How to Support, not Sabotage, Achievement in Your Professional World

How you think determines everything that will or won't happen in your life.

Which came first: the thought or the feeling?

In everyday life, thoughts and emotions seem to tag team each other inside your conscious mind and your deeper subconscious.

From neurological research, sensory input filters through our emotional centers of the brain before it reaches the frontal cortex where rational thought is born. The thought is then put into a position of explaining, rationalizing, or expanding on the emotion.

That determines what “doing” (or not) comes next.

Here is where the concept of Growth and Fixed Mindset appears.

What is the difference and when do they show up at work or at home?

Consider the last time you were in the company of someone who was unbelievably “stubborn”. They are most likely in a static pattern of viewing themselves and the world around them. That’s a Fixed Mindset. Their thoughts speak in pre-determined phrases like:

·????????I stick to what I know and am already good at, so I avoid challenges.

·????????I am either good at it or I am not so no point in trying.

·????????I give up so that I don’t fail.

·????????My potential and intelligence have been set so I will never improve.

Such a person exerts much energy and effort into actively avoiding any activities in which they may not succeed. The result is they sabotage their potential and your effectiveness with them.

What happens when you are working for a Fixed Mindset manager or managing a person with one?

Introducing change will meet with immediate resistance. That’s a guarantee even if it will clearly benefit their life, career, or the company they own or are employed. It’s a source of ongoing frustration for leaders who are working hard to push the needle forward. ??

Pygmalion Effect Studies are applicable in the classroom, business management, and sports psychology. It states that the outcome gives way to a self-fulfilling prophesy. If the teacher believes in their students, performance is better. Sadly, the reverse is true. If the teacher anticipates poor performance, the students only reach the level that their authority figure believes them capable of.

That supports the assumption that your mindset is sensitive to the conditioning of others. When people do not believe they can do something, they don’t even try and get defensive when pushed to justify why they cannot. Their belief is based on hopelessness in their performance ability.

Such a wasteful expenditure of energy!

There is an alternative.

“Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.” – Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784), Author

The Growth Mindset individual seeks first to understand, explore, question, practice, attempt, ask for feedback, learn, and try again. Each mistake moves them closer to figuring out ways to improve. With that approach, intelligence can be developed. Resilience, persistence, confidence, and courage are key forces underwriting. Despite challenges and setbacks, the person believes they can grow through them. ?

It all boils down to BELIEF translated into the conversation that is actively going on in your head. One important point, it may not even be your own voice!

When your inner dialogue remains open and optimistic, it fuels FOCUS and the willingness to move into some sort of action.

Tips to foster a Growth Mindset for yourself and others when the Fixed one wants to be the Boss:

1)?????Pay closer attention to how you talk to yourself when responding to a person, event, or feeling.

2)?????FOCUS on the roadblock source. If it is an internal belief, you have control to make the choice to learn where opportunities can come from mistakes.

3)?????Recognize when your thought pattern puts undue pressure for unrealistic perfection or overemphasizes fear around change.

4)?????Challenge your thinking pattern. Look for evidence in your life when you rose to the test despite the odds and succeeded. Then “go to court” with those serial thought hijackers.

5)?????Take action with grace. Accept that things will not always go as planned and detours will unexpectedly show up. Even a seasoned growth mindset has its off moments. The silver lining is to find what good surfaces just from allowing your humanness.

6)?????Praise your progress when you or others are putting in the effort and hard work to try new things for continuous improvement. When you remove the fear of messing up, creativity, productivity, and trust grow.

In summary, the quality of your life rises to the level of your thoughts at home or work. Those thoughts are bound to emotion. You cannot think logically and make effective decisions when emotional. Practicing a growth mindset is the only way to foster and maintain one.

Never. Give. Up.

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