Professional Documents
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Mindset
Mindset
Mindset
(5) proactive thinking, (6) optimal thinking, (7) agile thinking, (8) regret minimization mindset and (9) the
ability to shut down your mind when necessary.
https://agileleanlife.com/how-to-upgrade-your-mindset-tools-and-hacks/
The key is to really want it badly enough. The best thing ever is to be born and raised with that
kind of a superhuman mindset. The next best thing is to start working on it today.
1. Buy a waiter’s pad and start by writing down 5 – 20 random thoughts throughout a day – all
thoughts, negative and positive ones. Analyze every one of your thoughts and categorize them
(fixed/growth, scarcity/abundance, negative/positive etc.). Only categorize them, nothing else.
2. Try to become aware of your inner critic.
Week 2 – Noticing all the negative thoughts that come to your mind throughout a day
1. Buy a counter or do lines (|||||) in your notepad and start counting all your negative thoughts.
2. Categorize negative thoughts. Only categorize them, nothing else. Don’t be shocked how many
of negative thoughts you may have and make sure you try to identify every single negative
thought.
3. Count and categorize!
Week 3 – Observing emotions and the environment and when negative thoughts
concentrate
1. Start observing your emotions very closely. Prepare a happiness index for yourself and mark
your feelings every morning or every evening. Observe your body language at 5 different times
in a day. Mark in your journal if your body language is positive or negative.
2. Every day, describe your working and home environment in a few sentences – vibrations,
atmosphere, specific relationships etc. Was it stressful or not, was it happy, depressing etc. Try
to connect how the outer environment reflects your inner state.
3. Observe how your negative thoughts concentrate when you experience negative emotions.
1. Print out the superhuman mindset helpers on the AgileLeanLife blog – proofs of abundance, list
of questions to encourage optimal thinking, Kaizen rules etc. and always have them with you.
2. Start doing emotional accounting. At the moment you feel stuck, aren’t performing optimally or
have severe negative emotions, stop, write down your thoughts and do emotional accounting,
cognitive reframing or any other exercise.
1. Experiment how different approaches to thought or behavioral conditioning are working out for
you.
2. Test different tools to improve your mindset even further – journaling, visualization,
affirmations, transformational vocabulary, meditation, breathing exercises and improving your
posture and body language. Test each tool for several days and pay close attention to what
works for you and what doesn’t.
3. Make sure you increase the amount of quality content you read every day.
It will take you approximately two months altogether to master all the exercises. In this time, you
should already slowly get through empathy phase. Then comes the hardest phase, the stickiness
phase. Please don’t give up. It’s only a test of whether you want it enough. And I believe in you
that you do. Even more, you deserve it. Stick to it and it will only get easier.
Do exercises and live a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the
rest of your life like most people can’t.
See yourself as a life and mindset scientist who strives to strategically and systematically do all
the updates. It’s hard to be consistent with the exercises, but it’s also fun and it feels great.
Enjoy performing all the exercises and be proud of all the progress you make during the
exercises. Again, just make sure that you have realistic expectations.
With the mindset updates, you will soon also see the positive changes in your life and that will
motivate you even further to really make sure your brain and its software become the
superhuman version. Enjoy the journey and unlock an ability to really live the best life possible.
Last but not least, make sure you regularly read the AgileLeanLife blog for new ideas and
quality personal development content, teaching you to become the best version of yourself. If
you need somebody to believe in you, you’re always welcome on the AgileLeanLife blog.
1/ Growth mindset
Value system
Process
Strategy
Constructive
Stereotyping
http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/motivation/develop-a-growth-mindset/
https://medium.com/@ameet/fixed-v-growth-mindset-902e7d0081b3#.42d3pjnhu
http://7mindsets.com/growth-mindset/
http://blog.innerdrive.co.uk/how-do-you-actually-develop-growth-mindset
http://mindsetonline.com/changeyourmindset/firststeps/index.html
time
https://agileleanlife.com/positive-orientation-towards-your-past/
https://agileleanlife.com/living-in-the-present-moment/
et’s look at a few examples of irrational fears. If you’re afraid of the things below, it’s a good
way to start improving yourself:
Public speaking
Talking with superiors about new ideas
Asking for a raise or a bonus if you deserve it
Talking and flirting with the opposite sex
Being independent from your parents
Creating and contributing ideas
Enjoying life
Being alone
Not having control
Intimacy
Success
The unknown
God
Number 13
Getting old
Technology
Opinions of other people
Commitment
Failure
What are 20 things I can do and haven’t thought about yet to improve my situation?
What will happen if I go into the opposite direction?
Which are the best books that deal with my kind of situation and propose solutions? (read
them)
Which negative behavioural patterns led me to where I am now?
How can I start doing things differently?
Which effort will bring the best results the fastest?
Who can help me – a friend, formal institution etc.?
