In our recent blog posts, we talked about the benefits of positive psychology and some tips for overcoming a negative mindset. We thought it would be a good idea to follow this up with some practical tips to reframe your thinking.

When we continue to replay negative thoughts in our mind, we start to believe them, and these negative thoughts will create a negative mindset. To overcome this, you can start with a technique called “reframing”.

Reframing is a simple method to shift your thinking about a situation to give it a different meaning. The reframing process is not difficult, but it takes some time and practice. What you think influences how you act so when you change your mindset, you will find it much easier to adapt your behaviors.

We will all deal with a negative mindset at some point in our lives. It might be a difficult day – for example, you got stuck in traffic, missed an important meeting, and your boss is upset that you are late again. Or it might be a series of negative events like finding out that you must spend money on another unanticipated and expensive home repair right after you found out that your company is not paying bonuses this year. You could then start thinking negative thoughts like you are unlucky or that nothing ever goes your way. External events can get into your head and create a negative mindset. If you let the negative mindset fester and don’t learn to overcome this, you could lead an unhappy life or struggle with depression.

A negative mindset can influence the decisions you make in your personal and professional life. If you want to avoid being overpowered and controlled by negativity, here are five ways you can adjust your mindset to be more positive.

Positive psychology focuses on mental assets rather than a person’s problems and weaknesses. It starts with the identification of character strengths and focuses on happiness and fulfillment. Although the positive psychology movement has endured its fair share of criticism, there are many benefits of positive psychology.

Studies show that techniques associated with positive psychology can boost emotional and social well-being. Positive psychology also explores how character strengths such as meaning and life purpose contribute to positive life outcomes such as better physical and mental health in older adults.

Success begins with a goal. Regardless of whether your goals are big or small, they will give you some purpose and keep you headed in the right direction. Unfortunately, many of us remain stuck at the goal stage. We start with good intentions, but we can't seem to make it happen. These are some common obstacles: struggling to get started, staying focused on the goal, overcoming setbacks, and recognizing progress.

Before we can believe in a goal that we've set for ourselves, we first need to have a good idea of what the goal looks like. This is where visualization comes in.

The other day I heard the song, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams and it made me smile and got me thinking about the characteristics of happy people.

Some people are hard-wired to be happy most of the time. These are the people who have a zest for life, they are energized, smile and laugh more often and focus on making things pleasant for others. What do happy people do differently?

In addition to publishing our book, Javier and I decided to start a Mindset Wizardry blog this year. Since August, we've been publishing weekly and have covered a wide variety of topics. It has been fun for us to share our thoughts and perspectives and we plan to continue this next year. As we close the year and reflect, we thought it might be helpful to share a few of our lessons learned from writing a blog.

They say that there are only two people in this world that you need to make proud. It's the 8-year-old version of you and the 80-year-old version of you.

If those two people are happy with the way you lived your life, it means you did everything right, and that your life had significance, contribution, and impact.

When you reflect and practice this simple, yet powerful exercise, you will be tapping into your experience and what you have learned. As a result, you can feel proud about it, and you can apply these same lessons into the future. It will also help you reflect on the things you still need to do in your life, so you avoid pain. You may ask, the pain of what? All of us make a choice between two pains - the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. What pain are you willing to suffer?

You Can Face ANY Challenge

What if I told you that almost every challenge is doable if you chop it down to size? Would you believe me?

When facing a difficult challenge, it is easy to get so worked up about it that you freeze up or quit. This happens when you feel like the problems are big and scary, like a monster. You are overwhelmed because you are facing the unknown, complexity or ambiguity. You feel like there is no escape and no way out. Then your mind tells you that you might as well give up. The task is impossible and there is no way that it can be accomplished.

If any of these thoughts enter your mind, you are simply looking for the easy way out. You are scared so you want to avoid what you fear. You want to hide from the problem and hope it goes away. All of us have done this at one time or another.

However, if you want to be successful, it is important to break this pattern and reframe how you think about challenges. Remember, most challenges do not have the potential to crush you and steal your dreams. Most problems are solvable, and this starts with changing your mindset and your approach.

What you think shapes your life. That’s because your mindset shapes your behavior, which indirectly controls the way things in your life unfold.

For example, if you believe that you are unlucky, then you will not take chances because you fear failure. You might also miss opportunities that appear. This is because you are focused on the things that could go wrong and this will make you feel worse about yourself. If you think you’re bad at your job, you won’t speak up in meetings, you’ll keep your head down, and you might be less likely to show up as a leader which could impact your ability to get a good raise or get promoted.

I have a confession --- I don't like being in the middle seat on a plane. Like many people, I prefer the aisle seat.

I was recently on a flight to Dallas and was bummed that I ended up in the middle seat. It was a quick flight so I figured I could just put on my headphones and zone out to a podcast. Instead, I ended up in an engaging dialogue with the woman who sat in the aisle seat.

It is often less overwhelming and more effective to make slight changes in behavior than taking major steps all at once.

Consider throwing a ball to hit a target. When we do this, our brains automatically perform incredibly complex math. When you throw that ball, you need to get the angle and the force precisely right. If your angle is only 5 degrees off, the ball will deviate from the intended course as it travels and will miss the target. The further it goes, the bigger the gap becomes.

This principle can work for us or against us.

We often hear that being more confident, believing in yourself, and regularly thinking positive thoughts will help you to feel happier and to even influence your life in a positive way. But here’s another factor you might not have considered: brain power. Did you know that mental focus, creativity, sharpness, and more can help to make you happier and even luckier?

In our last blog post, we talked about a metaphor for people who energize others and those who drain energy. We categorized people into three simple categories:

✅ STARs – create energy in others through optimism, generosity, and leadership

✅ Satellites – capture energy and influenced by others

✅ Black Holes – drain energy from others through negativity and conflict

We asked you to think about whether you are an energy giver or energy drainer for the people whose lives you touch.

If you are a STAR or aspiring STAR, click the link below to learn about some tips that you can use to ignite the STAR within you.

Did you know that one of the secrets to the magic behind thriving in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world is the power of positivity?

Why? Because positivity is at the core of our attitude. It is especially critical when it comes to facing a VUCA world filled with unknowns. Being positive in the midst of uncertainty, is key to overcoming adversity and thriving in it.

Do you enjoy being in your comfort zone? To some degree, you probably do – it is where you feel confident and competent, and you can do things efficiently and effectively. The downside of the comfort zone is that you stop challenging yourself and focus on doing the things you know so you can minimize stress and risk.

There are several compelling reasons why getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing.

In our book Magic Wizardry: The Magic Behind Thriving in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) World, we talk about the power of mindset coaching that enables the reader to have greater influence and impact while building team capability.

How do we coach ourselves or others to thrive in a VUCA world? We do this by building our mindset coaching skills.

A mindset coach helps people transform their mindset – breaking old patterns, beliefs and behaviors and building new, more productive ones that will help them achieve their goals. They do this by focusing on building the characteristics of a growth mindset such as curiosity, interest, open-mindedness, learning, etc.

In our last blog, we talked about our first four of seven helpful tips for overcoming your tendency to procrastinate. As a reminder, we covered (1) face your fears, (2) get clarity on your goals, (3) make a list, and (4) break projects down into manageable parts. This blog will get into the remaining three tips for overcoming procrastination.

In 2022 we are so inundated with choice and opportunity. There is just so much that we could do, we often end up not doing anything at all. Procrastination is delaying or putting off tasks until you absolutely have to do them. If you find yourself putting things off until the very last minute, you are procrastinating. Everyone deals with procrastination at one point or another. It is often a symptom of fear and is very common when people face Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity (VUCA).

Having an effective strategy for overcoming procrastination is CRITICAL if you want to overcome obstacles to be productive and ultimately create a more fulfilled life.

In our book Magic Wizardry: The Magic Behind Thriving in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) World, we show our readers techniques for mastering the skills of leading in a VUCA world and teaching others to do the same.

To coach yourself or to coach someone else, we developed a simple coaching model that we named S.H.I.F.T.

Change requires perseverance, also known as determination or grit. Perseverance is continuing to do something in spite of obstacles or difficulties. It is one of the best qualities to have because when you have perseverance, you will find a way to succeed.

To persevere we need to have faith that we actually can succeed. If we don’t believe success is possible for us, we will not be motivated to continue, especially when things get difficult. But this is the dilemma.