Tag: mindset

This life is pretty interesting. I think the world we live in makes us believe that things are a certain way. Over the past year or so I have been thinking about my own mindset and I have touched on this in a couple of blog posts, but thought I would share my thoughts once again, maybe more focused on this topic specifically. I have been reading a number of books on mindset that have helped me see things a little bit differently, and have talked about those books previously, but as with all things, you need to mull over what you read for a while for it to really sink in.

I also found a song I love that illustrates the direction my thoughts have been going as well. It’s an Andy Grammer song called 85 and talks about getting caught up in the world’s perspective of accumulating stuff and how to live but reminding us that we can’t take it with us and that we’re missing the bigger picture. I love this reminder. Anyway, on with my thoughts.

First off, thinking about abundance. The world today would have us think that abundance means having a lot of things, and often the latest and greatest. Advertisers would have you believe that if you don’t have the latest and greatest, or at least their product, you are somehow living below the standard and thus, less than others. That is an incorrect mindset. Over the years, and as the kids have grown up, I have realized that is a really bad way to look at life. Abundance is a mindset, and it involves a lot more about how we view life and what we do with what we have rather than just collecting more and new. Abundance is having our needs met and being willing to help those around us with our excess. Abundance also involves our time and how we spend it.

Social media can be a detriment in our mindset. We see others going and doing all this stuff that maybe we had never thought of, maybe we don’t have the money to do, or maybe we would like to do and just hadn’t yet. We see everyone else’s “perfect” life, and we feel like we are suddenly missing out, when prior to seeing that post we were perfectly happy with our life. We often forget that some people are doing all this stuff on credit and that they really can’t afford to do it. Or maybe they saved up for a long time to be able to go and do it, going without things we’re not willing to go without, just so they could experience something they’ve always wanted to. If viewed correctly though, social media can be good as well, there can be motivation to do things we thought we couldn’t, just because we see someone else doing it. So, a lot of it is determined by our mindset and how we think about and view the things we see others doing and how we view social media.

We were cutting wood the other day, and for some reason one of my sons was very preoccupied in his own thoughts. He almost got hit by a falling tree because he was not listening or watching. Fortunately, that snapped him out of his thoughts and got him focused on the task at hand for the rest of the afternoon. As I was watching and thinking about that, I thought about how often we get stuck in our own minds. Often, we think we are the only ones who struggle, that we are the only ones who have ever experienced what we’re experiencing, and this affects our mindset negatively. In most cases we need to stop and look around, see others and see that everyone is struggling with something. This can change our perspective, giving us compassion for others, and help us give ourselves a break from the negativity, so that we can change our mindset and move forward.

How we view life is so important. Having a positive mindset can affect how well, how happily, how abundantly we live our lives. Changing our mindset can be difficult, but it’s not impossible, and just like the quote above, once your mindset changes, so will everything else.