The Mindset Development Trap: Why Thinking Differently Changes Nothing
Though I am a spiritual person and magical-thinking entrepreneur, the idea that mindset development and training are the answers to all our business woes – and life, while we’re at it – is exhausting.
Mindset work is right up my alley too! I love books that contemplate how we think as leaders and innovators, with vintage self-help being an all-time favorite category. Napoleon Hill, Maxell Maltz, and such individuals who set the stage for the self-help craze-of-now are amazingly insightful and have changed my perspective as a business owner.
And yet, I’m so exhausted with shallow mindset training and philosophies handed out to emerging business owners as the answer to much deeper, and more complex challenges they are facing. At a point, it becomes irrelevant to even work on the direction of thinking, when the needed action does not require any type of mindset at all, other than the one of doing anything at all.
Instead, the path to improvement and positive change for business owners actually relies on AT LEAST three things I can think of off the top of my head:
- Your mindset
- Your ability to analyze the issue you are seeing from other perspectives (outside yourself)
- The action of doing (i.e. implementing the solution in practice)
So mindset is a PART of this equation, but it is not the entire picture of how to solve any genre of problems. Even within the three steps above, though, there are sub-steps that could be part of any one, full solution.
Why mindset and productivity get confused
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the answer to diminishing sales, clients who won’t pay, and a staff that can’t align with our guidance as leaders is just that we needed to set some boundaries, stop being negative, create a new image of ourselves, and stop trying so hard to manifest our destinies…let our destinies find us? It wouldn’t be just wonderful, it would be divine!
Alas, this is not the way problem-solving works. If it were, the scientific method we learned in grade school would have included wishing on a star as a step, and we would be on the lookout for omens to decide our marketing strategies for us as a best practice.
The reason mindset and productivity become confused is because modifying our thinking is an attractive solution to an unattractive problem. Being positive and channeling a productive mindset is part of the process of doing, and it feels good. It pumps you up, and it inspires you. I’m sure endorphins are released somewhere in there.
I can’t help but point out, though, mindset development is often pouring more effort into the source of stagnation by staying in pre-action mode with problem-solving. This is the core issue and where we get stuck as professionals. We’re spinning, ruminating, imagining ourselves solving the problem. But the action is not happening…yet (will it ever?).
Of course, strategy is very important. Pointing your efforts in the right direction is essential to success. Don’t skip this step.
But many times, I have found that it takes “doing” to get an individual into clear planning mode in the first place. The start of “doing” becomes the real active planning time…when you are in motion.
How to translate mindset into results: our method for success
In working with hundreds of professional music teachers to give pedagogical training (teaching teachers how to teach), as well as business mentorship, stagnation on reaching goals and completing initiatives affected well over half of teachers regularly.
They experienced different real-life scenarios that needed problem-solving, but would become stuck in a state of avoidance and inaction when overwhelmed – opposite of what we want!
Our solution involved some mindset work, but normally, this work was combined with the active steps. We would explain why we were advising on certain actions as a teaching strategy. The instructor completing these guided steps and seeing the outcome in real time would often get a boost of confidence and reassurance from seeing the solution play out as we said it would, and this problem-solving loop built our trust-bond.
Our teachers realized mentorship and the “doing” parts of our guidance were designed to support them, and we always promoted that sense of being available to lend a hand. We made the learning processes supported and easy act upon, which developed a sense of trust with our team. Teachers were more likely to complete our steps and follow action-based guidance once they saw how committed we were to their success too.
We facilitated a comfortable application and “action” stage of the learning process for teachers where they had assisted “wins”. These initial wins we helped to move along consistently led to future wins just through building our staff’s confidence in their ability to perform.
As leaders, YOU can shape your team’s mindset by assisting them with successes to build their confidence too! Invest in creating successful experiences, and you will see this pattern continue.
The pros of mindset training for professionals
As mentioned, we’re not here to say mindset training for professionals does not have value. We believe the opposite – it does have a value and specific purpose, just not as a stand-alone solution for problem-solving. Mindset training does not translate to consistent enough results to bank on for professional development without a more action-based system paired with it.
What mindset training is great for is recharging motivation and creating a positive outlook around the work being done, or your personal mission. The exercises centering on self-image and creating a new identity you are acting from is a powerful tool that can better-influence the decisions you make going forward.
In this way, mindset training has an important role in developing a professional’s internal compass and direction for their dreams and goals. It keeps the imagination active and engaged.
The brutal truth about personal achievement that mindset coaches won’t share
For all the good things we can say about mindset training, there is one pervasive issue: while you are taking months to map out your plan, work on your frame of mind, and getting into a winner’s head-space, someone else is out there figuring it out in motion and actually winning.
They are doing and learning at the same time, while you are living in the hypothetical. They are going to beat you to the finish line, given this head-start, and you will only join them on the other side if you start moving in their direction…any way you can.
Will you save some time by making sure your plan is more inspired by working your mindset first? Maybe by comparison of your actual start date, but not by the standards of real, physical time.
