Has mindset ever been more important than it is right now?

Born the twentieth of twenty-two children to a poor African-American family in Tennessee, Wilma Rudolph had it tough from day one. At the age of five, she was diagnosed with polio, and doctors advised her mother, Blanche, that Wilma would never walk again.

Nobody had counted on Blanche Rudolph's determination, however. For years, she bussed her daughter to a hospital in Nashville for treatment and supplemented this with at-home massages, administered multiple times daily by Wilma's siblings.

By the age of twelve, Wilma was walking again without the aid of braces. Even more remarkably, she went on to become the first American woman to win three gold medals at an Olympic games, taking the honours home from Rome in 1960.

Hers is a story of triumph over adversity, of mindset over circumstance.

I'm fascinated by people like Wilma Rudolph who find ways to excel even in the most trying of situations. They provide guiding posts for us to figure out how we can navigate challenges in our own lives.

For many, at the present time, that means adjusting to a world where the threat of Covid is omnipresent. Albert Einstein advised, however, that "in the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity". As the world changes around us, we need to recognise the importance of adjusting our mindset to keep pace. Here are some strategies you can think about to sharpen your thinking and approach to excel in 2022.

Embrace acceptance

There's a parable in the Buddhist tradition about two arrows. It explores how we are all impacted by events, often outside our control, that can cause us pain. These events are like being struck by the first arrow. There’s little we can do about them.

The second arrow, however, is avoidable. It’s the response we choose to the first one. Some people will dwell on what's happened for long periods of time, berate themselves and, thus, self-inflict the second arrow.

The lesson here is to accept what's happened. None of us want to be in the midst of a pandemic but here we are. Chances are that 2022 is going to be another challenging year. Mentally prepare yourself for that prospect and adjust your expectations accordingly. Re-frame the next twelve months as an opportunity to practice how you can thrive in a difficult environment. If nothing else, this will strengthen your skill set to deal with adversity, an inevitable visitor in all our futures.

Calendarise reflection

Our brains operate on auto-pilot the vast majority of the time, defaulting to the myriad beliefs, behaviours and habits we've encoded over many years. The challenge is that when the environment around us changes we need to update our attitudes, thought patterns and actions to follow suit. This requires deliberate reflection, an increasingly rare skill in the 'doing' culture of today. 

Like anything else, if we want to habitualise reflection we need to practice it regularly. I find setting goals helpful in this regard. In 2022, for example, I've set myself the target of 150 reflection sessions. Each session is ten minutes long (I use a timer and schedule when I'll do it weekly in my calendar), and consists of reflection on particular questions, challenges in my life, or how I'm feeling. Others use walking, running or meditation to serve a similar function. How you do it is not as important as the action of getting it done.

Focus on positive action

As humans, we are very sensitive to threat. This is a good thing, for the most part, as it has helped to keep the species alive through the millennia. In the current circumstances, however, our in-built negativity bias is a strong contributor to increased levels of stress and anxiety.

We need to lean more in the other direction and create a bias towards hope and optimism in 2022. Whilst this may not be as instinctually strong as our threat sensitivity, it can be trained.

To do so, we can take inspiration from people like Blanche Rudolph, who chose to believe that there was a better future ahead for her daughter, and also understand, to quote the ultra-athlete and podcaster Rich Roll, that mood follows action.

Better action means deliberately identifying the good things that are happening in our lives on a daily basis, or using our self-talk to nourish and encourage, not to inflict more arrows on ourselves.

Conclusion 

Our mindset will control us if we don’t control it. This requires energy. It demands intention around what we’re focussing on and how we’re spending our time. The past few years have been challenging for everyone. Now is the time to consider what we want our story to be in 2022. How are you going to manage your mindset in the months ahead?