Adopting a “growth mindset” is the first step to improving your life and experiencing more happiness and success. Unfortunately, there is not a “one size fits all” approach to accomplishing any of this, so we’re all pretty much on our own, when it comes to navigating the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.
However… we can absolutely get inspiration, guidance, encouragement, and useful tips from a multitude of sources, including books, websites, seminars, motivational videos, blogs, life coaches, seminars, keynote speakers, therapists, mentors, and — on a case-by-case basis — social media. (BTW… I’m talking about motivational and inspiring social media posts, not celebrity gossip, negative news, frightening statistics, gloomy prognostications, or divisive, politically fueled misinformation.)
Question: Have you tried unsuccessfully to use positive thinking techniques or philosophies in the past ? If so, you’re not alone… far from it, as a matter of fact!
I think there are three primary reasons self improvement strategies generally don’t work:
- A lack of personal commitment, on the part of the individual, to make meaningful changes in attitudes and behavior
- Negativity bias: The tendency of people to focus on past failures, problems, and perceived obstacles, rather than solutions, opportunities, and possibilities
- The force of habit: The natural tendency to live your life on “autopilot” instead of consciously being aware of your decisions and the intrinsic freedom we’re born with to choose actions, responses, reactions, attitudes, thoughts, and mindsets
The Three Step Process to Success
Step one: One of the most important decisions you can make is to take personal responsibility for your life. That’s easier said that done, but once you realize you can’t depend on other people and the outside world to create the life you want, then you’ve taken a quantum leap toward attaining a higher level of self empowerment.
Step two in your path to self realization is to adopt strategies and intentions for becoming the best version of yourself that you can be. That involves creating a written plan, perhaps in the form of a journal, and focusing every day on converting those plans to actions and more positive attitudes.
The third and final step to advancing forward in life is to follow through. That step is never ending, however, because it requires you to continually evaluate your progress, make adjustments along the wayd, and sometimes start (all over) again. Each time you do that, you’ll hopefully be doing so from a stronger and more resourceful vantage point.
That, in a nutshell, is my attempt to simplify the complicated process of self improvement. In previous blog posts, I have dissected positive thinking principles and taken a closer look at how to make attitudinal, mental, and spiritual shifts. I plan on doing more of that in the future, but today, I just wanted to get back to basics.
Once you establish a strong foundation, it’s much easier to build on that and create a satisfying life based on positive intentions, instead of passive hopes and dreams.
Thanks for stopping by to check out my latest “Thoughts that Work!”
I invite you to follow this blog (if you haven’t already) to receive notifications of future posts.
Until next time!
Thoughts that Work 