In my last blog post, we saw how the students in my class at the Yale School of Music, 21st Century Arts Leadership: Inspiration, Innovation, Collaboration, are learning how to cultivate a positive mindset through three research-based interventions: flow, the growth mindset, and SPIRE.
In order to adopt new ways of thinking, it is not enough to know the theories. You must take steps to incorporate these theories into your daily life.
Here are the action steps that leaders can implement to cultivate and embed the positive mindset:
- Flow:
Flow is a psychological state of optimal performance. Flow involves the total immersion in a creative activity that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, where your skill level meets the challenge at hand, and time goes by without you noticing. There are a number of ways to bring flow into your life.
- Create Your Flow Affirmation
First, tap into your flow experience through a short meditation exercise to remind you of what you are like at your optimal best. Remember that you actually had this experience, so you know that it is possible and true to you.
Be sure to learn your Flow Affirmation by heart! Some helpful ways to solidify your practice include:
- Write it on a Post-it note and post it in a place where you will see it
- Make it your screen saver
- Send yourself a daily text message
- Maximize Your Flow Experiences
Once you have your flow affirmation, there are many ways in which you can maximize your flow experiences.
Start by incorporating your Flow Affirmation into your life as follows:
- Say your affirmation to yourself to boost your confidence and remind you of what you are like at your optimal best.
- Set a goal to be the person you are in a Flow state.
- Pick one word each day and make it a point to be the person embodied in that “Flow word”.
- Commit to taking actions each day demonstrating that you are, in fact, capable of being in the Flow.
Moreover, you can actively cultivate Flow by taking the following actions.
- Notice your attitude throughout the day and pay attention to the situations that make you feel in Flow. Savor the experience by closing your eyes and allowing yourself to feel what it is like to be at Flow. It is one of life’s great experiences.
- Document the situations, experiences, and successes that give rise to Flow in a journal.
- Once you are aware of your Flow experiences, make it a point to do more of what puts you in Flow.
- Flow is a state of complete focus. Therefore, when you do something enjoyable, become fully engaged in what you are doing. Turn off your phone. Be mindful when you perform, converse with a friend, go out to dinner or make a presentation. Enjoy the experience!
- Growth Mindset:
The second positive mindset intervention that my students have learned about is the growth mindset, the belief that you can grow your talent and intelligence through hard work, smart strategies, taking risks, making mistakes, and learning from your challenges. The growth mindset theory comes into play when thoughts arise that threaten your self-esteem. The good news is that you can challenge those thoughts and overcome the fixed mindset with a 4-step process:
- Embrace both the fixed and growth mindsets:
We all have fixed mindset thoughts. Those with a growth mindset attitude persist!
- Understand your fixed mindset:
What triggers your fixed mindset? What does your fixed mindset say to you?
- Develop strategies to respond to the fixed mindset:
Here is where you actively develop ways to overcome fixed mindset thoughts and cultivate a growth mindset approach.
- Make a plan and take growth mindset actions:
It’s not enough to know the theories. You must commit to taking actions!
The 4-step process embeds action, both by reframing the experience and by taking concrete steps that help to solidify the growth mindset approach.
Here are a few ways to implement growth mindset thinking:
Answer The Fixed Mindset Thoughts
Fixed mindset thoughts are just that: they are thoughts, not the truth. Therefore, it helps to answer those fixed mindset thoughts and reframe your thinking:
- Answer limiting thoughts with a positive thought
You can use your Flow Affirmation to remind you what you are like at your optimal best. You can use a phrase that incorporates growth mindset thinking, like:
“I have done it before and I can do it again.”
“This is a process so let me try things out.”
“I know how to focus and improve.”
Take a moment to reflect before moving on: What’s your growth mindset thought?
- The Power of YET
Carol Dweck’s TED Talk on the Power of Yet is a powerful reminder that you may simply need more time to achieve something that currently seems out of reach. As one of my old bosses used to say: “There is nothing more misleading than the score at half-time.”
