Can Your Mindset Determine How You Do in Life?

Does your mindset really determine things like how much money you make, the quality of your relationships and even your physical appearance?

Or is it just a bunch of hype built up by pop psychologists, and scam artists?

As it turn out your mindset can affect all of these things in a huge way...

How?

Well for example say you are out for a stroll and all of a sudden you trip on a rock and fall to the ground, people start laughing at you and you feel stupid...

Clearly it was an accident and you can't change what happened but you do have a choice on how to react to this development in 2 different directions... The choice you make will determine what happens next.

On one hand you can chose to interpret this as "I have bad luck" or "I'm clumsy", on the other hand you can interpret this as "I need to pay more attention".

The first choice leads to more "bad luck" and accidents, the second one leads to personal development towards the future.

Of course choosing to be more careful alone won't keep this from happening again, it's the belief that you are in complete control of your body and how you navigate your environment that makes the difference.

If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you could do absolutely anything that every crossed your mind would you act the same way you act now? Absolutely not...

And actions determine where you are in life, not fame, money or good looks but actions, because through action you can get the money, the fame, even the good looks.

And this applies to every aspect of your life...

Physical

How often do you work out?
Do you eat healthy food that nourishes your body?

Most people don't, but why is it? A recent poll figured out that most people who don't do any physical activity find exercise to be "hard" "painful" and "boring", while the people who do exercise find it to be "exciting", "fun" and "stimulating".

You see everybody knows that in exercise is a must in order to keep your body healthy but not everybody does it and it's because of different mindsets.

The people who don't exercise see it as a horrible thing you have to do to stay healthy like a colonoscopy...

And our brains our wired to avoid anything that will cause pain, so obviously these people will never stick to an exercise regimen, unless they change the way they think about exercise and eating right.

If you look at yourself in the mirror and you don't like what you're seeing you have 2 choices to make you can choose to interpret it as "My body hates me", "I'm destined to be fat" or you can choose to interpret this as what it really is...

A call to action, a reminder that you need to get to work on taking better care of your body.

First figure out how to make exercise and eating right fun and delicious (ask your brain and it will always give you an answer) and then answer the call, get to work on adopting a healthy lifestyle.

Relationships

With relationships the same idea applies, and I'm not just talking about romantic relationships, I'm talking about friends, family, colleagues and significant others.

Let's say for example you hit a rough patch with a friend or a relative and you're no longer on speaking terms. To be completely honest with you I think that there are some relationships that are not worth saving (the toxic ones) but let's say this one is.

You have 2 choices once again:
You can interpret this as "That person is so pig headed and will never change, it's all their fault!" which is what most people do, or you can interpret this as "I need to learn how to communicate better with this person and lower my guard around them".

The first option keeps both of you distant and bitter towards one another, the second option is proactive towards having better relationships not just with that person but with everyone you meet.

Figure out what you or the other person are or were mad about (What you are really mad about not your superficial excuses) and look to come to terms you both can live with.

Financial

How many times have you wanted to buy something or go to a place or do something fun and you went to check you bank account and decided not to get that thing, go to that place or do that activity?

How many times have you been allowing yourself to be controlled by money?

And I say it this way because it has really been your decisions and your actions that lead you to where you are in your life right now and what drives that action is your mindset.

Most people never find out how money works so they spend their whole life thinking that the only way to have money is to get a job and exchange your time for money.

That might have been a good option in the 50's but not anymore, now the price of living is much more higher than ever and it's only going to go up, more and more kids are graduating from college going into a workplace overloaded with demand for jobs and with huge debts from their student loans.

In this case you have 3 choices...

1. Roll over and go on welfare.
2. Work a job and maybe move out of your parents house by the time you're 40.
3. Or learn how to play the money game.

Again you can't controls what happens in the economy or how many jobs are available but you can choose to react to these things in different more empowering ways.

First get a goal.
Figure out what you want to earn and how you're going to earn it (ETHICAL OPTIONS ONLY!) think about it this way...

If you heard your best friend is going to die of cancer unless you get $200,000 for a surgery, you have 6 months to come up with the money and you can't steal it, borrow it or ask for it, what would you do?

Would you figure out a way to get the money? Or would you rather tell your friend, "sorry you're probably going to die"?

I'm hoping you would want to save their life right? You might doubt yourself a little bit but you know you would try as hard as you possibly could right? I mean you would be completely obsessed with getting that money, no task would be too big and you would just hustle till you dropped.

That's how you get the things you want in your life, that's the mindset you need to achieve success. It's do or die, all or nothing.

Because the funny thing is, failure is just a myth, it doesn't exist, if you never give up you can't fail. Once again if you have a financial setback you can interpret it as "I have bad luck" or "I'm just bad with money". On the other hand you can say "what can I learn from this so it doesn't happen to me again?" and move on.

You see you can't control other people, the economy or other people's emotions but what you can control is your reaction to every situation in your life, if you decide to be proactive and think in terms of solutions not problems...

You can have anything you want.

Hope you found this helpful, share your opinion in the comments and I will see you next time.

Yamil Senior
"Better Life Project"