What are the resources I can engage to get out of the situation faster?
What is optimal thinking in this kind of situations?
What would [x] do? Where [x] can be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michel Jordan or whoever
your role model is.
Why should I fight?
2/ abundance mindset
(1) Seeing all the possibilities the world has to offer in order to create, connect, grow and enjoy, (2)
knowing that you deserve love and prosperity, and (3) realizing that if you’d experience only plentitude
in life, it would be boring as hell and you wouldn’t appreciate anything you have at all.
Body, emotions, mind and soul. If they were exposed to an abundance of attention, love,
information, encouragement and a positive and stable environment, they all greatly
contribute to the abundance mindset. It’s a lot to take in. But we aren’t done yet. There are
two more important categories of life.
First, we have the social aspect. We are social beings and as soon as you’re exposed to other
people outside of your home, you have a need to belong to different social groups. How well you
fit into social groups especially depends on your values. If there are people around you with the
same values, you feel like a part of a group. In such a case, you can have many friends and even
more, you have a tribe to protect you.
Abundance is not the root of all evil. A lack of the abundance mindset is the root of all evil.
There are three reasons why, 3 Cs:
Compensation …. Greed
Control.. things that need to flow, not stand still. Money needs to flow, love needs to flow,
markets need to flow. They can’t be controlled
Competition … If there isn’t enough out there and you have to compete with others for that
little something, healthy competition becomes an overly aggressive one. Markets can
definitely be tough.
https://agileleanlife.com/abundance-mindset/
………………
Now let’s see how a life with the abundance mindset would look like. The abundance model
is based on the following facts:
You deserve to take care of your needs in a healthy and respectful manner
You focus on all the opportunities you have and on becoming the best version of yourself
There are no limits to how much love, creativity and encouragement you can share
You can satisfy your material needs based on the market economy, not trampling other people
You can share material surpluses you make with the people you love and with communities
You use domination exclusively when you must protect yourself and are in danger
You can make money for comfortable living by providing value to the market. You develop your talents
as much as possible and the more value you provide, the more you can earn. There’s nothing wrong
with that, if it’s not based on greed, where you want more and more, and outwork yourself to
exhaustion and step over dead bodies to make another few dollars.
If you lose a job, you know you will find a new one. If you need more money to buy yourself something,
you know there are many ways of making more money. If you feel lonely, you can always make new
friends. With today’s technology, everything is accessible to you. You just have to see it; you just have to
change your focus.
With the abundance mindset, it still hurts when someone betrays you. It’s not easy if a love wears out.
It’s not easy when you experience a setback in career or your finances. But it’s not the end of the world.
You let yourself emotionally work through failure, and then you focus on the positive and life goes on.
Without self-pity. Without aggression. Without self-castration. With gratefulness for what you have
experienced in life and what you have
you have to slowly change your mindset and destroy the underlying toxic beliefs, everything supported
by action and execution.
General tricks
One very useful thing you can do to rattle the scarcity mindset is to write down all the
things you already have in life and are grateful for. You have to focus on what you have if
you want to attract even more into your life.
The second thing you can do is to play with your fears. The scarcity mindset is especially
based on the following fears:
Fear of rejection
Fear of abandonment
Fear of humiliation
Fear of being dependent on other people
Fear of missing out
Fear of being alone in life
Fear of your needs not being met
Play with all these fears. Face them. Get rejected. Isolate yourself in monk mode. Be
vulnerable. Try to curb your temptations. Practice minimalism. But be careful, the idea is not to
stifle your needs and wishes even further, the idea is to face your fears, so you can more easily
accept the abundance mentality by mastering your fears.
The next thing you can do is to compare the life areas where you operate out of the
abundance mindset with the areas you operate out of the scarcity mindset. Usually there are
some areas where you have a strong mindset, you see all the positives and are a real peaceful
warrior, and others where you struggle with the scarcity mindset and an emotional cage.
Your job here on this beautiful planet is to learn and grow. Learning and growing can happen when
you’re enjoying abundance and when you have to face limited resources. Both abundance and scarcity
are great teachers.
Money
…
A similar thing you can do is to ask for a raise (if you deserve it), charge more on an hourly rate,
find a better paying job or clients, and so on. You may not earn more working with the same
people as you do now, but you can start working with new ones who are prepared to pay you
more, if you only provide enough value.
Or try to find one client that will pay you 10x more than what you’re currently earning per
hour. Just try it, to rattle your inner beliefs of how much you deserve.
Relationships
know that we are all already connected. There is actually no ice to break.
Work hard to start distinguishing between real love and connection and a desire to control people.
Shift your focus to the positive. Take action. You deserve it.
you are in power can you do something about it; and it’s your duty to help make the world a better
place for generations to come.
