Overcoming 11 Common Unhealthy/Negative Mindsets
Keith Engelhardt
I help Introverts EVOLVE ! ? to develop your highest potential and achieve the success you desire and deserve with Neuroscience based programs that produce long lasting results.
Most of us live our lives with habits and routines, and this includes how we think. Since we may not pay attention much to the way our minds work, this can lead to us slipping into some negative mindsets and thinking, which means there are a number of unhealthy mindsets we should replace. Join us to learn then and how to replace them.
Frequent negative thoughts may not seem like a big deal, however they can have profound consequences — especially ones that build over time. "Unhealthy mindsets don’t produce good results in life or are healthy because all your choices begin with your beliefs and thoughts," To paraphrase Dr. Joe Dispenza: Our thoughts trigger our emotions, our emotions trigger our moods, our moods trigger our behavior, and our behavior becomes our reality.
To help you shift your mindset to be more beneficial, I consulted with a few mental health experts to find out what detrimental mindsets everyone should ditch and why they're so impactful. If you think you might have a few bad attitudes, consider getting rid common patterns of negative thinking.
11 unhealthy mindsets that can have a negative effect on your life.
1. Believing You're the Victim
A victim mindset results in feeling emotional and temperamental as a way of gaining attention and affection. It results in an extreme focus on internal feelings, particularly painful ones, and can often result in a martyr streak.
The victim mindset is rooted in you thinking you’re powerless to change your life, and that it will stay exactly the same and you won’t be able to improve it.
This of course is never true (even thought it seems that way). While not all things in life are withing our sphere of influence, we all have the agency to change the direction of our lives or situations in our lives. At minimum, we have the choice to change our perspective and mindset and our actions and responses to everything in life.
?2. Believing You're Not Worthy
Feeling unworthy is learned; often in childhood and you won’t treat yourself — nor will others treat you well, when you feel unworthy. There will always be someone that will take advantage of attempt to reinforce your mindset of unworthiness. In contrast, when you believe you’re worthy, it feels natural and normal to expect to be treated with respect and kindness, as well as achieve success and life fullfillment.
3. Seeing Something as An Obstacle Rather Than an Opportunity
We all are faced with problems or challenges on the road of life. We have a choice whether or not we will focus on them as obstacles, hindrances, or obstructions and why it is in our way, or we can see it as an opportunity for learning, growth or a situation to solve and leverage.
4. Believing Everything Is Permanent
Another unhealthy mindset is believing or perceiving in the permanence of any situation or circumstance, instead of understanding that the world is constantly changing. The only constant in life is change. When one sees things as static or binary, we can get stuck in situation and fail to see the positive or change beyond one’s challenges.
5. Thinking You'll Never Find Love
If you think this is true, you never will. Really with over 7 billion humans on the planet, you perceive that no one will love you? What we think about manifest in our attitude, behaviors and even in our body language. If you spend your first date thinking that person will never love you, you can bet they probably won't. It can be one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. Not to mention that “the person will never love you” is the foundation of a first date, rather than having a good time and getting to truly know each other.
6. Being Afraid You'll Get Sick
You hear people saying this all the time, "I hope I'm not getting sick.” Or, great my coworker is ?sick now I'm going to get whatever they have.'
When we think these negative and stressful thoughts it creates a fight or flight response in our body, as subtle as it maybe. With a fight or flight response in overdrive, our immune response decreases, and we have a greater potential to actually get sick. So, worrying about getting sick is not serving you — in fact it's probably making things worse.
7. Believing in Absolutes
Nothing is life is absolute. Everything is on a continuum and there are shades of gray. So, avoid using terms like "always" or "never." This is distorted or imprecise thinking — there is no always or never to anything in life.
8. Being Afraid of Medical Professional
Many people fear seeing medical professionals because they don't want to face bad news or have to have medical procedures, but this could damage our health in the long run by not catching something early or avoiding treatment. "It's better to have the news and have it ?verified so it can be dealt with and handled, as opposed to either letting something get way bigger than it should've or worrying about it and not truly knowing.”
9. Feeling Shaped by Your Past
Life seldom starts on a level playing field, but we can all heal and grow over time. People who had trauma and abuse in their childhoods often believe they’re doomed to have miserable adulthoods.
One of my favorite nudges or recommendations as a coach is "Never be a prisoner of your past, it will just be a life sentence. Use the past as a lesson for learning and creating your future.? Life goes on, and on, and on... So, move forward with it."
