I often wonder what the best parenting methods are or what it is that we are suppose to focus on each day as a parent to ensure that our children are growing up to the best of their ability. I have seen the TV specials, read one or two books, developed an open ear to other parental advise and even searched the web from time to time over the years. Everything came back mixed and really made no sense to the way I was raised or my beliefs. My wife and I have come to one common agreement in raising our children and that is that we will always show them love, respect, always engage them, always be there for them, always discuss everything as we would rather them hear it from us than somebody else and always build them up with the confidence that they can accomplish anything they put their mind to.
This past week during one of our many snow days this year I was in the other room and I overheard a conversation between my oldest two that made me so extremely proud. My 6 year old was talking about how she couldn't accomplish a task she had coming up as it seemed to hard. Instantly my 8 year old jumped in and said "Do you know what your problem is? You have a fixed mindset. You have already given up on yourself. The event hasn't even happened yet and you are already telling yourself that you will fail. Your mindset is fixed on failure so you will probably fail. I suggest that you believe in yourself and open up your mindset to success before you even try." My 6 year old responded immediately with "that actually makes a lot of sense" and that was that as they walked out of the room and carried on with being kids playing in snow. Proof that if you let yourself you can change your mindset immediately.
What put a smile on my face is that they completely understand that how you attack a situation is all up to you. Your mindset and ability to consciously tell yourself the outcome almost always is the outcome. I have been in to many races, situations in life, etc...where the thought of failure started to creep in and what happens? You start to have doubts, you slow down, your posture sucks, your cortisol levels increase, you loose focus, your a bear to be around and confidence in the simple tasks goes away. Where when you have faith, belief, vision or anything related to success or a positive mindset its typically a win/win.
Fixed mindsets are difficult in the sense that its hard to figure a way out of a situation when your in the thick of it. Your vision may be that life just isn't fair and that everything and everyone is out to get you.
I know first hand that life will always throw you a curve ball and its your mindset that will be the ability to see through the thick trees towards the next path in life. I am not saying that I nor anyone else is perfect at this because us as humans are not perfect optimistic creatures. I believe its a percentage based approach to how individuals deal with success, failure or a stage of being in plateau. Some individuals 99% of the time never skip a stride and move on to the next step, some individuals 99% of the time stress or focus on the negative and then you have everyone in between. We all need to take in, evaluate the world but its those of success and the ones you want to model after that move on and learn from the stress.
Over the past week I have had about 25 things on my plate that I have been trying to digest and apply to next step focus. Well in typical true fashion I was not giving the larger pieces on that plate the attention they needed so the plate started to overflow...which is fancy terms for I started to gain anxiety. No problem though as my answer to most things is a LONG solo run. The long run has always been my go to creative space in life. Its just me and the ability to zone in so preciously on each task I need to take that the runs are usually almost not long enough for everything I can accomplish. When I returned from my run my fixed mindset was gone and I knew what steps to take and within 20 minutes life was a beautiful thing again.
So end game conclusion from this post is your going to have to work towards avoiding a negative fixed mindset in life. I know its not an easy thing to just wake up each day, throw a smile on your face and everything will go smoothly. That is rarely the case as the adventure of life will always constantly push you to learn more about who you are. Its your mindset that will push through the tough times and accomplish anything you put your mind to.
As always I challenge you to wake up each day and always focus on the three key words I love....Make It Count!!!
Also my 8 year old is available for motivational speeches if needed...ha ha!!!
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