Nourishment VitalityTransforming Mindsets of Success During COVID-19
Businesses around the world are collectively confronting what feels like unprecedented times, a real-time of uncertainty for us all. COVID-19, quarantine, and social distancing guidelines have changed the way that we interact and do business with each other. It has changed the way that we purchase services and goods. Transforming mindsets of success is the new challenge.
It has also challenged the way that we have to view work, employment, the 40-hour workweek, and what it means to be successful right now.
So if you’re feeling a little bit of fear around this uncertainty, and also some personal self-shaming about how focused or hopeful you are right now, read further.
In this article, I’m going to confront what many of us were taught about success and successful mindsets, and why this time is inviting us to adjust our definition and re-appreciate what successful mindsets can mean right now.
So let’s first talk about the mindsets of success that are commonly taught.
This Forbes article lays out seven mindsets of highly successful and happy people.
- Ditch the Fixed Mindset and Go For Growth
- Adopt An Abundance Mentality, Not Scarcity Mentality
- Stop Fearing Failure. Instead, Be Willing to Fail
- Create a Long-Term Vision Instead of Only Short-Term Goals
- Don’t Be Afraid to Break the Rules
- Listen to Your Gut
- Let Positivity Flow Into Everything You Do
Let’s go through each one and examine what it can mean in this current climate.
First: What is success pre-COVID vs. now? How is it different?
Previously, when someone referred to a “successful” person online, it was usually the image of someone with a successful career, a fulfilling life, financial abundance, wisdom and insight, intelligence, and many things in their life to show for their success such as nice houses, cars, vacation time, etc.
In most “successful people” articles, you’ll notice they often interview CEOs of major companies and celebrities.
However, even the people who made that list at one time have also had to look at the ways quarantine has impacted them, their businesses, and the way they go about life. And no matter your social standing or financial status, people everywhere are reporting common symptoms:
- Fatigue
- Brain fog
- Lethargy
- Feeling unwell most of the time
- Lack of purpose
- Missing human connection
- Decrease in motivation
This calls into question how we define success now. You could still be in a healthy place financially and feel less fulfilled and connected to your life. It’s difficult to appreciate or even feel authentically successful when suffering is still present in so many areas.
So, if I were to redefine success with my corporate clients now, I’d ask:
- Are you happy?
- Do your employees appear to be happy?
- Are you rested?
- Do you feel hopeful for the future?
With all of that in place, it’s much easier to create foundations for other ways to be successful.
So, let’s look once again at those seven mindsets and modify them a bit for our current experience.
Previous mindset one is about ditching the fixed mindset and going for growth.
Let’s look at the benefit of that right now in our lives.
If we held a fixed mindset that everything is hopeless because the future is completely unpredictable right now, then it would be really hard to dig deep and find hope for any possibility for growth. In that way, this mindset is still very important!
But, let’s add to it.
New mindset: A successful mindset right now would be to have HOPE for growth while having a flexible mindset about what growth means.
If we think growth right now can only look a certain way, the way it looked before the Pandemic, that’s a recipe for hopelessness. And this success mindset is all about hope.
In order for a mindset to actually work and benefit you, you have to truly believe it. And so the possibility of hope and flexibility for what growth means is a powerful success mindset to focus your mind on right now.
Previous mindset two was about adopting an abundance mentality, not scarcity mentality.
Yes, this is a great one!
Abundance means we can drop into trust that there is always more than enough out there for everyone, whether that means clients, money, or opportunities, or anything else. That means you don’t spend your time worrying about what everyone else is doing.
However, remember that your relationship to abundance may look different now than it did before because abundance needs to also include things like hope and joy and love and presence and experience and living your life.
New mindset: Believe you have an abundance of what you need right now already within you.
The possibility that you have access to an abundance within you is so important. It means you can dig deeper and find that energy and motivation needed to act right now. And that’s going to take you out of that lethargy and into hope and inspiration and action.
Previous mindset three was: stop fearing failure, instead be willing to fail.
This is all about being less risk-averse. It’s a common lesson we learn in business in order to move forward. We have to take risks sometimes. If you don’t take any risks ever, then it’s unlikely that you’re growing.
And, again, a risk before COVID-19 may have looked different than a risk now because we do have to accept that things are different. The future is less certain than ever. Thinking even three months ahead feels almost impossible when we don’t know what to expect next week as far as the political climate and socioeconomic climate go, and what will happen with the Pandemic and how people will react.
