, because it's completely possible. Your circumstances aren’t the chains that hold you back....your mindset is.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Only you can give it that authority. Once you step up and take control of your mindset, your days feeling like and acting like a failure are over. Developing a success mindset leads to a change in how you see yourself.
+ You’ll stop having a negative attitude about who you are and what you’re capable of.
+ You’ll stop the thought track in your mind that tells you that you can’t succeed, that you don’t have what it takes.
Stopping that track then boosts your self-esteem. Whatever negative thought or belief that you allow to grow within your mind will grow and flourish like weeds choking out even the tiniest speck of good that you might believe about yourself.
Success Mindset Helps You Overcome
When you develop a success mindset, it allows you to overcome self-criticism. This enables how you view everything to change. It changes your perspective, your ideas, bolsters your goals and gives new and fresh meaning to what you want to achieve.
How do you know if you have a success mindset? You view any failures as an opportunity to learn and grow rather than as stopping points. Every success that you want is doable by having a success mindset.
When you have that, your perspective shifts. You see obstacles as challenges. You believe you can overcome whatever obstacle is thrown at you. When you view problems, you might not automatically know the answer to them, but you believe that you’ll get the answer.
The vision that you have for your life shifts when you have a success mindset. It creates a determination within you that propels you forward and allows you to succeed regardless of the effort it takes. You don’t quit until your goals are accomplished.
With a success mindset, you don’t see circumstances that hold you back. You see chances to grow. You develop a strong can do attitude that allows you try where previously you might have allowed circumstances to keep you stuck at the starting line. You have to remember that a success mindset envisions triumph, which improves your ability to reach the goals that you set for yourself.
Think of your mindset as a gate that either opens for opportunities or closes to them.
Change Hopeless Negativity to an Optimistic Success Mindset
One of the reasons that people develop a sense of hopeless negativity is because they view their life goals, their relationships, their dreams and their needs in light of what should have been instead of what is.
They feel a sense of disappointment that things haven’t worked out the way that they want, so they begin to close ranks around possibilities. People with hopeless negativity fail to see life as it can be and only focus on the bad or what’s prevented them from succeeding.
People who think this way don’t see their situation as ever improving. Their belief is that everything is bad. They live day to day expecting the worst to happen. It usually does because mindset leads to behaviors or habits that create the existence they believe.
So they end up not trying and they settle for the kind of life they don’t want, failing to see that the one they do want is only a mindset change away. Changing your hopeless negativity to an optimistic success mindset isn’t difficult.
It just takes some practice.
Learn to view every situation though a positive lens. You can do this by seeking the positive in the situation, in the person or in your thoughts. What happens when you do this is it shifts your mindset away from what’s not good and puts it on what is.
Take the time every single day to reflect on the good that you experienced. If you look for the positive, you will find it regardless of whatever is going on - regardless of what did or didn’t happen.
You have to stop dwelling on the immediate and keep your view settled on the outcome. Every positive journey will have negative parts to it. If you stay focused on the negative, you can miss the bigger picture.
Your mindset can get so clouded over by the negative that you completely miss the good things that are waiting for you to take hold and move you ahead toward your success. You can change hopeless negativity, but not holding onto those thoughts or attitudes. These are things that you usually dwell on.
And wherever your attention is, your mindset follows.
For example, if you continually dwell on all that needs repairing in your home, you’ll start to dislike where you live. You’ll feel miserable and start wishing you could move. Then you’ll start thinking about how you can’t afford to move and you’ll feel trapped.
领英推荐
So the one negative thought mushrooms and becomes this huge thing that makes you feel hopeless. Then you feel helpless to change your situation - all because your mind says there’s nothing you can do. But if you look at the repairs in your home as an opportunity to fix it up the way you want it to be, or to make improvements that you like better, you’ll notice that your attitude has changed about it.
The attitude changed because the mindset did. Examine any negative or hopeless thought that comes into your mind. Take charge of it and ask yourself what opportunities are hidden in the situation.
Then find them and focus on those instead. Make it a habit to seek the positive and let it be how you start and end your day. Begin your day by thinking a positive thought. It can be something about it being a beautiful day or something like you get to have your favorite cup of coffee.
End your day the same way.
Start a habit of writing down at least 3 good things that happened to you that day, that you learned, that you accomplished. This habit is what teaches you to notice what’s good.
