Successful thinking is a mindset that enables us to reach our full potential. It provides us with the mental discipline to create and achieve positive outcomes. By tapping into the essentials of well-defined and controlled thinking, we can learn to determine and implement actions that will enhance our professional and personal lives.
How we think affects how we function in life. Transforming thoughts that can lead to poor decision making and outcomes to ones that promote resolve and focus will take a concerted effort on your part. It’s an investment that will challenge you to develop new skills to cultivate a successful frame of mind.
How to Transform Your Mindset
This transformation is a process that is strictly about you and your willingness to do the leg work. To become a successful thinker, focus on these eight powerful actions:
(1) Know who you are:
Analyze your mindset in terms of your professional as well as personal success. In what ways does your current thinking add value to or impede the quality of your life? Do you love what you do or are you simply going through the motions?
(2) Take responsibility for your choices:
The onus is on you. Assume responsibility for the way you think, how you react, and what you do. Once accomplished, creating productive and positive changes to your life will be within your ability to control.
(3) Be resilient:
Challenging situations are an inevitable part of life. To transform setbacks into opportunities, be flexible and think outside the box. Initiate action by focusing on resolving the obstacles rather than wallowing in your negative emotions.
(4) Establish clear goals:
Determine where you are now and where you want to be in your career, home life, and relationship with others. Create and implement goals that will define a new pathway towards success. Take time to make these goals your priority.
(5) Persevere through adversity:
While you might occasionally stumble and fall, pick yourself up and brush yourself off. Don’t allow misfortune to win. You will achieve your next level of success whenever you can challenge yourself to strategically work through life’s obstacles.
(6) Learn and grow:
Become insatiably curious about learning and doing new things. Your exposure to diverse and innovative opportunities will enable you to reach your full potential as you learn along the way.
(7) Believe in yourself:
Pave your own way to success. You can accomplish great things with the right amount of confidence, purpose, ethics, and trust in who and what you are. Believe that you can, and you will be halfway there.
(8) Practice Gratitude:
Find time to be thankful for the people in your life who have supported and encouraged you along the way. Your family, friends, and colleagues can play a vital role in enriching your journey with their love and joy. They deserve your thanks for lighting up your pathway to success.
In John C. Maxwell’s book, How Successful People Think, he outlines seven different ways successful people think.
These skills include:
- They look at problems and obstacles as challenges and opportunities for growth.
- They believe progress equals success.
- They focus on their vision and never get distracted.
- They are disciplined and are consistent with what they do.
- They treat failure as something temporary, and they don’t dwell on the past.
- They believe everything is possible if they are resourceful enough.
- They do it because they want to, not because they have to.
In addition to reading books and articles on the power of thoughts, watch and learn. Identify people who you deem to be successful. What makes them successful and how do their thinking skills add value to the quality of their lives? Select people from diverse age groups, ethnicity, and backgrounds. What sets them apart from others? What strategies can you take away from them? To reap the benefits, be sure to incorporate any key learnings into your daily way of thinking.
Written by: Patricia K. Flanigan, Smart Strategies for Successful Living
Patricia K. Flanigan has worked in higher education for over 28 years. She holds a doctoral degree in Organizational Leadership from the University of La Verne as well as a M.A. in Latin American Studies and B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before retiring and moving to Idaho in 2015, she served as the dean of online education and learning resources at Saddleback College, a large community college in Southern California. She currently consults in higher education, writes for local magazines, and serves as an Affiliate Faculty member at Boise State University. She works in collaboration with LEARN (Lifelong Education and Aging Resource Network). Since February 2017, she has been the founding director and an author for Smart Strategies for Successful Living, a community-based website designed to promote quality aging. As an educator, her focus is to inspire others to live and age well.
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