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How do we lean into a growth mindset? How do we work towards self improvement without judging and pushing away the person we are today? In other ways, how can we approach a growth mindset from a place of exuberant self love. So my friends, I invite you to step into these 9 practical tips and see what feels most interesting for you to investigate further.
Click the image above to watch the video version of this post
My name is Linnea. Today we’re talking about what it means to have a growth mindset, and I’ll offer up nine practical tips to help you foster that mindset in easy to implement ways that you can apply to whatever type of self improvement you are working towards. Whether it's learning a foreign language or working out more frequently or I don’t know, brushing your teeth more often. Okay. So, let's just jump in.
As I'm recording this it's currently January 2nd. So we're stepping into the new year. But you can use these tips at any time of the year. Especially at the beginning of the year, there tends to be a lot of focus on setting yourself up for success in the year to come, switching gears away from the holidays and into a little bit more your own routines and healthy habits.
So, aside from all of the hype around New Year's resolutions, this really is a beautiful time when you're coming back into your routines, you're settling back into your normal flow, and you’re thinking of intentions for the year to come. It's a great time to give some extra attention to what those routines and habits really look like.
Tip #1: Morning Routines
Think about your morning routine. What does your morning routine look like? What do you do before you have to leave the house or work on your other commitments? What do you do in the morning that's just for yourself, that helps you foster the energy of self improvement, intention, and purpose. It might just be 10 or 15 minutes.
For example, for myself right now I've been getting into Duolingo and learning Spanish a little bit, which has been really fun. So that's started to be part of my morning routine. It’s just 10, maybe 15 minutes, sometimes even less than that but it is helping me remember the spanish that I previously had studied more diligently. So what's your morning routine and is there space to build an intentional habit or routine into your mornings? Drinking a glass of water before your first sip of coffee? Saying a positive mantra upon rising?
Tip #2: Just 10 Minutes
What's something small that you could add to your routine that would help you chip away at one of these goals that you might have for yourself. It could be part of your morning routine, or it could go anywhere else in your day. Here’s a perfect example of something I started last year, and successfully maintained for the past year. Once a month I set a timer for 10 minutes to simply open my bank accounts and start looking at all the numbers. I would often end up spending more time looking at my finances, but my goal that I held myself accountable to was simply spending 10 minutes once a month.
What could you do in just 10 minutes? Maybe even just 5 minutes. We tend to create a bigger expectation for ourselves and think that we need to have a full hour or that we're going to dig into something and put all of our energy into it. But what if you could just spend 10 or 15 minutes working on that thing?
Tip #3: Whose company do you keep?
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Who are the people that you are sharing energy with? Our energy really is collective, even though we're all individuals. We also are very affected by those around us. The company that we keep can have a direct impact on what we think is possible. The energy that we have around us impacts the degree of trust and belief we have towards those goals, whether we think they are realistic or just a daydream. So, do you need to put energy into building some new friendships this year? Joining a new institution or group or finding a coach or mentor to help inspire and show you what's possible?
Tip #4: Read a Book! (Or Listen!)
As I was writing that I was thinking, for me, it's probably listening to a book. I love to listen to audiobooks. So read, watch or listen to a book or some other resource, but if you can, see if you can sit down and read a real book. (I know, I’m trying to remember how to do this as well) If you can, if you can actually sit down and read a physical paper book, you know, there's statistics out there that the knowledge sinks in deeper when we actually read a book instead of just listening to it.
But also if you've been out of the habit of reading books, then listening to books is a really good way to get back into that. If you sit a lot, then listening to books might be a really nice way to be a bit more active in those periods of your day when you don't have to be sitting. I suggest Libby and Audible.
Tip #5: Create Systems.
This goes back to the morning routine because a routine is a system, but systems could be other things as well. How can you create a system that will help automate the process of self development and personal growth for you. It's easy right now at the beginning of the year to have all this inspiration to, you know, create all these new goals for ourselves. And then it's so common come February or March that we've completely forgotten about them.