New mindset: Cultivate an appreciation for how far you have come and that you are still here!
The risk now is even appreciating that you are here and still showing up in your business and life. Even now, when things are not as predictable, you have the courage to be here and to be running your business and choosing a life you can love.
You are welcoming the possibility of the flexibility it takes to pivot and adjust as needed. So you can take even small risks and appreciate that you had the courage to be in business now. It’s a mindset of courage and appreciation while understanding that risks have to be as calculated as possible.
It’s not about putting you and your family and your business in jeopardy by making huge, miscalculated moves.
Previous mindset number four was about creating a long term vision instead of only short term goals
This one is really being called out right now. Let’s tell the truth. We don’t know what to expect almost every day at this point. Creating a five-year plan isn’t even reasonable or very logical at this time.
New mindset: A mindset of adaptability is going to really support you now more than ever before. This is a mindset of: “I can go with the flow.”
Can you let yourself receive whatever is coming your way right now? Believe you are adaptable! Appreciate yourself, it takes strength of mind and spirit to be willing to pivot and adjust and not always have the answer.
Previous mindset number five: don’t be afraid to break the rules.
This is a very common thing in order to really make breakthroughs in business. If you want to do something big you have to be willing to do something different. And sometimes we have rules about what it means to have a business and how many hours we have to work and how to run our teams. To grow, we want to think outside the box.
The new mindset I invite you to now is to break your own rules of what it means to be successful.
If you thought being successful meant you had to always be focused and disciplined and on task and never rest, now is the time to adjust your expectations and be willing to break your own rules. The more rested you are, the more balanced you feel and the cleanest energy you will bring into anything you do!
Previous mindset number six is to listen to your gut.
I am all for this! I often guide my clients into trusting their gut over what someone is telling them is the best course of action. However, as a mind-body and stress practitioner, I know that it is almost impossible to tune into your gut wisdom and follow your gut feeling if you are in a constant low-level stress response.
Stress tells your brain to go into survival mode. If you are feeling the symptoms and effects of quarantine life, your mind and body are likely stressed and it will be hard to tell the difference between your gut knowledge about something versus your anxiety about it.
New mindset: Before going into wisdom, I encourage you to have a mindset of self-care.
The more care you receive and give yourself now, the better you’ll be able to distinguish between “is this anxiety I’m feeling or, is this really a gut feeling I have about what direction to take?”
The mindset is that self-care is always important. You must put on your mask first. It’s never of benefit to others to overdo anything to the point that you’re resentful, bitter, and burnt out. A self-care mindset for a successful person encourages healthy boundaries, a balanced daily rhythm, and more ease throughout the day.
Previous final mindset: let positivity flow into everything you do.
There is some truth to the power of optimism and the power of positive thinking that can give you the energy and motivation needed.
We also know that there are consequences to bypassing negative emotions as well. There’s a difference between a negative emotion and a negative mindset.
New mindset: This is about having a hopeful mindset, regardless of how you’re feeling.
If you’re feeling sad, and you try to bypass that by positively talking to yourself and talking yourself out of how you feel, you are going to, a very true emotion that your body is asking you to receive and accept and move through your system. It’s healthier to feel the feelings and let them move through you, so you can truly move on into optimism. Otherwise, you end up gaslighting yourself with positive phrases.
When you feel down, think about how it sits with you if someone says. “You should smile. It’s not that bad. Other people have it worse.” It’s probably the least comforting thing we could do for someone, and it’s very harmful when we do it to ourselves.
So I invite you to a positive mindset of hope and trusting that you can feel what you’re feeling and it’s healthy to do so.
A successful person has emotional intelligence. And so how can you cultivate more emotional intelligence and trust your feelings and know that it doesn’t mean you’re going to have a sabotaging mindset.
That would conclude the way that I encourage my clients and even myself to navigate this time.
Remember that we are humans who are very adaptable. We can change, we can adjust when we learn new information, and this time in our lives is teaching us new things about ourselves. Transforming mindsets is not an impossibility.
We’re being invited to pay closer attention to who we are and who we want to be.
And as a mind-body stress practitioner, I’m here to show you how you can take the stress and transform that energy into positive momentum leading you towards successful outcomes. If you have questions about how to do that for yourself, for your team, and work with me, please contact Nourishment Vitality here: