A positive mindset + 7 easy tips

With Cabau Lifestyle, my goal is to inspire women to be the best they can be and bring out their inner strength. Good mental and physical health, supported by a healthy lifestyle, provides the foundation for our inner power woman to flourish.

In fact, it is about the complete harmony between our body, soul and mind. Especially the latter is an interesting one and still wants to mess with us sometimes.

Fortunately, our mind is trainable. We can influence our thoughts to the point where we can make them work for us. Claudia is a professional mind coach. She is going to share her expertise and tools here, so that we as powerwomen can further unleash our unique strengths and potentials. Let’s bloom and shine together! 

- yolanthe -

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MENTAL COACH CLAUDIA

Hi there! I am mental coach Claudia and in this blog I help powerwomen to gain more control over their lives to achieve better results. Besides being a mental coach, I am an enthusiastic athlete with an elephantine love of tasty, healthy (and plenty of!) food.

"Thoughts determine your feelings, your feelings determine your behaviour and your behaviour determines your overall functioning" 

#4 Everything you need to know about a positive mindset + 7 easy tips

While we spend lifetimes finding answers on the question about what makes us happy, the key simply lies within ourselves. I have to confess, I was never one to believe that there was any real power in the act of positive thinking. It was only when I tried it that I discovered the wisdom behind positive thinking.

Changing your mindset: LET’S DO THIS

Let’s Do This is a method to change your way of thinking in order to create a more positive mindset. Instead of focusing on the problem – the negative aspects in life and the things that are out of your control – focus on the solution. By changing our behavior towards a situation or event, we change our mindset. Need a refresher? In our latest blog, we already had a chat about this effective mental coaching method. Yes babe, need a little memory refreshment on this method? I got your back!

LET’S DO THIS

L          Love
E          Emotion
T          Trick: WIM
S          Slow down
D         Discover solutions
O         Only accept if..
T          Think
H         How to organize
I           Inner evolution
S          So much for now

It’s time to start..

Unfortunately, our mindset is not a button we can turn. In order to change our mindset, three keywords are extremely important: Thinking patterns, Emotions and the Now. Don’t worry, this is not one of those mathematics classes in which, at the end of the 120 minutes, we ask ourselves what was actually being said. I promise, I’ll use clear tips and realistic examples from daily life. You know, those events and moments we all recognize.  Just take a little moment for yourself, prepare a cup of hot tea and let me guide you into a positive flow.

Was does mindset mean?

These days, it has become extremely popular to use the word “mindset”. “It is just my mindset that make me go to the gym every day at 6 am” or “I am in such a happy place right now, because of my mindset” bla bla bla. I have almost reached that point where I feel uncomfortable using the word. However, the word “mindset” is often misused. While the “M-word” has become ultra-trendy, most people can’t even explain the meaning of it. Mindset is not something we can explain within a single sentence. It is a complex concept that has a great impact on our behavior. It covers our whole thinking pattern as well as all thinking processes in our brain. Imagine that you could crawl into your head as if you were sitting on the clouds and looking down on your life. How do you see your life then? And how do you look down on what you are working towards? This is your mindset. The way we look towards ourselves, our lives, and our goals, and how we use this knowledge to change our behavior and patterns to achieve our life goals.  Your mindset is your reality.

• How do you see yourself?
  Mindset is partly about your own identity. How do you feel about yourself and how do you perceive life? Here, it is all about your inner thoughts.

• How do you view the world around you?
  This part of your mindset is all about your thoughts about the world around you. It is about your opinion about other people, your belief about animals, veganism, politics, materialism, diversity etc.

• How do you respond?
  The combination of your self-esteem and your belief about the world around you influence your (mental) response on events. At the end, your mindset has an impact on your behavior and actions.

Your mindset can change

Growth is the result of hard work and dedication. Everything you dedicate your time to, will grow.  Your mindset can also grow, change, and develop. Okay, some situations cannot be changed or foreseen. But our behavior towards it can. It is about the way we deal with situations. Our mindset and emotions are key factors here. Let me explain this with an easy example. If you think you cannot surf (self-image) and you convince yourself that it is so difficult for you (belief) then you’ll struggle to get into the water, you’ll find a million excuses not to buy that surfboard (response) and, eventually, you’ll end up sitting on your beach towel wondering whether you would have become a damn good surfer of not. You’ll probably tell yourself that this is no big deal, but by the way you act, your negative mindset is fed. 

Be honest with yourself, do you think in possibilities and solutions, or do you think in problems and obstacles? If you could view yourself from a distance, would you consider yourself as a happy human being with a positive self-image? It is okay not to be truly happy right now. Recognition is the beginning. If you are able to recognize the fact that you are not happy yet, you are able to embark on the adventure of self-love.

