What is a mindset?
Mindset is one of those terms that people bandy about but actually, what is a mindset and why should we care?
A mindset is an established set of attitudes. Or: A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person’s responses to and interpretations of situations.
Your mindset is the lens through which you look and creates the world you experience!
No wonder mindset is such a big deal – if you go through life looking through the lens of:
“what if something bad happens?”
you programme your mind to see the evidence of the bad things that do happen. In this way, you prevent yourself from taking chances or opportunities as they might be seen by another person.
Instead, if you look through the lens of
“something wonderful is about to happen!”
you are ready to see even the slightest bit of wonder and magic going on.
Read more: How to turn a pessimist into an optimist
Similarly, imagine the difference between thinking
“people are out to get me” (looking over your shoulder all the time)
versus
“people are so kind”, where you see evidence of kindness all around.
Our minds are like search engines – whatever we put in, we get out.
Another way of looking at it is from a set point. In the happiness research, there is a concept of a happiness set point.
In fact, people have a point on a scale of 1 – 10 which is familiar to them and this becomes their set point for happiness.
So, if I am used to being a 6 out of 10 on a happiness scale, then life circumstances will only in fact ever temporarily change my happiness level, before I return to being a 6 out of 10.
This means that we have to take control of our familiar set point and deliberately begin changing it if we want to experience more happiness in life.
If your mindset is your blueprint for your experience, it goes from being a buzzword to a critical success factor in any area of life.
So that’s what is a mindset!
