Curious about Mindset - Have You Adjusted and/or Used Yours?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Mindset as, “A fixed mental attitude or disposition that predetermines a person's responses to and interpretations of situations.” And, “An inclination or a habit.”

All I know is that “Mindset” seems to be the current, descriptive noun for “attitude” or “paradigm.” During the last two decades - or longer - these words were in favor. Now, we read or hear about the “millionaire’s mindset,” an “entrepreneurial mindset,” a “marketing mindset.”

From Wickipedia, “A mindset, in decision theory and general systems theory, refers to a set of assumptions, methods or notations held by one or more people or groups of people which is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices, or tools.”

Is it different, or just another name for “attitude?” When I looked up quotations, I found that none of the ones posted were said and/or written before the early 20th century. Very interesting.

Anyway, how is your mindset, what is it and does it serve you?

I have always been accused of having a “positive, optimistic” attitude, and I guess that would also be my “mindset.” It has also served me well until the beginning of this year when I walked around on a fractured hip for three weeks - yes, I couldn’t imagine that I had a fracture, so I was positive that I would heal naturally. A big wrong!

Also, there are those who scoff at the idea that our mindset helps determine our course and our success. All I know is that those with a good mindset seem to succeed more often than those with a negative mindset. I am taking no chances, however, I do know that one must combine that great mindset with action steps. And, if certain action steps are not producing the results we want, take different actions - don’t abandon a good and positive mindset!

Are you ready for a few quotations?

• “My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.” - Muhammad Yunus
• “Our mindset always says it's not how big the market is but how profitable it can be as the key determiner of whether or not we want to be in it.” - Kevin Rollins
• “Let's just say that at 74 I'm in the mindset that, having been free-to-air, I want to stay free-to-air.” - Richie Benaud (what does he actually mean by this?)
• “Evolutionary psychology is taking that mindset and applying it to more emotionally charged aspects of behavior, such as sexuality, violence, beauty, and family feelings.” - Steven Pinker

A majority of the quotations I found had a relationship with art, performance and/or music.

• “It was just a once-in-a-lifetime situation for me, where you know you're in a spot. You're not in a daze, but you're kind of in a mindset. Looking back on it, I just was totally concentrating on my next move.” - Bobby Thomson
• “What I enjoyed absorbing while I was making my own book was the Brontes, because they were part of that mentality, the mindset of the educated Victorian woman.” - Martin C. Smith
• “Once you're in that mindset, when you're recording in a house as opposed to a clinical environment of a studio, you get beyond that, and you try to capture a performance more than sonic perfection, which is what we were interested in.” - Vivian Campbell
• “If you ever hear a Bobby Keyes solo, you are immediately in a Rolling Stones mindset.” - Sheryl Crow
• “I changed my mindset and figured, ‘Why not try to be really entertaining instrumentally?’” - Brad Paisley

I do hope you will examine your own mindset to discover if it is serving you well. And, then consider the following quotations for their interesting thoughts. They can serve as good topics for discussion starters.

• “The standard entertainment industry reaction to Hollywood's box office slump reveals the same shallow, materialistic mindset that helped create the problem in the first place.” - Michael Medved
• “The hacker mindset doesn't actually see what happens on the other side, to the victim.” - Kevin Mitnick
• “Years of science fiction have produced a mindset that it is human destiny to expand from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars, to the stars.” - Barney Oliver