The 3 most underrated mindset shifts for success.
You can’t bypass the foundation, if you want to build a house that lasts.
- Alexi Panos
Before we get to the three reasons why you clicked to read this article, I want to comment on the quote above. Let us assume for a second that your goal is to build a house and that you are about to do it by yourself. As much as I believe that building the foundation that will support the house is the most important task that cannot be bypassed, I equally believe that the true foundation for this kind of work is priming yourself with the mindset of the construction worker that will excavate the ground to install the foundations and that will go through long hours of work, sometimes very exhausted and with blistered hands. The foundation is to get yourself in a mindset to handle situations where as soon as you start excavating, you find solid rocks and that it will require putting more effort into drilling through the rock or maybe changing slightly the position where you wanted to have the house to begin with. You have to get ready for the fact that building that house might take more time than you thought it would and even more financial and physical investment that you would have thought. With this being said, let’s dive right into the 3 mindset shifts that you will need to install if you want to succeed at ANY goal.
1. Get ready for the long game
I think we live in a culture today where everybody wants bigger, faster, stronger and better for the least amount of time investment, the least amount of work and the least amount of effort. With the acceleration that the internet and new technologies brought to our lives, it is easy to understand why people started adopting that mindset. However, it is my firm belief that every goal that is worth achieving won’t fall on your lap in a blink of an eye, especially if you are aiming at achieving something that you’ve never done before. So what does “being ready for the long game really mean”?
Patience. Give yourself permission to keep your head down on your craft for as much as needed. It doesn’t mean sit down and wait for opportunities, it means going ahead and creating them and being ready to put in the work for as long as necessary, until your vision is achieved. Sometimes the only reason why people won’t achieve their goals is because they didn’t keep at it long enough.
Give up wanting immediate gratification. This mindset alone will set you up greatly to achieve your goal. Wanting immediate gratification distracts you from the long term vision where your mind should be constantly focused. Sometimes, you will have to say no to apparent small victories in the way, to stay true to the vision that you have for the goal at the end.
Perseverance. Obstacles are a full part of the game. In my opinion they materialize your limiting beliefs. So, it is important to go beyond them in order to explore new ground.
2. Expect failure.
At this point, I think we all know that obstacles are to be expected and that the journey will certainly not be an easy ride. However, it is important to know alone, that knowing that a setback will come, doesn’t necessarily prepare you to deal with it. I want to give here some sort of framework in order to deal with your failures when they happen.
No guilt, no shame, no blame. The worst thing that people do when they get confronted with challenges is that they let those situations erode their self esteem and self confidence. This is the first thing that I want you to prime yourself against. Failing does not mean that you are a failure. It only means that you need to get back at it harder or from a different perspective. Find what it is for yourself and get back to it.
Find the lesson. As I said before, it is my firm belief that our failures are more often than not just highlighting our limiting beliefs. It is then your responsibility to get aware of the beliefs that are not serving you anymore and the mindset readjustments that will be necessary in order to rise above the situation.
Find a support network. As much as being prepared for failure can give you a mental advantage, when it hits, it sometimes hits hard and then we loose track of the big picture. In such situations, it is important to have people that you are accountable to, that won’t let you be less than who you are. People who will genuinely remind you of your purpose, your why and help you reconnect with your drive.
3. Know when to adjust the sails.
When you start the process to achieve any goal, you have a vision in mind, an idea of what things should look like when the goal is achieved and maybe even an idea of how things should go along the way. As you start working on your goal there are some parameters that might adjust that initial perspective or maybe your vision will unfold even more. It is important to know how to play with all of them.
If we go back to the example of building a house by yourself, let’s say you had an initial orientation of the house and an initial idea of how many floors you wanted. As you start digging for the foundations, you find in one corner of your land very solid rocks that you can’t possibly dig through. A solution to that problem might be to just build the house on another corner of your land or give it a different orientation. You have to be open to it. Another scenario might be that the soil of your land cannot support a triplex and instead of having a house on multiple floors, you might need to build a house on just one floor but on a wider surface.
The whole point is that things will most certainly not go as you planned initially and instead of stopping right there with the all or nothing mentality, a viable way forward will be to adjust your sails and be flexible.
Let’s continue the conversation in the comments! Let me know what other mindset shifts you think are necessary to guarantee success. If this article helped you in any way, let it help others and share it.
Thank you for reading.
- Xavier