?Believing that you can overcome a troubled past is where change or transformation begins.
10. Believing You Can't Do Something
A common refrain these days is “I can’t ______ " You fill in the blank. Maybe you can’t do something, but you won’t know until you try," And many times when we do try, we find out that we can. "Believing you can may lead to your being disappointed of you don’t succeed, however, trying may also lead to success.”
11. Believing That Life Is a Struggle
"If one tells themselves that life is hard and/or a struggle, that is what it will become and how one will feel about it”. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy "Life isn’t necessarily easy, however it’s important to have an 'I can do this' attitude. Instead view life as a challenge, not a struggle.
There are many more unhealthy or negative mindset out in the public narrative as well as our private narratives. One just need to browse around social media or listen to the news for examples.
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Some Solutions
So, what are some tools and techniques to offset or change the impact of these narratives and mindsets?
Practice Mindfulness and Meditation
Being mindful and in-the-moment is the first step toward living a full emotional life, Kirkland says.?
Give mindfulness a try by simply taking a quiet moment to notice how you’re feeling and what’s going on in your body and mind. Don’t focus on any single thought or sensation; instead, notice everything.
If you notice any negativity, don’t judge yourself for it — just make a note of it and move on. It’s important to notice our negative feelings and acknowledge the information they are giving us without losing ourselves in them.
It can be helpful to start learning how to be mindful when you’re calm, Kirkland recommends, especially if you’re new to it. That way, when you’re in a more emotional state, you will already have the skills needed to work through it.
NeuroYoga.Zone ? Meditations: Audio Versions Video Versions
Recognize that emotions are tools
One approach to mindfulness is to look at emotions as tools or information, rather than focusing only on how they make you feel.
“All emotions are functional and have a purpose. They are a signal to the person experiencing them or the person being communicated to,” Kirkland explains.
Negative emotions like anger or fear serve to alert us about potential danger or threat, whereas positive emotions like happiness foster connection and opportunities to be creative.?? ?
Clarify your needs and get them met
As humans, we all have needs. However, people are not mind readers, we need to express our needs in a genuine respectful way. Not everyone will be able to fulfill them.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra, or yogic sleep, is a form of guided meditation that induces hypnagogia — the state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness. Think of it as an intense state of consciously directed relaxation.
Yoga Nidra meditation has a long history dating back to ancient times. Modern science is now exploring yoga nidra as a treatment option for several diseases. The practice of yoga nidra has been shown to be effective in managing sleep problems, such as chronic insomnia.
To practice Yoga Nidra, you’ll need to find a quiet place that is free from distractions and get comfortable. From there, you can play any of the Yoga Nidra tracks available on the internet to direct your awareness to different parts of your body until you get to a state where you’re half awake and half asleep.
Yoga nidra typically involves:
Lying down in a comfortable position
Listening to a guided meditation
Systematically relaxing different parts of the body
Maintaining awareness while entering a deeply relaxed state
The practice aims to achieve complete physical, mental, and emotional relaxation
Yoga nidra offers several potential benefits:
Start a C.R.A.P. Board
Mark Waldman, a neuroscience researcher and author, recommends creating a C.R.A.P. Board as a powerful tool for personal growth and stress management. The acronym stands for Conflicts, Resistances, Anxieties, and Problems, representing the negative thoughts and emotions that often hold us back. By actively acknowledging and addressing these issues, individuals can gain clarity and develop strategies to overcome them.
The process of creating a C.R.A.P. Board involves writing down specific concerns in each category, allowing for a visual representation of one's inner struggles. This exercise serves multiple purposes: it externalizes internal worries, making them seem more manageable; it helps identify patterns or recurring themes in one's life; and it provides a starting point for developing action plans. Waldman suggests revisiting and updating the board regularly, using it as a dynamic tool for ongoing self-reflection and problem-solving. By confronting these challenges head-on, individuals can work towards resolving conflicts, breaking through resistances, managing anxieties, and tackling problems more effectively.
Excercise self-compassion; exploring and establishing mindset changes don't happen overnight, but the more you work on them, the more of a habit they become.
It takes repeated practice to rewire our brains to a new mode of functioning and a new default. Repetition is the mother of success. These techniques explored today don’t take a great deal of time and can be done multiple times a day.
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