So how can you create systems in your daily life that are going to streamline and automate this process, so that you just consistently focus on doing the work, and not spend time remembering that you wanted to make time to do the work, or trying to redesign the space and time for it each and every week.
Tip #6: Learn about Learning.
Learn about how you learn, and really be honest with yourself. Are you somebody that's super disorganized and really struggles to stay accountable to yourself? If that's true, then just telling yourself that you're going to start doing XY and Z is unlikely to work.
And so, my friends, we have to be totally honest and compassionate with ourselves. What do you need, in order to actually make progress and take action towards these things that you want to see in your life. It could be different for everybody but the idea here is that it is time well spent to learn about your unique learning style, your unique needs, your unique circumstance and situation so that you can then reverse engineer the system that's going to help you out.
Tip #7: Keep a Journal!
People who write down their goals are much more likely to achieve them. So, how often do you allow yourself to write down exactly what it is that you want? Just the idea of getting a journal and aspiring to write in it might be a great goal for the year ahead.
For those of you who already journal regularly I have a few other tips for you. You might have heard of the morning pages from the artist's way. And, I've never actually read the book The Artist's Way, that's on my radar maybe for this year. But I do consistently write my morning pages. The practice of morning pages is that you simply commit to writing three whole pages. It could be anything, you don't have any plan for it, you just write.
The other idea for you is specific journaling prompts. So that's also something I've been working with recently. I created a list of five different journaling prompts that I respond to frequently, sometimes daily. Let me know if this is interesting to you and I’ll share with you my 5 daily journaling prompts.
Tip #8: Hire a Professional!
It took me a long time to wrap my head around this one. It really did. I valued education, I valued learning, but I balked at the higher cost of personal coaching and direct mentorship. Until I experienced it first hand and witnessed how much faster I was able to reach my goals. How much more support I had compared to generic group instruction. This could take many forms, it could be hiring a personal trainer. It could be hiring a therapist. It could be hiring a business coach. It could be hiring a life coach. It could be finding a naturopathic doctor. It could be, , going to an acupuncturist or a body worker or, you know, any other slew of professionals. It could be hiring a personal stylist or a photographer.
If there's a significant gap between your ability and skill in doing what you need to do in order to reach your goal, then that is especially when you might benefit from hiring a professional. If you're here and your goal is way over here and you have no idea how you're going to get to that goal, then hiring a professional who's already walked that path is going to be so insanely helpful.
It's going to speed up the process. It's going to make you actually believe that it's possible. It's going to mean that it's actually possible instead of this lofty fantasy that you would like to see happen, but if you're honest with yourself you don't really believe that it's ever going to happen because you have no idea how to get there, and so it seems totally unrealistic.
Tip #9: Look Back and Keep Track
It's so easy for time to pass. Time goes by so fast and it's so easy to all of a sudden be like, Well, here we are in January of the next year. Like, oh, oops, the whole year just went by.
So what are you doing to mark time and keep track of your progress? It's always a dance, an evolution because goals change as time passes. So keeping track and looking back is a way for you to stay current and on point with what matters most at any given point in your life.
The more that you can consistently check back in with your goals, check back in with your intentions, and rewrite them as they change the more you are going to feel confident and in alignment with what you're working towards. The more consistently that you can do that, the easier it's going to be to build momentum and to build confidence.
That's All 9 Tips!
I'm so excited for the year ahead! I can't wait to continue this conversation and to provide you with more tips and tricks that help you live life to the fullest. There's so many things that are happening here at Limber Arts!
For those of you who are local to the Olympia area, I have the Intro to Pilates Workshop coming up on January 17th, and will continue to be offering this workshop throughout the year.
And for those of you who are following me online, I am excited to launch The Monthly Movement Lab starting in February. (stay tuned for more info. This will be an economically accessible online event)
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