Growth Mindset people consider failure a challenge, recognizing that they have flaws and need to improve. Let’s try again harder.
• Growth Mindset people take mistakes as a challenge to improve, they don’t want to be perfect, they want to learn and keep learning. • Since they are ready to accept failures to improve themselves. They get much more opportunities as they try more. • The mindset here is to look at continuous improvement, more like a line that goes up or down but not a single dot. It’s continuous though curvy 🙂 • Growth Mindset people take the adverse condition as a challenge to grow further. • Growth Mindset believes that if they keep doing hard work, things will improve for the better.
Fixed Mindset people consider failure a sin, a conspiracy perpetuated by the whole world against them.
• Fixed Mindset people fear mistakes because they want to be perfect, and flawless, hence they don’t take risks and don’t want to make mistakes. • Since they fear failure, they are not open to trying more opportunities leading them to be sitting ducks. • The mindset here is to bet everything on one exam, one interview, which if they fail, the failure is forever. It’s like a single dot that defines and makes all the difference in life. Whereas in reality, it’s the line, not the dot which makes the difference. • Fixed Mindset people take the adverse conditions as bad luck, cribbing about it and trying to negotiate it without effort, or ignoring putting any effort. • Fixed Mindset people fear too much to believe in hard work and hence don’t put so much effort further on.
Our mind is always filled with thoughts, we keep thinking over and over…it never stops.
One study shows that we have more than 6,000 thoughts per day i.e 6.5 thoughts per minute (While awake).
Moreover, with all these distractions, digital information, and connections, the daily thoughts per person are increasing every decade, just imagine for future generation(s) it will be so fast, vast, and overwhelming.
We in general have two types of thoughts or thinking, Shallow thoughts and Deep thoughts:
Shallow thinking:
Shallow thoughts are the churn of daily thoughts, it is our day-to-day common thoughts and are a lot in numbers, almost 80% are shallow thoughts:
Everyday musings:
“I need to clean out car today.”
“Gotta add oatmeal to the grocery list.”
“What a gorgeous day. I should really get out and get some sun.”
“This is pending, that is pending, needs this, wants that, mostly thinking or wanting NOT much action.”
Social Comparisons:
He is earning so much, I am earning this much, in comparison with others.
S/he went on this trip, we didn’t or couldn’t go. Our neighbor’s car, house, etc…Again comparison…
Anxieties/Worries/Fear:
“I need to deliver this tomorrow”
“I have a job interview”
Fear of finance, health, etc
Multi-Tasking:
Working on something, while in a meeting – Yes when we are multi-tasking we are shallow thinking.
Shallow thoughts are pensive, negative in nature, and are mostly distractions.
Deep thinking:
Deep thoughts are where we get into the groove, thoughts are deeper, longer, and more meaningful, these are much lesser in numbers and are more creative:
Reading & understanding a book
Doing something productive – Writing code. Building something. Writing.
Gardening, pursuing your hobby.
Playing sports or music etc
Reflection or introspection.
Deep thoughts are more happy and meaningful in nature.
If you notice we have more Shallow thoughts when we are angry, anxious, or worried i.e when we are surrounded by negativity. And when we spend more time in shallow thinking, the lesser happy we are, and more negative thoughts crop in. It kind of goes in a loop…
Whereas the more we spend time in deep thinking, we are happy, our performance improves and we enjoy growing & learning.
So how to have more deep thoughts, how to move from shallow thinking to deep thinking as much as possible?
Change your mind channel
We need to change our mind channel. Convert our shallow thoughts to deeper thoughts, for that first let’s try this experiment:
Think about “white bears”(Or anything of your choice) for 30 seconds.
Then think of anything except “white bears” for the next 30 seconds. You will see that the “white bears” kept appearing in your thoughts.
Then give yourself a simple task that requires full attention, like sorting a deck of cards by suit in 30 seconds.
When finished, ask yourself if u thought about “white bears”. The answer will probably be “no”.
This experiment shows how changing our behavior even for smaller thoughts, can help us change our thoughts. You can think of a lot of other healthy ways to “change the channel” – like shooting hoops or baking cupcakes.
So whenever we are in grip of negative and shallow thoughts, change your mind channel by this simple exercise to something productive, to something you love doing.
At long we will be better, more successful, and more content if we garnish more deep & happy thoughts.
The ultimate question is whether want to “To be” or whether you want being “To do”
You want “To be” if:
1. You are happy with materialistic things in life, with a low conscience.
2. You like to boast about yourself in your social circles.
3. You want to make others envy. Or be envy with others.
4. You enjoy the end more than the means.
You want “To do” if:
1. You are happy with smaller things, more materials make things complicated.
2. You shy away from boosting in front of others.
3. Not much impact of others either ways (you don’t care what they have and don’t care what u have in comparison)
4. You enjoy means more than the end.
Off course these are extremes, we generally fall in the middle of “To be” or “To do”, its more like percentage, how much % “To be” and how much % “To do”.
Looking at the 5 to 10 years ahead in the future is difficult. But if we can do it, we can achieve most of our dreams.
When was the last time you looked at and visualized 5 years ahead, 10 years ahead?
For career? For personal life? For finance? For your family?
It is rare and not very consistent. Moreover, if someone asks you to plan for it, it doesn’t seem possible.
