Peter Hollins - The Art of Intentional Thinking (Second Edition)

By Peter Hollins,

Author and Researcher at petehollins.com

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The Inner Voice

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

The Power of Thoughts

Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Adjust Your Locus of Control

Self-Efficacy vs. Helplessness

Turn the Obstacle Upside Down

A Long-Term View

The 40% Rule

Thinking vs. Doing

Solution vs. Problem Mindset

From Motivation to Action

Think Big

Systems vs. Goals

The Alter Ego

Create Perspective

Positivity and Optimism

The Beginners Mindset

I Know It All vs. What Dont I Know?

The Echo Chamber

Youre Never There: Perpetual Progress vs. Achievement

Moving Beyond the Past

Accepting an Uncertain Future

How to Live in the Present

Courage versus fear. Comfort versus worry. Faith versus doubt. Confidence versus uncertainty.

These are battles fought every daybattles of mindset. And the arena in which they fight is contained within our brains. Whichever set of thoughts you allow to win will rule the day and your actions, and that is not a positive experience when disempowering thoughts win.

Indeed, for a few of us, the battles are one-sided. People who experience nearly constant success (or think they do) may be more able to disregard the negative or naysaying sides in the clash. Others who face mounting, daily struggles through an extended amount of time dont trust the positive voices.

We may perceive our mindsets as things we cant change or affect. We envision them as products of an external environment, circumstances, or history that are far bigger factors than we can proactively transform. The truth is that you have great capacity to modify your mindset. Goals and accomplishments that might seem impossible in an entrenched mindset can be attained much more practically than you may realize, just by reorganizing your way of thinking.

Is it easy to change your mindset? Of course it is! Except when it isnt.

Changing ones mindset is easy because theres no heavy lifting or manual effort. Its not a physical procedure that requires too much exertion. You could be doing it while sitting on a couch without anyone knowingall you have to do is think something into existence and it becomes true. If you were to ask someone if theyd rather think different thoughts or work in a coal mine for 10 hours, its not going to be a close decision.

But the ability to think a certain way on a consistent basis involves self-discipline and focus to the highest degree; changing a mindset is hard and can be frustrating because your effort wont directly translate into a different type of thought. You can always hit the gym harder, but thinking harder doesnt necessarily do anything. There is really no correlation between an input and an output.

Changing your mindset is especially tough if it involves countering what youve been taught all your life. A complete rewiring of your thoughts and mindsets is daunting at best but imperative to creating a life you feel happy to wake up to every day.

Like it or not, our mindset is our internal lens to the world around us. Our thoughts, opinions, beliefs, fears, and hopes get projected onto everything we see. We use those inner convictions to interpret everything that happens in the world and to us.

People who have attained the success you desire have all manipulated their mindsets in specific ways. You could argue that other factorseducation, upbringing, luck, timingproduced their great achievements. Its easy to use those as an excuse for your lack of action, but the real-life evidence doesnt tend to support that. Is everyone rich simply lucky and rich to begin with and everyone poor simply lazy and apathetic?

Two children from the same middle-class family, who grew up in the same circumstances, can wind up in wildly different situations. One child with a positive mindset might turn out to be hardworking and wealthy. The other one could be consumed by a jealous mindset and a predisposition to failure and might wind up in a thankless job with low prospects.

The only difference between you and greatly successful people is in the mindset. Its your view of the world, its challenges and rewards, and how you navigate through all of them.

Mindsets can be as varied as any given segment of the population. Here are just a few different mindsets you might possess to varying degrees:

• Productive mindset. Someone who is task-oriented and driven to complete what theyre working onand then move on to the next thing. Theyre a hammer, and everything looks like a nail. They are always in motion.
• Creative mindset. A person with unique abilities and inventive approaches who can solve problems in ways very few others can. They always seek unconventional methods to accomplish the same goal.
• Confident mindset. Someone whos happy with themselves and projects conviction, ability, and leadership. They naturally end up in charge and taking action first. They feel that anything is possible.
• Dreamer mindset. An individual who can see the big picture and is able to inspire others to take a broad and beneficial approach toward the future. They think big picture in lieu of details and procedures.

These mindsets affect and change someones perception of the world. A productive mindset might see what needs to be done in their immediate environment, whereas the dreamer mindset might see its potential in an emotional or altruistic sense.

These are just some of the good mindsets. There are also mindsets for jealousy, anger, fear, greed, and the opposite of all of the mindsets above.

Self-talkthe commentary, criticism, and judgment we tell ourselves about ourselvesis one channel that your mindset tunes into, whether its out loud or to yourself. Just think of it as your internal dialogue that never goes away, for better or worse. It narrates your life, but the perspective it narrates from is completely up to you. You can be your own biggest cheerleader or critic.

Each statement you think or say constructs your inner monument of self-belief, brick by brick. And we probably give a little more credence to negating self-talk since its easier to believe we cant do something if we havent yet tried. Im not smart enough to learn complicated math concepts, Im not physically gifted enough to run a 10-kilometer marathon, Im not attractive enough to have someone interested in me.

Another aspect of your inner voice is the narrative: the never-ending story that you tell over your entire life about who you are and what youre capable of. It explains what happens in your life and why you do certain things that you do. It often addresses themes or recurring events that occur in a lifespan. It usually isnt very accurate, especially if you tend to feel bad about yourself. Self-talk and the narrative have a chicken-and-egg relationship.

For instance, those with a victimized mindset claim that they were the patsies of people despite their best intentions. You claim you were fired from your job because your supervisor didnt care for your personality, but it might have been simply that their budget got a whopping cut and you had to be let go.

This isnt to say that your self-talk and narrative dont contain elements of truth or are completely unfounded. But its important to check them with reality as much as possible. The more you can control your thoughts and inner voice, the more enabled youll feel to make positive changes.