You shouldn’t be a pussy in life, drowning in self-pity and procrastination. Life wants
you to fight and become the best version of yourself, and make sure you provide enough
value to acquire enough resources to live a quality life as well as share with others. You
can achieve that by creating, not exploiting other people.
You have to focus on the positive and see all the opportunities you have in life and what
the world has to offer to you.
You must make sure you don’t become a greedy person who fights to win by trampling
down and destroying others.
When people try to hurt you, they act out of the scarcity mindset. Now you understand that better. You
can talk to them; you can explain to them what’s happening. And if it doesn’t work, don’t let haters ruin
your life. Maybe you are the one clinging to them, because of the scarcity mindset.
https://agileleanlife.com/abundance-mindset/
3/ Positive thinking
there is zero room for negative thoughts in the superhuman way of thinking.
For most people, assumptions about how to deal with cognitive distortions go something like this: I need
[x]. Having [x] will make me happy in life
The first wrong assumption is that happiness comes from the outer world.
The second very big problem with that kind of thinking is passivity. You put yourself in a passive role,
waiting for life to reward you just because you deserve it, just because you’re something special. It
doesn’t work that way. Life rewards those who master its rules and put all their creativity, cleverness
and hard work into achieving their goals. Life wants you to be proactive, not passive and reactive
The next false assumption is that it’s going to be easy to get rid of negative thoughts.
Nothing worthwhile comes easily and getting rid of your negative thoughts is definitely worth it.
The process of getting rid of cognitive distortions works the other way around. First you have to work
on your mind, first you have to improve your mental state and change your inner world. Working on
your mind will improve your thoughts, better thoughts will bring more positive actions, more positive
actions will bring more positive outcomes. That’s a proactive position. You tackle the software in your
brain to get rid of bugs and function optimally. You level up your game. You first have to work on your
mind to become more focused, more decisive, clearer about what you want out of life, and more
positive.
Here are ten types of negative thinking, described in detail in the book Feeling good:
All-or-nothing thinking
Overgeneralization
Mental filter
Jumping to conclusions
Emotional reasoning
Should statements
our life is therefore an evolving experience, a continual flow. You are not a thing. That is why
any label is constricting, highly inaccurate, and global. Labelling means that you have a fixed
mindset, but in life you can always grow, improve and change. Nothing is permanent and there is
always a move you can make towards a better life. You have to innovate your way towards a
better life.
Personalization
Feelings aren’t facts.”
Thus the first step is to closely examine what you say about yourself when you have negative feelings.
The only way to do it is to tackle your inner dialogue and your inner critique.
The method that David S. Burns recommends for tackling your self-esteem is:
You simply draw a three-column table, where the first column is the automatic negative thought
(“I never do things right”), the second one is the type of cognitive distortion (overgeneralization)
out of the mentioned ten different types, and the third one is your rational response (“Not true, I
do a lot of things right”).
Emotional accounting
Thus columns in your table would be:
You should identify your negative thoughts, your cognitive distortions and your paralyzing mindsets.
Keeping a schedule of negative thoughts, fixing your cognitive distortions, keeping a daily activity
schedule as well as rewarding yourself and giving yourself credit is a way towards a whole new, more
positive life. Focusing on your progress, what you’ve done and fixing your negative interpretations and
beliefs will help you with your feeling of self-worth and thus you will be able to enjoy life more. At the
end of the day, the most important thing is that you respect and love yourself.
How could I solve my problem in the most creative and innovative way?
What kind of a product or service would solve my problem? Could I build it?
How could I innovate my way out of this situation?
What are the alternative ways of achieving my goal?
What would happen if I do the opposite?
What would MacGyver do in this kind of a situation?
Etc.
Always remember the famous quote: “Your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it’s open.” Your
mind being open especially means that you know how to manage your negative emotions and
thoughts that are preventing you from looking for the most creative solutions.
Ask yourself: what is the optimal way of thinking in the situation and how could I creatively solve the
problem; keep your mind open and start brainstorming, testing and experimenting.
Sometimes you have to take one step back in order to take two steps further.
There is always a step that can take you closer to your goal. It may not be a linear step, but life is
never a linear path.
What are 20 things I can do and haven’t thought about yet to improve my situation?
What will happen if I go into the opposite direction?
Which are the best books that deal with my kind of situation and propose solutions? (read
them)
Which negative behavioural patterns led me to where I am now?
How can I start doing things differently?
Which effort will bring the best results the fastest?
Who can help me – a friend, formal institution etc.?
What are the resources I can engage to get out of the situation faster?
What is optimal thinking in this kind of situations?
What would [x] do? Where [x] can be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michel Jordan or whoever
your role model is.
Why should I fight?
Every innovation usually brings a decrease in short-term productivity and an increase in long term-
productivity.
, there is always something you can do. Be creative. Innovate. Find a new and better way to do things.
Win.
