Thursday, March 10, 2011

How mindset affects your ability to take risks

Mindset, risk and the right career

Sometimes, in order to find a job that is right for you; that you enjoy; that you're passionate about, you may have to take a risk. That risk may involve time or money, or both. Considering potential changes to your present situation will probably elicit some degree of fear in most people, whether they have a positive or negative mindset. Either position affects how you deal with that fear. Fear can get in the way of finding happiness and living life to the fullest.

Your thoughts definitely affect how you view life. If you're coming from a negative place, you will undoubtedly respond to that fear in a negative way. You may have exaggerated feelings of inadequacy, worries about your performance ability, about other people's reactions, or even about issues outside your control. You will then unconsciously seek out confirmation of those negative thoughts. Conversely, if your thoughts are positive, you'll seek out positive choices and expect positive results.

A person's reality is influenced by the degree to which he appoaches life positively or negatively. Negativity is reality to the negative thinker. His thoughts make it so. The positive thinker, on the other hand, may also see reality, but he sees it in a different light. He may not reject or ignore reality, thinking that just because he approaches life in a positive way, his problems will disappear. Instead, he may simply look at his problems in a different light. He will probably look for creative solutions and choose to act in positive ways.

Making changes to you mindset


No one said it was easy, but it is possible. To begin with you need to think along the lines of three things: thought awareness, rational thinking, and the challenging of negative thoughts.

Thought awareness
According to an article on Mind Tools: http://tinyurl.com/9acyau, "...you are thinking negatively when you fear the future, put yourself down, criticize yourself for errors, doubt your abilities, or expect failure. Negative thoughts tend to flit into our consciousness, doing their damage and flitting back out again, with their significance barely even noticed. Since we may not realise that they were there, we do not challenge them properly, which means that they can be completely incorrect and wrong. These negative thoughts damage our confidence, harm performance, paralyze mental skills.." and prevent us from moving forward.

The article suggests that you observe your thoughts and become aware of what is going on in your head whenever you are confronted with...[ the fear of change]" As in a "stream of consciousness", think about the thing you're trying to achieve, but are afraid to do so. Do not suppress any thoughts. Then write your negative thoughts down. Or keep a daily log of negative thoughts. Every so often, look for patterns and repetitions.

Rational thinking

Approach your fears rationally. Analyze each of them honestly. Ask yourself if you have the training and experience to try something different. If not, go about finding ways to get it. Identify the risks in making changes and take steps to reduce those risks. Identify caveats and problems that may arise and plan ahead for what you or other people can do to solve or confront them.

Challenging negative thoughts

"When you challenge negative thoughts rationally, you should be able to see quickly whether the thoughts are wrong or whether they have some substance to them. Where there is some substance, take appropriate action. However, make sure that your negative thoughts are genuinely important to achieving your goals, and don't just reflect a lack of experience, which everyone has to go through at some stage."
Positive Thinking & opportunity seeking
By now, you should already be feeling more positive. The final step is to prepare rational, positive thoughts and affirmations to counter any remaining negativity.
(last article in a series on finding you passion)
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment