There is a famous quote that boldly states, “Where the mind goes, the body will follow.” It turns out the statement is true. Your mindset determines your life.
Most of us are willing to learn a trade or train in a skill in order to get a job. Many of us are willing to train our bodies through exercise. But few people are willing to train their most powerful asset, their mind.
The right mindset can maximize all other areas of your life. There are a few basic principles you should learn to maximize mindset success.
Principle 1: Life isn’t fair
One of the main ideas that holds us back from success is the idea that life should be fair. It isn’t. Life isn’t fair. God isn’t fair. Society isn’t fair. Write this big and plain across your thought process: Life is not fair. No one said it would be. The sooner we recognize that the sooner we can get along with living.
We wish it were. We wish life handed out opportunities and talents evenly. We wish life gave everyone the same gifts and privileges, but it does not. Life is not fair.
Opportunity is what the American dream is all about. But even the American dream doesn’t promise equal outcomes, only the equal freedom of opportunity to try. The outcome is never guaranteed, because life isn’t fair. The faster we get our heads around that the faster we can get on with giving the best try each of us are able to give.
Principle 2: Movement breeds opportunity
Many people sit around wondering why opportunity hasn’t come knocking on their door. But the truth is opportunity rarely finds someone who is sitting still.
Momentum breeds momentum. Opportunity breeds opportunity. If you want a chance, take the chance you already have. Being in motion will take you past more opportunities than sitting still ever will.
Thomas Edison famously said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it wears overalls and looks like work.” He was right. You want opportunity to find you? Get moving.
Principle 3: Failure is inevitable but fear is optional
The key to success lies in not only having the wisdom to see an opportunity but also the courage to take a chance on it. Failure is a fact of life. In the same way we need keep in mind that life isn’t fair, we also need to keep in mind that failure is inevitable. Only one man who ever lived never failed, and he isn’t you. You will fail. So will I.
The key to failure is realizing that it is nothing more than an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to try again. Failure hurts, but it’s never fatal until you stop trying. This means failure is nothing to be afraid of. Once you realize you will inevitably fail, the fear of failure will lose its grip on you.
Failure doesn’t define you, but how you respond to it does.
Principle 4: Perseverance trumps talent
Talent is abundant; it’s perseverance that’s rare. Everywhere you look you will see talent. God may not have handed out talent fairly, but he did hand it out liberally. Everyone is talented at something.
If I asked you to name anyone you know and a talent or skill they have, you probably could name at least one thing they are really good at. If I asked you to name talented people, you could probably name dozens of them. But if I asked you to name people who have perseverance, you would probably be hard pressed to name five. But I bet the five you could name would all be successful at whatever they set out to do.
Being talented isn’t enough in this world. Talent will only take you so far. Perseverance is the trait that separates the talented from the successful. The ability to persevere is the line that separates what could be from what is.
Think about it this way, you can never ultimately fail if you refuse to stop trying. If you refuse to quit, you refuse to permanently fail. People can beat you, but no one can make you quit trying. So you don’t lose when you fail, you lose when you quit.
Principle 5: Fate rewards effort
The world has yet to find a quality substitute for consistent hard work. Our culture has tried its best. We’ve invented diet pills and sold get-rich-quick schemes and promoted work-less workouts. But try as we may we can’t seem to find a replacement for diligent day-to-day effort.
Isn’t it funny that those who try hardest seem to find the most opportunities? Isn’t it interesting that people search their whole life for success but it rarely appears until they put in the work to uncover it?
There is a Latin proverb that states, “fortune favors the bold.” Or as President Reagan put it after the loss of the Challenger spaceship and her crew, “The future doesn’t belong to the faint hearted, it belongs to the brave.”
In the end, history will not remember those who shied away from difficulty. History remembers those who put forth effort. Fate rewards those who try.
