Changing the Way You Think Can Change Your Life

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The Science of Mindsets

In research, a "mindset" is defined as: "a mental frame or lens that selectively organizes and encodes information, thereby orienting an individual toward a unique way of understanding an experience and guiding one toward corresponding actions and responses."

In other words, your mindsets are the lenses through which you perceive the world. These are colored by your beliefs and attitudes and help determine your response in any given situation.

And these mindsets have some fascinating implications. For example, research has shown that:

Students who believe they can change their intelligence through hard work do better academically compared to students who believe their intelligence is a fixed trait.
Merely believing that your work provides a good amount of exercise is enough to lose weight, drop BMI, and decrease blood pressure.
Your belief on how many calories a drink contains affects how much hunger hormone is released in your body after drinking it.
If you believe stress is harmful, you'll experience more stress than people who don't.
Mindsets even affect your life expectancy—this is because people with a negative aging mindset are less likely to proactively engage in healthy behaviors such as eating healthy, exercising, and visiting the doctor.


Your Mindsets Determine Your Outcomes

As we go through life, we pick up beliefs that help us navigate the world. And as the research above suggests, these beliefs have very real consequences for our psychology, physiology, behavior, and performance.

One mindset can flood your system with stress hormones and make you anxious. Another can boost your testosterone levels and make you feel confident. And this is why I suggest the following:

Believe what is helpful to believe.
Don't believe something just because your thoughts are telling you to—your mind is nothing more than a suggestion box.
It's up to you to choose what to believe, so why not pick the most empowering beliefs you can possibly find?



How to Change Your Lenses and Realize Your Full Potential

Here are the most powerful ways I've come across for changing your lenses:



Put Your Thoughts in Perspective

Realize that you are not your thoughts. You are the one who's observing your thoughts. Whenever a limiting belief shows up, listen to it, but don't necessarily believe it. A thought is not an accurate representation of reality, it's just a thought. So treat it accordingly.



Use Empowering Language

Instead of saying "I can't" say "I won't." Instead of "I have to" say "I'm going to." Instead of "I don't know" say "I'll figure it out." Pay attention to the language you use and get rid of any phrases that imply helplessness.



Change Your Feelings

Copy the body language of the person you want to become. Strike a powerful posture and smile. Doing this for just a couple of minutes will make you feel less stressed and more in charge.



Surround Yourself With the Right People

The people around us have a huge influence on how we feel, what goals we pursue. You become the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so choose your social circles wisely.


Source; https://www.themuse.com/advice/changing-the-way-you-think-can-change-your-life