5/ proactive thinking
Below are the steps for becoming a proactive person. If you want to become one, you have to:
Be aware that life doesn’t just happen, you are the one designing your life
Take full responsibility for your life and stop blaming others
Work hard on developing healthy self-confidence
Set a clear vision and mission for your life
Strategically define your life strategy and follow it
Very clearly define the outcomes and goals you want to achieve
Analyze your environment for what’s likely to happen in the future, how that influences your
life, and prepare several potential scenarios for how you can take advantage of market shifts
and other paradigms in the environment
Strategically choose and build key relationships
Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst
Nevertheless, you can take your mindset even a step further from proactivity. It’s called being
superproactive. Superproactivity means taking full and complete responsibility for your life,
including the areas where you expect nature, love, government, church or whoever to take
care of things instead of you. You take responsibility for your own life in the hardest areas
ever.
With proactive behavior, you become aware that life doesn’t just happen, but that you’re the
one who designs your life, you’re the one making choices. With proactive thinking, you focus
on things you can change, you make a plan of how you’ll really change them and then go after
your goals, while at the same time accepting the things you can’t change.
Talent
Nature
Love
Government
Religion
Acquaintances on social networks etc.
Superproactivity means taking full and complete responsibility for your life, including the areas
where you expect nature, love, government, church or whoever to take care of things
instead of you. You take responsibility for your own life in the hardest areas ever. To do that,
you have to first accept the truth.
You can’t just sit and hope that maybe your boss will give you a task where your passion will magically
awaken and your work will become more meaningful.
Only skills, competences and providing value to markets will. You’ll have to do all the hard work (and
smart work), you’ll have to become the best version of yourself.
https://agileleanlife.com/aarrr-way-true-love-perfect-job/
To be really superproactive in life, you have to put yourself in the position of having many options.
That is a difficult, but very rewarding thing to do.
…..
You want to make the right choices in life that lead you to having more options. That brings freedom
and that brings the ability to be superproactive in your life. All you need for superproactivity is a
superior life strategy, smart work and a little bit of courage. At the end of the day, it’s super fun to be
superproactive and it gives you great results.
Now think of the three most critical areas where you’re really taking the easy road, hoping
that somebody or something else will do all the hard work for you.
Outline a plan and a strategy of how you could take the power back into your hands step by step,
by getting educated, proactive, and making choices and decisions by yourself. Then, taking back
the power area by area, become a superproactive person and reap all the rewards.
6/ optimal thinking
there is always a move forward that you can make. Even more, there is always the optimal (the
best) move you can make.
When thinking and using your brain, there are three very basic levels of the mindset you operate
from:
The fact is that the more optimally you think in life, the more optimal actions you will take, and that
will lead you to the best possible results – achieving your goals as quickly as possible, having a good
quality of life and being super productive.
Only the right question can encourage your brain to start looking for the best solutions. “The best” is
the key in optimal thinking.
Now, whatever you’re asking yourself, add “the best” into your question
You can also replace the best with other superlatives, like:
greatest (talents),
highest (priority),
smartest (way to work),
most (profitable, productive, enjoyable, rewarding, important),
maximal (output, productivity, time spend together),
optimal (processes, commuting, costs).
the point of the questions is only to open your mind and lead you to the next step, not to give
you the final optimal solution.
help you with emotional detachment and thinking optimally more easily.
On the way to finding the optimal solution, there are a few important facts you must never
forget to really get to the best solution:
You have to look at your life as a whole, and optimize it on the macro level.
That means that optimal thinking always considers all life areas and how your solution will
increase/decrease the quality of the specific areas. Here are the ten areas:
As you probably know, if one of the life areas collapses, everything else can collapse as well
Rare are the moves that influence life areas only in a positive way
Action required by optimal thinking is usually not an easy one. It takes some courage, new
behavioral patterns, to stop doing certain things and start doing new ones. Not always, but in
most cases.
So there is a question that answers if your positive thinking isn’t optimal thinking: “Are you
taking the easy way out?” and “Will you do things differently than how you’ve been doing
them until now?”. If your answer to the first question is “yes” and to the second one “no”,
you’re probably not thinking optimally.
For extraordinary results, you need to take extraordinary actions. To take extraordinary actions,
you have to think in unorthodox ways.
Besides emotional burdens, there are also other factors that can lead to suboptimal thinking:
Lying to yourself that things are better than they are to avoid emotional pain
Operating out of the fixed mindset (things are as they are and can’t be changed)
Acting based on completely wrong assumptions
Trusting current best practices. There is no such thing as a best practice.
Having zero knowledge or being stuck in analysis-paralysis
Having no feedback loop and not doing any self-reflection
Having Anti-Kaizen mentality
https://agileleanlife.com/tools-to-help-you-with-self-reflection/
https://agileleanlife.com/living-in-the-present-moment/
https://agileleanlife.com/how-to-relieve-stress/