When you look for the positive, it makes you feel better and it changes your perspective from one that life is happening to – to something that you’re in control of. You discover that you make your own happiness and that it’s not determined by external haves or have nots.
You must keep in mind that whichever mindset you feed is the one that grows. If you feed the negative mindset, it blooms into something that can easily overwhelm the good. If you feed the good mindset, it blooms and gains control rather than the negative side.
Becoming Sure of Your Success Mindset Until You Follow Through
It’s one thing to talk about a success mindset. Another to live it. You might want a success mindset but not be sure about your ability to achieve it or unsure if you can carry on until you do follow through and reach your goals.
Your environment can often determine your ability to follow through. The rule of thumb is always negative in, negative out. Spend enough time in a negative environment and you’ll end up affected. If all the people you have in your circle practice a negative mindset and they seem to see the problems instead of the hope in even trying, before long, you’ll be spouting the same words they’re speaking.
You’ll see gloom and doom. You’ll see all the reasons why you can’t accomplish your dreams. You’ll think about how success is for others, not you. You’ll look at their lives and see how they too, are just like you.
They didn’t succeed, so what makes you think you can? Everyone has their own personality. They’re the sum parts of the way they were raised, the friends they have, the habits they perform.
But what carries the a lot of weight in anyone’s life are the people that you hang with. These are the people that you look to for advice. They’re the ones that you complain to on the phone. They’re the ones that influence your decisions.
If your environment is made up of negative influences, it has to change in order for you to succeed. You can become sure of your success mindset by reframing what you’re up against.
You might feel that there’s no way you can succeed. So reframe that what you’re up against isn’t something insurmountable. Instead, it’s something that’s going to offer you a learning experience.
What this does is take you out of your comfort zone and allow you to push beyond self- imposed mindset limitations. You’ll be able to see the accomplishments rather than the failures.
You must push past the limits that you’ve set for yourself in the past. As you stretch your mindset, it lets go of the mental blocks that hold your success hostage. It frees you up to take risks, to step beyond what you thought you were capable of.
Instead of thinking that there’s no way you can succeed, you’ll begin to view yourself as someone who’s in control of his success. You follow through by welcoming mistakes as an opportunity to learn and rise above the issues.
When you practice a success mindset, it lets you choose to move. It also lets you acknowledge that you need to learn with grace rather than allowing it to be the thing that holds you back.
You become sure of your success mindset when you change your thought processes.
When you stop going through life saying, “I can’t” or “I might fail” and instead saying, “Good things are going to happen for me,” then by your actions you make that positive outcome a reality.
Action Steps You Can Take to Develop a Success Mindset
These affirmations can help you break free from a negative mindset that leads to self sabotaging behavior such as not even trying to go after success. Your brain reacts to repeated positive affirmations and accepts them as truth.
When you speak them, use the present tense. Choose affirmations such as, “I am successful and talented. I recognize my abilities and other people recognize my abilities.”
Your brain then begins to create positive thoughts based on that affirmation. Your body and your attitude then follow along. Your action steps will be based in the belief that you can achieve your goals.
2. Follow success stories. Find the stories that motivate and inspire you. Watch documentaries of people that have similar goals that you also want to reach. Study what they did and how they overcame obstacles.
Watching other successful people in action fills you with a can-do attitude. You start thinking that if that person can do it, then so can you.
3. Create a vision board. When you create a board that uses a selection of images representing what your success is, it creates an image of what can be. The board is a tangible view of what you want to achieve. When you have a vision board, you use the power of visualization to prompt a success mindset. The board sinks into your subconscious mind and lets you see things you may not have realized before.
A vision board acts as a reminder that success is yours. Having one can help you choose action when fear creeps in. It can also help you remember to believe in yourself and to keep your brain focused on the positive, which is the outcome of your goals. The board should be a visual representation of your success story unfolding.
4. Practice the law of attraction. Know what it is that you want to attract to your life. Believe that you have it in you to make all your dreams come true.
As a Super Bowl Champion, professional athlete, best-selling author, leadership expert, & motivational speaker, Bennie Fowler knows how to access inner excellence, nurture personal growth, and consistently take things to the next level, both professionally and personally.
When you?invest in working together , he provides the structure and guidance you need so you can show up fully and learn how to consistently activate your own inner champion.?