Mindset is the gas in your tank. It’s the wind in your sails. It’s any other forward-motion, power-up idiom you can think of…
Having grown up in the church it amazes me how little I heard about the power of the mind and the importance of what we allow ourselves to think. It hasn’t been until I moved out of Pastoral ministry and into the realm of online business that I’ve discovered just how crucial mindset is for the average Joe out there in the workplace.
And that’s really funny, in a sad way –
But that was the life of a Pastor, a life a bit insulated from what goes on in the “real” world. I didn’t think so at the time, but I see now that it was true.
Now I’m IN the “everyday” situations my congregations have faced for years and I’m understanding the practical importance of what goes on in the minds of everyday people in the everyday business world.
Mindset IS the gas in your tank. It’s what fuels the way you live.
What we think is what determines the outcomes in our life and business.
If you don’t believe that what you believe has the power to impact the WAY you live and therefore what comes of your life, just walk through this example with me…
Imagine you are sitting in your favorite chair, reading a good book or watching your favorite movie. From the corner of your eye you see something dark and round on the arm of the chair. You look more carefully and discover it’s a big hairy spider.
What would you do? Me? I’d be flying out of that chair like my life depended on it. And I’d probably scream like a little girl (I’m just being honest).
But what if, when you got up the nerve to kill the spider, you discovered that it was a rubber toy one of the kids left out?
You’d feel a sense of relief to be sure, but…
- Your heart would still be pounding,
- You might still be sweating,
- And you still screamed like a little girl.
The fact is that what you believed provoked you to action, even though what you believed was not true.
I’m going to say that again because it’s very, very important:
What you believed provoked an action – even though what you believed was not true.
The very same thing happens in life and in business.
Just think about people who are a success and those who are not.
The successful folks are the one who believe they can achieve things.
They are the ones who refuse to let obstacles stand in their way.
They are the people who won’t accept their present limitations and strive to be something more.
They learn what they need to learn in order to do what they need to do.
Every one of those characteristics is an issue of mindset. And their mindset propels them to a course of action in keeping with itself.
The unsuccessful people are the ones who are stuck in the pain and struggle of their past.
They’ve been taught and told that they are failures, worthless, untalented, ugly, weak, disappointing – and the list goes on.
These are the people who can’t muster up the courage to change because they don’t believe they can.
These too are issues of mindset, and in the very same way, it propels them to a course of action aligned with itself.
What you need to see is that your mindset is your choice
Even more encouraging is this: God has done everything possible to make you one of the successful people. If you’ve given yourself to Jesus Christ, God says this about you through the Apostle Paul:
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10
In that powerfully liberating verse we find these “mindset” truths:
We are God’s “workmanship.” – The actual Greek word used in the original documents has the meaning of “artistry.”
When was the last time you thought of yourself as a “work of art, created by God?” What difference would it make in your life if you did?
Through Jesus we are created (re-created) to do “good works.” – The simple truth of it is that God saved us for a purpose. We’ve been placed into His family through our faith in Jesus to accomplish a very specific set of “good works” that are for us alone to do.
What difference would it make in your life if you truly believed that? If you woke each day with eyes open to notice and enter into the “good works” that God has appointed for you?
God prepared the unique “good works” we are to do, in advance. – Among other things, that means that rather than the events of our lives being a hindrance to the good works God intends for us, they are actually part of His plan. He appointed the good works we will do in full knowledge of the difficulties and pains our life would contain.
How does that thought impact the way you view your past? Can you still blame what you’ve been through for a lack of motivation or lack of belief in your ability to accomplish worthwhile things?
It truly doesn’t matter if you’ve been gifted in a particular way or not.
That idea is completely irrelevant.
The fact is that you, like every other one of God’s children, has a God-empowered mind (1 Corinthians 2:16)… a mind that can propel you in the direction of confidence and bold action. It’s God’s intent from before the day you were conceived was that you’d be a victor (Philippians 4:13), an overcomer (Romans 8:31), and more than a conqueror through Jesus, who loves you (Romans 8:37).
What makes the difference is whether you will choose to discipline you mind to believe these things… things that the God of all creation says are true of you.
I know you don’t feel it all the time.
But those things are the rubber spider. They are the false beliefs that hold you back, that provoke you to live a life of pessimism and disbelief instead of a life of victory and success. Those false beliefs keep you from living each day in the God-declared victory that is yours in Christ Jesus.
The real battle for success, in life and in business, is fought in the realm of the mind.
Simple steps to transform your mind
1 Learn what God says is true of you. The Bible is full of those kinds of statements. Take it off the shelf. Open it. Begin filling your mind with truth. 2 Remind yourself who said those things about you. God, who does not lie, has spoken. He has declared it. Who are you to doubt Him? 3 Begin to ACT on the truth of who you are in Christ. Put Bible-verse sticky notes on your mirror, in your car, on your computer screen. Instead of ungrounded, silly “positive affirmations” you make up about yourself, soak your mind in God’s truth about you. Work at it. Make it a project. 4 Do steps 1-3 again. Every day.The more you marinate your mind in God’s truth about who you are, the more you’ll begin to see yourself rightly, the more you’ll begin to understand what “good works” He’s created YOU to do.
It won’t come easy.
Your feelings will accuse you of being a faker. Your past will try to convince you that you’re hoping for something that can never come true.
But you’ll be walking by faith day after day, and you’ll be renewing your mind according to God’s truth.
And now we come to your business efforts…
How you think about yourself and your place in the world (and business) will determine what you do each day as you work on the business God has given you.
And it’s your actions that will determine your outcomes.
Nothing happens without action. It’s a cause-and-effect world that we live in. God made it that way.
Having said that, do you see why mindset is so important to your business?
It’s your mindset that will shape the decisions you make – which dictate the actions you take – which directly produce the outcomes that are produced.
And interestingly… all of that fuels and strengthens your mindset, because you’re seeing that your faith in action produces God’s desired outcomes.
Think of it like a cycle, represented in the image below:
So – action based on false beliefs about yourself will yield negative or less-than-best results.
But action based on true beliefs are actions that move along the lines of what God has in mind. They are actions in accordance with the “good works” God planned before you were born.
That’s when your business will begin to thrive according to God’s plan for it (the best plan for it), and when you’ll begin to see amazing things happen.
So… start with mindset. Take the time to get your mind right.
Everything hinges on it.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. What successes have you had in creating a truth-based mindset? What lessons have you learned the hard way? What difference have you seen once you’ve gotten your head saturated with truth?