Rewiring Your Mindset for Success: Effective 8 Tactics for Personal and Professional Growth

Mindset is a big subject. There are many facets to it. We have only scratched the surface of the neuroscience behind it. And we’ve started to look at some ideas on how you can craft and frame a mindset that serves you well. In the previous article, Mindset in Action: Key Strategies for Any Leader to Take, we explored how limiting beliefs can hold you back and steps you can take to overcome that. In this article, we are diving deeper into building a long-term strategy to ensure that you move past your roadblocks for positive growth mindset success.

New habits and routines

How you manage your day can impact the way you think. If you feel like you are already behind first thing in the morning, then that will likely influence how you go about the rest of your day. Your mindset may even be, “I am always behind before I even get started, I cannot keep up with everything going on.” How ‘fixed mindset’ of you. The statement itself may reflect a truth, but that is only because of the habits and routines you have established for first thing in the morning.

If you know you need time to ease into your day, build time and space into your schedule for that. Shift the mindset to be more like, “I have a plan for each morning. I am in control of how I start each day.” Then build the plan to allow that to happen. Be as detailed as necessary in your habits and routines. If that means you list out each step you do every morning, do it. If you just require a block of time, then work with that. Either way, you’ll want to look at each day and your general schedule to build a set of habits and routines that will allow you to have the mindset that you are in control of your schedule.

Surrounding yourself with the right support structure and influencers

This is a critical step in shifting your mindset and, more importantly, maintaining it. There are multiple studies available that show that you are most likely going to reflect the five people you spend most of your time with. If they see the world through a fixed mindset, you likely will too.

This is becoming more apparent from a social media standpoint as well. Suddenly, the idea of who influences you can mean something very different from it did a decade or two ago. Typically, this conversation comes up related to school-aged children and their social influencers. The impact is real. Kids get ideas about their image, what they should look or feel like through snippets of reels, shorts, and TikTok videos. Life imitates that as well. Think of the short conversations you have with the people you spend the most time with. Do those sometimes play out the same as a sixty-second video on a specific subject? How they think can easily become how you think. And, as a leader, be mindful of your influence. Your team is watching and listening. What you do, is what they do. What you say is what they say. How you think is how they think. This is very much a circle of mindset. Choosing who you surround yourself with will be a choice of mindset as well.

Community is an energy source

There is power that comes from those that you surround yourself with. Having a large community of similarly minded people can be highly advantageous. And when I say like-minded here, I mean more about being growth mindset oriented versus always thinking the same thing. There is a difference between mindset similarities and having the exact same thoughts. The diversity within the community is its strength. The commonality from a growth mindset is the bond between you all. This can fuel new ideas, further develop existing ones, and create the challenge of always looking upwards and ahead.

Set goals and track them

Goals make a difference. That is why there is so much written and said about them. Even I have written dozens of goal-oriented articles in the past five years. It is your personal roadmap for success. Regardless of how formal you make them, you still need to have goals with a way to track your progress. This is an excellent way to ground your mindset in what needs to be accomplished, while allowing your mindset to expand what you already know. Seeing your progress and identifying the successes you attain will serve to strengthen your growth mindset for future endeavors.

Journal to identify the successes you are experiencing

Writing down your experiences, your thoughts, and your feelings is a great way to help understand your mindset in the moment. This doesn’t have to be lengthy or highly formal, just find a good way that works for you to capture your thoughts as you progress through projects and daily life. If daily journalling doesn’t work for you, maybe weekly will be enough for what you need to get from it. Perhaps, if writing doesn’t work, try typing. And if that isn’t your thing, perhaps voice journalling will work. Once upon a time, that was only in science fiction. Let this be your ‘captain’s log’.

Replace your negative soundtracks with positive ones

I mentioned this in our previous article. Choose positive thoughts that counteract your negative soundtracks, and repeat them regularly. For example, instead of "I'm not good enough," repeat "I am capable and worthy." It doesn’t have to feel like cheesy affirmations. Positive self-talk is a real thing. It can help in moments of concern or anxiety, as well as when taking on bigger projects that will take longer. Change the soundtrack in your mind, this is your radio station — WYOU or KYOU.

Build positive momentum

Take small, consistent actions that reinforce your new positive soundtracks. As discussed above or in the more tactical approach to mindset, these could include setting achievable goals, practicing gratitude, and seeking positive influences in your life.

Stay accountable

Utilize the group of people you surround yourself with or your community to help keep yourself accountable to how you are thinking. When you run into challenges or even a string of negative thoughts, these are the folks that will be able to bring you back into a positive, growth oriented mindset. You want to maintain the good soundtracks, and your accountability team will help you stay there.

Utilizing any or all of these tactics to help you push through mindset challenges will keep you moving forward. If you find yourself falling back into a more fixed mindset on certain areas of your life or business, these can be used like a checklist to shift you back towards your growth focused thinking.

Building and maintaining a mindset is not just about words or thoughts, it is practice and action, continuously. All of us have examples of where we wanted to stay positive, but found ourselves in a different place moments later when encountering a negative experience or someone else’s fixed mindset. It is in those moments that drawing on the ideas and concepts above can help you cross that bridge and find yourself on the better side of the challenge and with a clearer path forward. Press on. Great things await.

How can you overcome any mindset roadblocks you may face?

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