But the leaders and visionaries do that successfully.
So why can’t we think long-term? How can we do it? here are the pointers and solutions:
We like short term thinking as its effortless
Our brain is physically is not meant for thinking ahead, most of the brain functions are in current living mode. Maximizing the current, be it eating, be it drinking, be it earning money, etc. And that’s the reason we don’t easily sacrifice immediate pleasures, even after knowing that if we sacrifice now, we will get much better outcomes (In longer terms).
The marshmallow test is the biggest example (Wikipedia) where even a delayed gratification for the next 2-3 hours of getting more marshmallows if you don’t eat now, couldn’t be accomplished by many of us.
Solution
We need to exert self-control and willpower to avoid things even though it seems gratifying now but can have ill effects in the future.
Also, practice thinking towards the longer term. Visualize your long-term dreams because that will motivate us to control our present.
Requires knowledge and hard work to think about future
It requires wisdom, knowledge, and application of your learnings to think about the future. It requires hard work to think about the future.
Let’s do this small mind experiment:
Say you are a cricket fan and don’t know much about football, now if I ask you in the next 3 years where will India be in cricket, you will immediately have some answers based on your knowledge of cricket, current team, etc. But if I ask the same question in football, where we will be in the next 3 years, you will be blank.
Even though the above experiment is trivial but it shows that we can think of things in the future only if we have the knowledge and wisdom based on our learning.
This also proves that the more knowledge you can gain, the more you are capable of thinking, planning, and dreaming about the future.
Solution
Keep learning hard and understand as much as possible, specifically in the field where you want to succeed, that’s the only way you can see ahead of yourself.
Don’t want to plan the future because of past failures
We don’t see any value in thinking about the future based on past failures and experiences in a particular area or field. It might have happened in past, that you would have planned and executed but failed in it. With these failures in mind, it’s painful to plan for the future in that field.
But that’s exactly the opposite, the more we fail, the more we gain knowledge in the field, and next time our chances of success are much higher.
Most successful people are visionaries who can think about the future without getting emotional about pasts.
Failure just implies that the path we have taken may not be the right one, but does not mean that our goal, mission, or dream is untenable.
Solution
We need to let go of our past hindrances and learn from them, do better planning for our future.
I think if we can do these things consistently, we can be long-term thinkers and be successful in achieving our life dreams.
Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”
Ans – You lost because you didn’t do anything wrong.
Doing something wrong is the most important attribute for success. So let’s be wrong more number of times. Being wrong is most important to succeed and keep succeeding…You can succeed one time without doing anything wrong (By luck maybe) but if you want to succeed and succeed …you need to keep doing something wrong always…
Job hunting is hard — really hard. And you may want it to just be over. But it’s important to stay grounded throughout the process so you can make smart decisions along the way. Try these strategies to keep stress at bay:
Make an appointment with worry. Instead of letting anxious thoughts (“Are they going to call me back? “Will I ever find a job I love?”) tug at your attention all day, schedule an appointment with those heavy thoughts and only visit them once a day at a designated time. Tell yourself, “Each day at 9 AM I will give this subject five minutes of my complete focus.” Then, when those thoughts come to you at other times, as they will, remind yourself that you’ve got an appointment to think about those things later, and try to move on.
Focus on the process, not the outcome. Take the interview. Rather than fixate on whether you’ll get the job or not, spend time visualizing your best performance. Imagine the way you want to show up — confident, smiling, prepared. This will clear away some of the stress and allow you to perform at your best when the moment arrives.
Set aside time to think through possible futures. It’s easy to get caught up in the process, but don’t rush into anything. If you do get an offer, sit with it for at least 24 hours to give yourself enough space to consider which decision is going to most fulfill you and your long-term goals.
Overall it’s all about keeping calm and managing self and focus on the process instead of the outcome.
Most of the things in our life are random, yes we call it “luck” either good luck or bad luck. There are so many things that have been unpredictable in past, in present, and will be in the future.
If someone is saying there is no such thing and if most of the things in his or her life are planned, then it’s not real life, it’s a dream.
Moreover, if there is no randomness why do u think with the same amount of hard work & dedication in the same areas gives different results for different people? I do a lot of hard work in my work, I am sure you also do the same, but the results are always different for different people.
So Why it is? Is it God? Is it Destiny?
Frankly, no one has an answer to the above question. Serendipity play’s a big role.
So how can we still be successful after all this randomness and still get what we want?
First of all, success is a very relative term, we look up to others who have been successful in our path. But be sure they are actually looking up to someone else or something else to become successful. Yes someone can be content (Be satisfied with what they have) but given humans basic nature to aspire and become more…it kind of works against our basic nature.
So let’s reframe – How can we make it big?
These are two hacks that we can use to make it big:
Think Big & Dream Big – If success is given to chance and it’s rare, taking bigger leaps with each success is much better. So even if there are a lot of failures but one or more big successes will lead us to make it large. Think big, do big, and dream big!
Keep trying, keep giving urself chance – Keep trying, failure is so much upon the chance that figuring out the reason for failure is a waste of time. Yes u did wrong, yes u were persuaded wrongly by others, yes u came down the wrong path, yes this..yes that..continuously introspecting these is futile. Instead, keep trying and keep trying and keep trying! Lady luck will smile on you if you give her more chances!
