3 Mindsets for Action

Our minds are the most powerful things we have.

They serve as navigation systems helping us progress through life.

Just as computers need software, our mindsets are like programs running the navigation system.

Why do some people crush it in life and others get crushed?

Why do some people seem to “have it all” and others fail to have anything?

Why are some people positive and optimistic and others are the complete opposite?

Mindset. It all starts with the mind.

Last week I wrote about 3 mindsets for high performance (Creator, Growth, Intention). These three mindsets help us perform at our best.

But even as we perform at our best, we run into challenges, resistance, and stress.

Some will push through these challenges. Some will get pushed down. Which mindsets do you need to push through the fire and come out stronger?

This week I want to talk about mindsets that make us unbeatable and unshakeable.

If you learn these mindsets, you will be faster to act, take smart risk, and grow through stress.

The Unbeatable Mind

Life is wonderful, and it’s a total b****. There is wonder and tragedy, struggle and success, wins and losses.

No one ever said life is easy. You will be challenged.

Weak-minded people desire a life without challenge. Strong-minded people desire growth and development.

And we admire strong-minded individuals. They seem to be resilient, confident, and capable.

What is it about them that we admire? it is their unbeatable mind.

Strong minded people have mindsets to help them see what is possible, take action, and navigate stress.

More specifically, the 3 mindsets are:

• The Abundance Mindset
• The Positive Mindset
• The Resilient Mindset

Just as the performance mindsets stack on each other, these three come in priority order. All three are important and useful, but when you stack them, each one builds upon the previous one.

Let’s start with the foundational mindset…

The Abundance Mindset

To understand the abundance mindset, we must also acknowledge its opposite: the scarcity mindset.

This mindset is all about the possibility and opportunity for you.

Do you believe there is enough? Plenty?

Or do you believe we are all fighting for scraps?

Is there endless opportunity for you? Or is there limitation?

The scarcity mindset holds us back from taking action. This mindset views the world as a place of limits and restrictions. If we try and fail, there may not be another opportunity to try again.

This mindset also makes us hold onto things we need to let go of. Things like:

• Bad relationships
• Old and broken stuff
• Jobs that we hate

On the other hand, the abundance mindset frees us to take action because there is enough.

• enough love
• enough money
• enough success
• enough opportunity

When you start from a place of scarcity, we confine our view of the future. With the abundance mindset, we see possibility.

The abundance mindset helps shape our view of what’s possible.

The next mindset helps us kickstart our actions.

The Positive Mindset

Our minds can be positive, neutral, or negative.

It is worth noting that the entire field of positive psychology recognizes that a positive brain works better than a negative or neutral brain. Shawn Achor writes about this brilliantly in his book The Happiness Advantage.

The positive mindset is not one of happiness. It is one of optimism.

Positive minds believe:

• You are lucky
• Everything will work out
• Good things happen to you

With this mindset in place, your brain is better able to recognize opportunity, take risk, and see the good in situations.

These all will help you take action and continue taking action.

The negative mindset empowers the opposite feelings:

• You are unlucky
• There will be turmoil ahead
• Something bad will happen to you

With a negative mindset, the brain focuses on all the bad things and gets distracted from recognizing opportunity.

This negativity motivates us to NOT take action. “It’s too risky,” the mind says. “Better stay safe and not do anything.”

Positivity is amplified with an abundance mindset. When you believe there is enough AND you believe things will work out, You will be unstoppable… so long as you can keep going through stress.

Enter the 3rd mindset.

The Resilient Mindset

Resilient people are tough.

They also get tougher as the work through more challenges.

As Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes, they are anti-fragile… the get stronger through disorder.

This is the mindset that keeps you taking action when the going gets tough.

You can have an abundance mindset and see what is possible. You can have a positive mindset and believe things will work out. But if you have a fragility mindset, stress will crush you.

Imagine someone who has abundance, positivity, and fragility as mindsets.

These folks talk a big game about being positive, using visualization, manifesting, and on and on… but then they crumble at the first sign of challenge. They start tons of things, but never finish them.

Is this you?

It used to be me.

Resilience / fragility is not a judgment call about who you are as a person. It is simply a mindset on how you manage stress. Do you work through it, because challenge makes you stronger? Or do you quit, because challenge is difficult and doesn’t feel good?

Resilient people push through the pain and stress of challenge.

The fragile mindset keeps you safe from all that pain, thus keeping you stagnant.

The Wrap Up

Your “mindset” is not a single thing. It is a variety of ways of thinking and being which dictate how you act. These “ways of thinking” differ depending on the situation.

If you find yourself blocked from taking action, you may have a scarcity mindset or a negative mindset.

Recognize that there is a ton of opportunity, and if you fail, you will have only learned. This will give you an advantage the next time you try.

Also, accept that there will be stress and challenge. This is part of the journey.

You can accept and adapt? Or you can sit still and do nothing.

Mindsets are things we just “have.” But when we recognize we can choose a mindset, we can shape them into performance enhancing tools.

Shape your tools.

And get out there and crush it.

Clark