Mindset Is Everything

Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, every decision you make in your life depends on your mindset.

Your mindset is the collection of your thoughts, values, beliefs, and ideas that shape the way you see the world. There are about 7 billion people on this planet, and all of us see the world differently. Where others see only problems, some see opportunities.

Mindset separates the world’s population into those who keep fighting and those who quit.

Ever heard of the poverty mindset? Yeah, it’s real.

If you’re poor, there is a high chance that you have internalized a series of thoughts that cause poverty. The powerful thing about thoughts is that they become real to us, and eventually, we act on them. This is the poverty mindset.

Your attitude towards money and wealth shapes your financial health.

People who want instant gratification are more likely to spend their money indiscriminately as soon as they receive their salary. They buy all kinds of luxury watches, fancy bags, shoes, and so many more. So while they seem to look rich on the outside, that’s mostly not the case. They might be deeply in debt and one paycheck away from being homeless.

Now perhaps the example above clearly applies to someone who’s gainfully employed with a good salary. If such a person becomes poor, then that’s because their choices probably led them to that path. So, what about those who were born into poverty then? Are they poor because they have a poverty mindset?

Hmm, this is tough.

On the one hand, people born into poverty never had a choice. If we did, no one will be born with a credit score lower than the temperature of Antarctica. It’s not your fault if you were born poor. However, as you grow in such an environment, you’ll end up absorbing certain ideas about money from your parents. These ideas, mostly, will keep you in poverty.

For starters, you keep hearing the phrase that the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer. With this mindset, you won’t even attempt to change your situation. After all, poor people can only get poorer.

To break this cycle, the mindset has to change first.

If you believe wealth is evil and rich people are the devil, you’re likely to never become rich. If you believe rich people became rich out of luck and not effort, you’re likely to never be rich. If you believe that everyone but yourself is responsible for your life, you’ll definitely never be rich.

It’s not that these thoughts cause you to be poor, per se. Not really. What happens is that your thoughts and beliefs cause you to consistently make choices that keep you poor. So if you believe rich people became rich out of luck, you’ll depend on fate and chance to make you rich rather than hard work.

You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than to gain financial independence by luck.

In other aspects of our lives, mindset is king.

If you believe you don’t deserve love and think everyone is better than you, you’re likely to endure abuse from your partner. With self-worth and self-love comes self-respect. You won’t tolerate anyone who treats you as less than an equal.

While mindset is internal, it’s a product of so many external factors.

First, it begins with the family. We got most of our perceptions about life from our parents, or the people who raised us. Your first attitude about money came from your parents. If you grew up hearing that it’s hard to make money, that becomes a mentality until something else gives you a different perspective.

Thankfully, other factors, such as education, continue to shape and reshape our mindset. Usually, educated people raised by people with little or no education have a different mindset about many things.

Later in life, your own experiences also shape your mindset. For example, if you were cheated on in your last three relationships, you may develop the mindset that relationships are not worth it.

Everything you do is based on how you think. Whether good or bad. If you’re not happy with yourself, it’s best to reflect on your life, which is a product of your mindset.

To make different choices, first, change your mindset. With that new mindset, it will be easier to make choices that bring you wealth, good health, and happiness.

But this is easier said than done. Your mindset is a core part of who you are and it’s very difficult to change it to the exact opposite.

For example, if all your life you grew up knowing that women are less than men, it will be very difficult to change that mindset. If you grew up thinking that money is the root of all evil, it will be difficult to change that mindset. If you were raised to please people all the time, it’s incredibly hard to change.

But though it’s difficult, it’s not impossible. The key is to change one step at a time.

You can’t suddenly have new values. Well, you can, but something extreme has to happen for that new belief to suddenly appear. Like when a staunch Christian suddenly loses his faith after losing his child in a car accident.

Mostly, however, a change in mindset occurs gradually and consciously. If you want to have different values about money, you have to consciously cultivate those values. It should be conscious because you’re already used to a certain way of doing things, and it’s normal to slip back into your old mentality.

When that happens, gently remind yourself that you’re going off track and then consciously come back to the new mindset.

Forming a new mindset is just like forming a new habit. You’ll have to work constantly to make it second nature to you. But once it’s second nature, you don’t have to be conscious about it. It simply happens, even without thinking about it.

You’ll end up seeing the world differently, and when you compare it with your old ways of thinking, you’ll ask yourself why the hell you had such an ignorant mindset all that time.

When you shift your mind from thinking that the world owes you everything to thinking that you are responsible for your own life, you’ll no longer blame others or make excuses for your failures. Rather, you’ll take action and make the best of what you’ve got.

A good mindset redefines who you are and pushes you to become the best version of yourself. A bad mindset keeps you trapped in mediocrity and misery.

That’s the power of mindset.

Be careful what thoughts you entertain. They can make or unmake you.

Thanks for reading.

Originally published at https://torshietorto.com on December 14, 2022.