Positive Affirmations Negative Thoughts
In the blog, Depression, Positive Mindset Part 1, you learned that mindsets are very general responses to your environment. They are like colored lenses that change the way we actually experience our environment. Mindsets are very powerful mental structures. You also learned that emotions play an important role in mindsets. In fact, emotions are a key to mindsets. A large part of our experience of our environments is emotional. Emotions are simpler than our concepts,; they can give us more immediate access to our mindsets. That is why we will talk about our positive emotional responses to our environment. In this blog we will discuss how to create a mindset.
What is a Good Mindset
A mindset is good when it forms the foundation for achieving your goals or aims in life. Because mindsets form foundations for a great number of endeavors, a particular mindset can be good for a large number of life goals. The power of a mindset comes from the fact that it is part of the foundation of our lives. If we are to use mindsets, then we must know now they are structured. Mindsets are more than just feelings about the world. They have seven components.
The first component is the environment. Our actions are strongly associated with our environments in which we live, both the physical and social. Thus, the environments in which we live form a key part of a mindset. The environment is the context in which your actions occur. Without an environment you don’t have a mindset. The environment is the power source of a mindset. To illustrate, let’s assume we want to consider our mindset in the environment of work. Then the physical and social settings where I work would be the environment for my mindset.
The second component is the actions we perform in the environments. Human beings have several types of responses to our environments, but two are very important. These are thoughts and actions. They are different kinds of responses, but both are important to a mindset. When we are working with our mindset, we must consider both types. As an example, if the work place is the environment for our mindset, then what we say and do in those settings are our actions.
The third component is rewards or reinforcements. While the environment is the power source of a mindset, reinforcement is the fuel. A mindset without reinforcement is like a car without gasoline or electricity. Manipulation of this third component will be an critical tool when we begin to manage our mindset. As an example, the rewards are all the things that occur in the environment that make us want to stay or leave. Rewards can be positive or negative.
The fourth component is the statements you make characterizing the environment. These are particular kinds of actions. They express your beliefs and opinions about the environment in contrast to other things you say in the environment.
The fifth component is the emotional associations you make with the environment. In other words, how does the environment control your emotions? For example, does a particular social setting make you feel depressed? Does it make you feel angry or happy?
The sixth component is the objective facts about the environment. This component is different from the fourth component that involves what you believe about the environment. As your factual knowledge about the environment changes, your beliefs may also change. Keeping beliefs and facts separated is not always easy. Facts are statements that have been scientifically proven to be true or could be. Beliefs are statements you think are true but have not been scientifically proven to be so.
The seventh component is the beliefs and opinions you have about the elements of the other components. This component captures your awareness of your mindset. In this component you step back from your own thinking and take a look at your mindset. This component is important as it measures the objectivity you have on your own thinking. For example, if you are unaware of your mindset, then you will have no opinions or beliefs about it. You can’t develop or change something of which you have no awareness.
How to Use a Mindset
We will show how you can use each of the components of a mindset to make changes. When you change one of the components of a mindset, you have created a new mindset. Thus, creating a mindset and making a new one are the same process.
How might a change in environment do for us. Let’s have our environment be all the settings in which I play sports. This would involve all the sports I play. Let’s suppose I am always losing in the sports I play and eventually come to acquire negative feelings toward playing sports. Further suppose I come to realize I am not very good at playing sports, but I want to enjoy them. So I decide to become an avid spectator of the sports that I originally played. By changing my status as a player to a spectator in this environment, I have changed the environment for me. A sporting environment where I am a player is a much different environment where I am a spectator.
The change in the environment was possible, because changed my actions also. Actions are the second component. Maybe I have special talent at observing sports play. This change in actions that accompany a change in environment could turn the sports environment into a positive place for me.
Let’s look closer. As I develop my skill at observing the finer aspects of my sports as a spectator, I begin to have many positive experiences with sports. The reinforcement I receive from sports events changes from a negative reinforcement to a positive reinforcement. Thus the component of rewards or reinforcement has changed in my mindset. The three components of the mindset have changed simultaneously, because the components of a mindset are all integrated.
As you interact with an environment, you learn what you can do and not do in the environment. These do’s and don’ts of the environment become the rules for that environment. Rules are the fourth component of a mindset. In our sports example, rules for spectators are different from those for players. Rules become an issue when I fail to understand them and thus, have difficulty following them. I might misunderstand a rule or even make one up myself that would cause trouble for me. Rules tell us how to interact with an environment. If I are following a wrong rule, I may be interacting with the environment in a wrong manner. You should always know the boundaries an environment has. These are found in the rules.
In addition to rules, environments are rich in emotional experiences. From these experiences we form many emotional associations. Emotional associations are the fifth component of a mindset. Emotions have a strong influence over what we think and do. They become attached to objects and actions in our environment. For this reason, they can create problems for us and may need to be changed. In the sports example used above, I would have many negative emotions about the sports environment as a player but many positive emotions about the environment as a spectator. Emotions don’t form a large part of a mindset, but they have powerful influences on a mindset.
A sixth component is the objective facts about the environment. Objective facts are things we know about the environment to be true and that have been demonstrated true by science or could be demonstrated true by science. It’s important for our successful participation in an environment for our knowledge of the environment to be true facts. Scientific research is the best way to arrive at true facts about the environment. Sometimes our problems in an environment occur because we have facts about the environment that science has not proven to be true. We merely believe them to be true. If we are having problems with an environment, we want to always examine the facts on which we are basing our interactions. In our sports example, we might have a misunderstanding of where we are supposed to sit as spectators.
The seventh component is similar to the sixth involving facts but without scientific proofs of their truths. These are beliefs we have about the environment. Beliefs are important in our lives, but they are not always true. We just need to know this. We can begin to think beliefs that we feel strongly about are true in the same way that scientific facts are true. We can’t get the most benefit from our beliefs if we can’t distinguish them from scientific facts. For this reason, we must always make sure we are not mistaking beliefs for facts. To borrow an example from our sports environment, assume we believe our team is the best ever. Further assume we believe this so strongly that we begin to think this is a scientific fact. Our team goes to the championship game, but loses the game. If we believe it is a fact that our team is the best ever, we might begin to think that the opposing team cheated, without it being factually true. It is important for our participation in an environment that our facts and beliefs are kept separate.
We use our mindsets by examining each of the components. With this information we can make changes in our mindsets that allow us to participate more fully in our environments. Mindsets are really about environments, rather they be large or small.
What is a Good Mindset
We can expand our answer to this question. A good mindset is the seven components integrated together to maximize your chances of survival. These seven components form the structure of a mindset. A good mindset is a very powerful mental tool. By being aware of its components, you can use it to create a better balanced and harmonious life.