In this episode, I’m focusing on challenging your fixed mindset thinking as step 2 to your Mindset Mastery journey.

What’s a fixed mindset or thought?

A fixed mindset means you believe that intelligent, talent, and other qualities are innate and unchangeable. If you’re not good at something, you typically think you will never be good at it. By contrast, a growth mindset means you believe intelligence and talent can be developed with practice and effort.

Examples of fixed mindset thoughts:

1. I can't make this any better; it is what it is.
2. I've always been told that I'm not good at ------.
3. I take feedback as a personal attack.
4. There's no point in trying if I'm going to fail anyway.
5. It's too late for me to start something.
6. Either I'm good at something, or I'm not.

Negative thinking is rooted in our fixed mindset. Once we understand that we can challenge our fixed mindset, the next step is to become aware how we can challenge it when it shows up.

But first let’s understand how negative thinking is showing up for you. What’s your thought pattern.

1) Understand Your Thought Patterns

There are many different types of negative thinking thought patternss:

• Black and white thinking- where we see everything as one way or another, with no in between
• Personalizing- where we assume that we are to blame for anything that goes wrong (this doesn’t take into account other factors that don’t have to do with us)
• Filter thinking- where we choose to only see the negative side of things
• Catastrophizing- assuming the worst possible outcome will happen

When we can recognize these negative thinking patterns, we can then replace them with more helpful and growth based thinking patterns.

2) Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness like meditation, can help us focus on the present, rather than dwelling on events of the past or worrying about the future. When we detach ourselves from negative thoughts, we can view them as an outside observer and challenge them easier.

3) Focus on Gratitude

Challenge negative thoughts by focusing on gratitude. When we are in a negative headspace, it can sometimes be difficult to think about what we’re grateful for. Regardless, try thinking about three things you’re grateful for each day, even if they are really small. When we focus on gratitude, we are more likely to also adopt a more positive mindset.

4) Commit to continues growth and development

The more you do this, the more you program your mindset, challenge your fixed and negative thoughts and become more and more confident in yourself and your abilities.

If you want to know more about you mindset, take the mindset quiz:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VNWGWvKN7UNceZ1ovcYMDxwMBXd1G_tU/view?usp=sharing

Thank you for listening! Please Share your thoughts and takeaways on this episode.