Change your mindset into a positive one with these tips!

Train a positive mindset

Just as all the muscles in our body can be trained, so can our brain. The ability of our brain to create new neural networks is called 'neuroplasticity'. Through these networks, our brain tells our body how to react. An easy example: lion equals danger and is associated with running as a physical response. Sometimes these neural 'biases', so to speak, are so subtle that they are not even noticed. For example, a new challenge equals difficulty and "oh, I can't do this" so you... don't do it. We need to change this, power women!

The journey is more important than the destination

Telling ourselves that we cannot do something feeds our negative thinking patterns. So, we are done with that, babes! We need to learn to think different by telling ourselves “I can learn this” instead of “I cannot do this”.

Focus on new things, and oh yes, new things are exciting but scary at the same time. Not only the outcome is what scares us, also the road to it. No! Don’t be scared by the journey. This is the most important part. We learn by trial and error, right? Enjoy the learning process and see this journey as an amazing experience that is more important than the destination. 

Talk yourself towards a positive mindset

We are talking to ourselves all day, every day. Through self-talk you can either bring yourself down or you train yourself up. How do you want to train your brain? The choice is yours! If you want to develop a positive mindset, you can do so by giving yourself compliments, hope and courage. This is exactly why Yolanthe wrote down inspirational quotes on Bloom Cards.

If you start paying attention to it, you may catch yourself using a lot more negative self-talk than positive self-talk even though positive self-talk feels so much better. That is going to change, ladies! From now on, we are going to tell ourselves, multiple times a day, what we are doing good, what made us happy that day and what made us feel proud of ourselves that day. So, instead of feeling guily every time we eat candy, we’ll give ourselves a huge compliment every time we come home from doing the groceries with louds of veggies and fruit.

“Train yourself to become more conscious of living in the here and now and mention your happy moments of the day out loud. Don’t be scared of being too positive or too happy. It not only brings you in a positive flow, but you’ll also infect others with the positivity virus as well! Oops..

Choose for your happiness

Do you ever take a moment to think about what is really important to you in life? Is it love, health, relaxation, freedom, creativity, family, work, or something else? If you know what makes you feel happy, thereby strengthening your positive mindset, it is easier to make choices that you genuinely endorse and that help you realize your own dreams. To keep all balls high and find a balance you can use the 8-8-8 method. Eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work and eight hours for your family, hobbies, sports, etc. Which ball do you find most important?

Thinking about what is most important in life for you might release certain emotions. Remember that emotions are not negative or bad. Positive or negative, emotions are allowed to be there. It makes us human. Embrace your emotions, acknowledge them, allow them to be there and express them to the people who are close to you. A single “I appreciate that you are there for me” or “I like talking to you” not only gives the other person a warm feeling, it will also give your soul a boost.  

A positive mindset is created by you, only you

Did you know that 25% of your optimistic disposition is hereditary? However, the other 75% is completely in our own hands! So, no excuses such as “I am just not an optimistic person” are allowed. Positive thinking is a skill we can develop, expand and strengthen. It is the best investment as you need a positive mindset during your whole life. A positive mindset helps you to better deal with setbacks, negative events and other things that are out of your control. Those things cannot be foreseen or avoided. Those things are part of life. It is about the way we deal with those situations. It will test us, exhausts us, but after all, it will makes us stronger.

7 super easy tips to change your mindset

All in all, we need to start bringing the positivity into our lives. We can try, but we can also JUST DO IT!  

1. Use positive words in your self-talk and view the situation with a positive point of view.
2. In a difficult, sad or emotional situation, try to evaluate the situation from a distance and ask yourself “what should she do”
3. Before going to sleep, write down in a notebook what made you happy, proud or grateful that day.
4. Ask your friends, family or colleagues what they like about your personality. This will boost your self-esteem.
5. Take care of yourself. You only have one body, so be careful with it. Eat healthy and varied, exercise and take enough rest.
6. Talk to colleagues, friends and family in a way you would like to be treated yourself. Spread a positive flow through your communication.
7. Try a supplement that stimulates the natural production of happiness hormones. For example, the Cabau Mood Booster.

Happiness starts today

To make it easier to change your mindset and remove any barriers, the tips above are all quite simple to put into practice.

Don't delay feeling good until tomorrow, because being happy starts today! I am very curious which tips will help you to develop a positive mindset. Do you have any more tips & tricks that can help other Cabau Sisters change their mindset? Let us know in a comment below!

Lots of love,

Mental coach Claudia