How to strengthen your mindset with positive beliefs

By Heather Cherry—

Mindset plays an important role in determining the outcomes of life. It also plays a vital role in coping with life and altering emotional experiences. By understanding, adapting and changing your way of thinking, you can improve your health, reduce stress and become more resilient to life’s challenges.

Carol Dweck, Stanford psychologist and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, says that your beliefs and thoughts play a vital role in success. “Whether consciously or unconsciously, they have a strong influence on what we want and whether we manage to get it,” says Dweck. “Much of what we think we understand about our personality stems from our ‘mindset’. This both drives us forward and prevents us from reaching our potential.”

Here’s how to strengthen your mindset with positive beliefs.

Negative thoughts

Before you can strengthen your mindset with positive beliefs, you need to identify the negative ones. This is because negative thoughts (negative self-talk) keep you from achieving your goals. But don’t worry, you’re not alone – negative self-talk happens to everyone. The predisposition to think negatively can be hereditary, a result of upbringing, conditioning, or both.

Louisa Jewell, author of Wire your brain for confidence, says the evolutionary perspective may explain some of our inherited negative thinking tendencies. “Thousands of years ago, our brains were constantly scanning the horizon for threats. But for modern individuals, physical security is generally not an issue — yet most people tend to constantly scan for threats,” says Jewell.

And your upbringing may be to blame. Early experiences of abuse and neglect may be associated with a tendency to repetitive negative thinking in adulthood, such as brooding and worrying, reports a 2021 paper published in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.

To challenge your negative predisposition, practice reframing your thoughts to positively change the way you think. For example, use statements about effort versus result, such as “I’m very good at this” (talk about ability) and “I’ll do my best” (talk about effort). Both statements are positive ways of putting effort before result. By prioritizing the effort over the result, you can free yourself from negative thoughts related to competencies and abilities, according to a article on PsychCentral.

Beliefs and values

As you work to change the way you think, it is essential to understand the difference between beliefs and values. Beliefs are what you think is right regardless of the evidence. You often make assumptions based on what you see, hear, read and experience. Some types of beliefs are:

• politics: How society should divide power.
• Social: How people should live in relation to society.
• Religious: The way beliefs are categorized according to your religion.

Beliefs influence behavior and you make everyday decisions about how to behave, such as opening the door for someone or offering your seat to someone who has difficulty standing, based on your beliefs.

“Based on past experience, we develop simple beliefs, such as believing there will be traffic on the road and thus deciding to leave early for a destination. Passionate beliefs represent strongly held theories or conclusions imbued with intense emotion and are therefore activating or motivational,” says clinical psychologist Mary C. Lamia Ph.D. “These beliefs form the basis of our behavior as they become a value and drive action.”

In many cases, your beliefs and behaviors can shape your reality. For example, if you think you are skilled and deserve your dream job, you are more likely to seek out and notice opportunities that will help you get there. “We base our decisions on what we believe, even though our beliefs, especially those about ourselves, may be deceptive or distorted,” says Lamia. “So, what we believe can rule our lives and motivate our actions more than we acknowledge.”

While values ​​are a systems-based approach to assessing what is considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Values ​​are learned through background, experience and your sense of self.

Some examples of values ​​are:

• Functional
• Monetary
• Social
• Psychological
• Cultural

What you believe determines your values ​​and therefore how you act. Strong beliefs create values, but not all values ​​create beliefs. For example, honesty is a value that guides your beliefs and decision making, but it is not a belief system.

Strengthen your mindset with positive beliefs

Reinforce your mindset with positive beliefs by focusing on a supportive approach – striking an authentic balance between uncomfortable emotions. This will help you avoid uncontrolled optimism (toxic positivity), which can lead to unrealistic expectations and have a detrimental impact on mental health. Toxic positivity can lead to:

• Shame: Receiving toxic positivity can lead to feelings of shame.
• Debt: Toxic positivity can cause feelings of guilt because it suggests that you are not “trying” to find a way to be positive.
• Negative Emotions: Being overly optimistic can be an avoidance mechanism – a person may try to escape their negative emotions by focusing only on the positive.
• Growth retardation: Too much positivity can stunt your growth. This is because you deny yourself the ability to face challenging feelings, which ultimately affect your growth.

Embrace uncertainty. It’s okay not to be okay – and it’s okay to be realistic too precisely how you feel. Negative emotions such as anger, sadness, sadness or jealousy are normal in the right context. In the right context, strong emotions can be beneficial if you allow yourself to “listen” to what they may be trying to say.

“Managing negative emotions is more about embracing the fact that we feel them. It’s also about determining why we feel that way and allowing ourselves to receive the messages they send us before we let them go and move on” , says Elizabeth Scott, Ph. .D., author of 8 keys to stress management. “Our emotions are designed to be messengers to tell us something, and these messages can be very valuable if we listen.”

Participate in activities that change your usual way of thinking. Thought patterns can be a habit, but with some awareness and time, you can replace negative thoughts with more positive ones. Activities such as mindfulness, meditation, or journaling help you notice (and appreciate) positive things in your life and avoid dwelling on negative thoughts.

For example, use a journal to check your beliefs. Ask yourself, “What positive thoughts come to mind when I think about my visions and dreams?” Then rate what negative beliefs you have about the same visions and dreams. How do they support each other?

Strive for goals and a sense of authenticity. Authenticity focuses on processes rather than results. Living an authentic life means moving in a direction that is unique to you. To live your life authentically, you need to pay attention to what’s going on in your body when you have to make a decision. For example, tense muscles may be related to what is going on in your mind or feelings. Listen to this inner voice instead of letting it get lost in the noise. Then create goals that match your skills and authentic desires.

Strengthening your mindset takes time and a lot of practice – it will always be a work in progress and a masterpiece at the same time.

Heather Cherry is a freelance health and wellness writer and content marketing coach. She helps companies create strategic, creative and conversational messages and build effective content teams. She has been published in Sleepopolis, SELF, Insider and author of Market your A$$ discount.