What Is Mindset and Why Does It Matter

“There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can.”–Henry Ford

How often have you heard someone say to open your mind or that someone has a closed mind about something? Most people have heard or said this at some point. Your mindset about specific issues and life, itself, is often set in certain ways, as you age.

If you aren’t clear on what a mindset is, or why mindsets matter, you won’t know what you need to do to change or grow. In this article, you’ll learn what mindset is and why that matters to your success.

Your mindset determines what you experience and the ideas you are open to. Your mindset sets your success in life, love, and business. Your mindset can be fixed in some ways about certain situations and ideas or you might have a growth mindset that allows you to grow as a person and live a happier life.

Mindset, according to Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, is the view you adopt, which determines how you live your life, you see the world, and make decisions. In other words, it is your perspective or your view of the world. It’s your beliefs about your abilities and qualities that form how you do things or see things. It’s your normal attitude or mental state.

Think about your strengths or talents.

• Are you musically inclined?

• Are you wise or intuitive?

• Are you creative?

How you answer these questions defines your mindset and provides clues as to how you view the world and yourself. Your mindset shapes your reality and your perception of what you can do and what’s out of reach for you.

Your mindset can be optimistic, negative or a mixture of both. Your mindset can be that of a person with a sunny outlook on life, an athlete’s focus on success or a business owner's

methodical way of thinking.

There are different types of mindsets as well. The fixed mindset and the growth mindset are the two main ones that determine how you see things. You might have a social mindset, a fear mindset, lazy or envy mindset. Maybe you have a business mindset, a follower mindset or a dreamer mindset. You can possess a creative mindset, a confident mindset, or have a gratitude mindset. Your mindset might be one of greed or anger. You can have different mindsets about different areas of your life as well.

Why Mindset Matters

The mindset plays a significant role in how you cope with challenges. When you were in school if you had an open or growth mindset helped you achieve more and learn by putting in more effort. Your mindset can determine how resilient or persistent you are.

Your mindset determines how successful you will be in every area of your life. For example, someone with a growth mindset is much more likely to succeed because they are driven and believe to always aim for bigger and better things. Those with a closed or fixed mindset become stagnant, lacking the motivation to achieve more than they already have.

Your mindset is the force behind whether you thrive or avoid challenges, how you view failures and setbacks and how you persevere toward your goals.

There's one important thing to keep in mind as you read through my blogs on mindset this month. You can change your mindset when you realize it’s keeping you stuck. Is there a time when you have changed your mindset and then ended up with a different result?

My outlook changed to "I'm going to do this no matter what it takes." And, it took a lot.

You might already know about my health quest over the last few years. Since July of 2019, I have been kicking ass and taking names to lose weight and get healthy. The fear of death, insulin shots, and turning 50 were enough to get me to change my mindset. I have dieted so much over the years that I had become stagnant in my health outlook and had the mindset of "I can't do it so I'm just going to at least try not to get worse." Well, things changed. I "got worse" and had to do something. My outlook changed to "I'm going to do this no matter what it takes." And, it took a lot. Stay tuned.