The truth is, even if the person learning in motion is making mistakes and fixing them along the way – possibly wasting some time – they still have you beat with experience and progress they are gaining along the way. That experience is going to help them figure out the next layer of problem solving much more efficiently than you, because they simply know what they are looking to solve more clearly.
How Piano students show us the dangers of leaning on mindset for progress
I observed my Piano students’ progress and habits over long periods of time (some for over a decade), and here is what I found…
When a piano student is willing to engage with a musical challenge and apply genuine effort, they will improve. It may take awhile, and they may make mistakes, but what they are working on will get better through their engagement along and the repetition of the process.
What’s more, the student who is more driven may not even be the most talented, in terms of musical gifts. They can spend more time practicing than a student who tends to learn faster, but they complete this practice time more efficiently than their counterpart who is not applying this same effort.
The student who relies on talent alone – we’ll call this a “good mindset” for music – but does not engage with their instrument often, will have issues performing their selection and executing it well, even though they have a stronger musical-mindset capacity.
Ultimately, it is the students who consistently do – not through a certain amount of practice time – but with mental energy and engagement in the process who progress the fastest on their instrument.
I will always remember a student I taught who had perfect pitch, but was relying on that gift to get around learning to read music. **Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, means that the student can replicate what they hear accurately without a reference note, written music, or the starting pitch. They can copy what they hear on piano exactly and without effort. It’s a gift.
I would play many of this student’s pieces for her when I assigned them early in our work together, but I noticed that if she did not remember what I had played, or did not know the tune by ear, she would struggle. Then, referring back to the sheet music was a struggle, because she had not exercised her reading skills.
Once I caught on, I stopped playing examples for this student before she attempted a play-through first, and she was forced to read the music itself and find the tune and melody. She had a very hard time with the reading aspect and did not enjoy it, but she did improve.
Reading music was a different and unfamiliar skill for her, so the lack of practice and application prior made the initial engagement difficult. No amount of mindset training – other than “doing” – was beneficial to her, because this aspect of her skill set was already so far ahead of the practical that the only way to catch up the two was to advance her reading.
This brings us to the challenge business owners and leaders experience when training is about mindset, not about application: the active skills involved in your work and the practical application become disconnected. The action is more and more difficult to access as your mindset expands further than your skill set can reinforce – just like this gifted piano student.
How do you develop a success-mentality? Action over mindset
The answer for how you develop a success-mentality is actually “mastery experiences”. When you experience a success, a positive cue is sent to your brain to slowly rewire you each time. You can feel the change within yourself when you finally start winning and generating positive outcomes.
The chicken and the egg situation we have here is that it takes action and “doing” to have a mastery experience. However, the problem is the resistance to “doing” and staying too stuck in the pre-action steps that keeps you working on mindset.
To break through, stop planning and over-thinking how to start. Just begin some action that is appropriate to your stage in the process towards (likely the beginning steps). Any task, or start point, will do. There is no right, or wrong. You just need to get into one initiative to break the ice.
Once you complete your first step, don’t worry if it wasn’t what you really needed first to get started, find what you should have done, and keep going / try again.
After that step is complete, you know the drill. Go to step 3, 4, and so on. Refine your plan along the way, knowing every step you take will lead to an evolution in the next step after that.
Congratulations! If you completed ANY tangible step – big, or small – towards starting your plan, initiative, or goal, you have a success story under your belt. You have taken action. That success can lead to more positivity and momentum if you do not stop, and soon, success will become who you are.
Practice Beats Perspective Every Single Time
Getting started with any objective is the most difficult task of all, but when you take a step forward, you now have something to build upon. With discipline and consistency, the act of doing and accumulating little wins is powerful. Mastery and real achievement (even very small successes) will contribute to the mindset of a champion more than mindset training and creating a new self-image will alone.
Deep down, your subconscious wants to see proof of the information you are feeding it to accept that it is true. Your mind needs reinforcement that this new identity from your mindset work aligns with who you are. Without that connection, we get stuck in paralysis by over-analyzing our approach with a problem, instead of thinking about the next action-steps to take.
Practice and evolving your vision as your skill grows are the keys to both productivity and mindset change as one action. Practice is the systematic improvement of a skill, and when given the freedom to “just start anywhere”, positive change is bound to occur.
In the end, practicing your solutions within your problem-solving system should be part of your strategy and approach. We should not stay stuck in mindset development, because of the gap it creates in actual work product and steps forward.
Mindset development has a role in business and personal achievement, but when your self-image, outlook, and sense of anxiety, or procrastination are out of hand and affecting your work output, we recommend talking to a licensed therapist (who may offer mindset coaching too).
A professional care provider is the best source for working on your mind, as they are following clinical best practices to protect you and cause no harm.
But if you are just looking to improve your work habits and vision, but can’t seem to get the ball rolling on any ideas, you may benefit from simply taking your first step.
At AstroCat, we believe in a philosophy of action and application as we help professionals achieve their goals and make meaningful progress in their area of need. If you would like more information on our business and leadership coaching services, contact us for the full menu and to share more about your needs.
