I am very encouraged that Thai people are increasingly curious about mindsets. This year I have seen thousands of them complete mindset programmes as they realise the right mindset is fundamental, especially in times of stress or change.
Mindsets are a big deal because mindsets, and how we move between them are the new frames for success. For example, when you wake up or enter a situation, what you are thinking determines your success for the day ahead or in the task at hand. Awareness and understanding of your mindset give you power over your thoughts.
Moving between essential mindsets gives you the ability to thrive in the face of challenges and change because mindset shapes your outlook, decision-making, and how you work at the individual, team and organisational levels.
But what mindsets do I need to cultivate?
A Growth Mindset is fundamental at a time of constant change. Without it, you will stagnate in your career or business, or quickly become obsolete. You have to be open to new possibilities and resilient to change. It is critical to improving all areas of your life.
To cultivate a growth mindset, you need to take on new challenges. Do something new. Volunteer for new roles or projects. Learn from how others have applied their Growth Mindsets and benefit from their experience and insights.
An Outward Mindset is essential as the world is constantly changing around you. I have seen the difference it has made in the lives, work and results of thousands of Thai people. I have seen businesses transformed and people much more fulfilled in their roles and relationships, in and out of work.
During the Covid pandemic, everyone has suffered. How well you understand their new needs and respond to them as people will create new opportunities. You can get started by really listening to people. Practise with purpose every day, see the person, not the problem colleague or customer. At home, put yourself in your spouse’s place and see the world from their ideas. When you consider others in this way, I guarantee you will feel better about yourself and almost everything in your life very quickly, and people will notice and appreciate the difference in you.
An Agile Mindset is important in a world in which success now depends on quick adaptation, making sense of complexity, and experimenting and adopting new approaches and ways of working. The future belongs to the agile. An agile mindset is not just for the tech world, but for everybody in everything.
The key is not just taking courses but approaching what is possible in life and working with openness. It requires you to explore, experiment, iterate what you are currently doing, quickly spot what is not working and make changes equally quickly. We can all do this in whatever we do. It could be in sales, management, parenting, learning or other areas.
A Learning Mindset is critical in making change work for us. We have all seen the way we perceive the world changing. We need to be able to learn new things to improve ourselves. We need to be able to unlearn and relearn. We need to remain curious about things that impact life, work and happiness.
Build learning habits in your life every day. Find time to update yourself on industry news, adjacent sectors, new tech, or interesting new businesses. Observe how the world is changing and what that means to you in your job. Look at colleagues or competitors who are doing well or failing. Figure out why.
Get out and talk to suppliers or customers. Find out what has changed for them, what will change, and what their aspirations are now. There are many ways to learn that don’t involve a book or a lecture. Join a community and listen and share. Don’t network but seek to understand and connect. Not one of these activities will be a waste of your time.
Here are some other ideas to increase your mindset awareness and successfully make shifts when required:
- Take a quick assessment: There are so many tools available for free on the internet. Some are more scientific than others, some more useful. But any information to deepen your understanding is good.
- Start a diary: Track your thoughts. Reflect on which mindset you adopt to approach problems or situations. By increasing your awareness, you identify and combat default mindset settings. Use this tool to see what is holding you back.
- Change your limiting beliefs: Change the mindset that is holding you back. For example, you may dread calling a customer because they are painful to deal with (for the old you). Consider how your mindset makes you behave when dealing with them and identify why you think this way about them. Identify how this could be limiting your success. Identify how you could change your mindset to be someone different and get a different response. Experiment with new approaches to see if you get new outcomes.
- Identify when you are doing it right and wrong: None of us are perfect. No one exhibits 100% of any mindset all the time. It is impossible. But try your new mindset for a month or two and see where it is working or not. It is the easiest first step in transforming your mindset for the good and the better.
Take responsibility for your mindset, results and your happiness.
Arinya Talerngsri is Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director at SEAC — Southeast Asia’s Lifelong Learning Center. She can be reached by email at arinya_t@seasiacenter.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinya-talerngsri-53b81aa. Talk to us about how SEAC can help your business during times of uncertainty at https://forms.gle/wf8upGdmwprxC6Ey9
