How Does Your Mindset Help (Or Doesn’t Help) You Overcome Challenges?
If you’ve entered a bookstore recently and gone over to the “Self-help” section, you will have seen shelf after shelf of books with the word “mindset” in the title. Or, alternatively, do a quick Google search right now: you will have millions and millions of helpful (or not so helpful) articles on the importance of developing the right “mindset,” and how this will make you into a better and happier version of yourself.
But what does this word really mean as we go about our day-to-day lives?
Like yourself, I have had my fair share of struggles and challenges throughout my life…
As a teenager, I was in a terrible car accident in which the car flipped over—twice—and I fell out through the passenger window. Had the car rolled over one more time, I would not be here to write this post.
My father passed away when I was 15 years old, leaving me to care for my toddler sister and provide emotional support for my widowed mother.
I could only afford crackers with my limited $50 per week budget during my travels in Rio de Janeiro, where I went after graduating from university. While my friends routinely indulged in the more expensive items on the menu, it became a habit of mine to automatically pick what was the cheapest.
I commuted in crowded "peseros" (the name originated from their 1-peso cost at that time) as a young professional in Mexico City, something very distant from comfortable Ubers or reliable public transportation. (If you're familiar with Frida Kahlo, she experienced a life-threatening accident while riding in a pesero that left her tied to her bed an extended period of time.)
I frequently left the office around 3am (or even later) when I was a young professional in New York. I remember shedding tears in the morning showers.
So why am I sharing all of this?
Definitely not as an attempt to seek compassion or sympathy, but because it serves as a reminder that our life is fragile. While we cannot always control what happens to us, we can always choose how we respond, ensuring that we’ve tried everything to live life to the fullest, no matter the setbacks we encounter along the way.
Some part of how we respond to life’s challenges is probably a fixed element of our personality, but the good news is that our mindset, how we look at life and how we allow life’s challenges—big and small—impact us, is something we can influence. Something we can develop. Something we can train, just as if it were a muscle.
So, I would urge you to pause for a moment and assess the baseline level of your own mindset. Is it one characterized by courage and optimism, rather than pessimism and limiting beliefs? Are you actively attempting to cultivate a growth mindset, or do you find yourself stuck in a fixed mindset?
What would happen if this were something you took full charge of than something that just “is”?
Perhaps some of those challenges you are facing might reveal themselves to be rather trivial in nature? Perhaps you would see opportunities where before you saw only obstacles? Perhaps you would get to experience a limitless life rather than a life of limitation?
Here is what I believe: With the right mindset, anything is possible.
