Top 5 Mindsets of Successful People

When you’re striving for self-improvement, it’s helpful to look to top achievers for inspiration. Whether you know them personally, follow them online, or read their books, their insights can be great motivators. It’s often our mindsets that guide who we are and what we achieve, so I recommend looking to those of the successful people you admire for the best place to start. Adopting similar mindsets can help you achieve the success you’re after. It’s often helpful to choose people with similar goals and values or who work in your field, but it’s not necessary. Many of these mindsets for success are universal. Here are some of the top mindsets that fuel achievement:

Growth

A growth mindset is often referred to as an abundance mindset. It places a focus on possibility and empowerment rather than on limitation. It’s the opposite of a scarcity mindset, a fixed mindset believes there’s a limit to your success. Scarcity can creep in and cause you to believe there’s only so much success to go around. When this stagnant mindset sets in, it can have you believing other businesses or people are trying to steal your success. On the flip side, a growth mindset is about allowing for development and opening yourself up to new opportunities and possibilities. It’s about believing there’s more than enough success to go around.

Positivity

If you tend to see yourself as a pessimist, you’re not alone. Plenty of people fall into this negative mindset. Unfortunately, this mindset often places a limit on success. Working to adopt a more optimistic mindset can bring you closer to the achievement you’re striving for. Adopting a positive mindset still means being realistic, especially when it comes to the outcomes you want. But it also requires you to focus on the positive side of situations, even when obstacles are thrown your way.

Balance

We might think of successful people as being the hardest workers, and this is often true. But the ones with the endurance to maintain long-term success are those who understand the need for balance. Achieving a sense of balance in their lives, especially between their work and personal lives, is essential. Otherwise, it’s easy to see the negative effects take shape: successful people who work too much with no downtime aren’t often successful for long. So instead, I recommend learning from successful people who understand balance and working towards this give-and-take in your own life.

Ownership

A mindset of ownership isn’t only for those who own their own business. On the contrary, especially if you work for someone else, adopting an ownership mindset can be a tool for achievement. This mindset encourages people to take ownership of their life and success. It means knowing that you have a great deal of control over your life, rather than focusing on “bad luck” or “good luck”. Taking on this mindset helps people take responsibility for their decisions, their successes, and their failures. It means owning your strengths and weaknesses — leveraging your strengths and improving your weaker areas. Of course, there will be factors and situations that are out of your hands. In those cases, this mindset helps you control your reactions.

Reframing failure

Too often, we look at failure and success as opposites. This mindset encourages a different approach to failure, seeing it instead as an opportunity for growth and improvement. It’s a reframing of the typical conception of failure and instead, seeing it as fuel and motivation for future success. So, this mindset is about being willing to occasionally take risks and opening yourself up to potential failure. Looking at top successful people today, it’s likely they’ve taken countless risks and have experienced failure. Instead of being stagnant and fearing failure, this mindset is about a willingness to fail in pursuit of what you want and a determination to grow from it. Many would say that if you’re not pushing yourself out of your “safe zone”, then you’re failing by default.

Taking on a new mindset isn’t always easy, but can be achieved in small steps. By observing those people who inspire you, you can start looking at situations and events through their lens. If you know them personally, maybe ask for advice firsthand. Even if you’ve fallen into a mindset slump, you can gradually start to resurface and work towards cultivating mindsets that promote achievement. What are some mindsets that help you achieve your goals? Share them with us.