So consider that you are at half-time!
- Weigh the evidence
Another possibility is to weigh the evidence that supports and refutes your Fixed Mindset Thought. In class, one student shared how he worried that due to an injury, he would never have a professional career. The evidence that supported this thought was that he was often in pain and could not play as well. However, the evidence that refuted this thought was that he was already playing and touring with a professional ensemble and succeeding in his auditions. This exercise helped him to believe in his ability to advance in the profession.
Strategies for Cultivating Growth Mindset Thinking
In addition to reframing your thoughts, it also helps to take concrete actions that solidify a growth mindset approach:
- Journal:
Remember how developing a growth mindset approach is a process? You can document that process through journaling:
- When you do well in a challenging situation, trace your process on what helped you to do well.
- When you make errors, review what led to them. What can you do to improve next time?
- Document your successes:
- Keep track of your progress and document what you are learning so that you can see the evidence of your growth process.
- Keep a log of all your successes, big and small. This can be anything from making the time to meet a friend for coffee, starting an exercise program by going out for a short walk or run, as well as professional successes like advancing in a competition.
- When the fixed mindset starts to creep in, read your success journal!
- Meditate to raise your awareness of how you are feeling.
- Reach out for help when you need it.
Start with a few of these action steps and see how they help!
3. SPIRE:
The third positive mindset tool that my students are embracing is the 5-part SPIRE framework of well-being:
S: spiritual well-being
P: physical well-being
I: intellectual well-being
R: relational well-being
E: emotional well-being
The idea behind SPIRE is to incorporate all five SPIRE elements into your life by taking small action steps to which you commit and apply consistently.
Leaders first need to cultivate their own positive mindsets and then model it for others. This means walking your talk and taking action steps to implement positive thinking for yourself and those around you
Here are action steps for each of the five SPIRE elements that my students are implementing:
- Spiritual Well-being:
Spiritual well-being has two principles:
- Having a sense of purpose to which we commit
- Being mindful and experiencing life in the present moment
My students discovered their life purpose by writing Life Purpose Statements, which reflect their commitment to serving the world through their music.
One student found her purpose in creating inclusive and connected communities where everyone can engage with and be transformed by the arts.”
For another student, purpose involves inspiring and instilling curiosity through the power of music by forging deep connections and making music accessible and approachable.
Yet another student found purpose in creating meaningful connections and inspiring growth through music to celebrate joy, understanding, adventure, passion, and positivity.
Through their Flow meditations, my students are experiencing mindfulness, which enables them to stay in the moment, pay attention to the now, and cultivate what brings out their best selves.
- Physical well-being:
Physical well-being incorporates the idea of the mind-body connection. Our attitudes and perceptions can affect our physical health. A great example is how we perceive stress.
My students appreciated learning about the mind-body connection to reframe stress as a way of overcoming a challenge and energizing their mind and body.
You can use this exercise to help reframe stress and turn anxiety into excitement:
- Call up something that you are nervous about. How do you feel?
- Now, say the words, “I am excited!”
- Now, how do you feel?
- Intellectual well-being:
Intellectual well-being involves being curious and open to new experiences, which is at the heart of the growth mindset.
Allowing yourself to be curious when you encounter new experiences and challenges means that you embrace failure. In fact, fear of failure is the biggest obstacle to curiosity and openness because it means you stay safe and don’t allow yourself to make mistakes or take risks. This can hinder learning.
By embracing failure, you give up the need to be perfect, you lessen anxiety, and you learn and try again. This builds resilience, another key aspect of the growth mindset.
One way that my students are cultivating their growth mindset through curiosity for learning new things is by keeping a log of their mistakes, risks, successes, and learning.
Over the course of the semester, students will be able to see their progress!
- Relational Well-being:
Relational well-being involves cultivating strong relationships with others. For this exercise, students wrote down three people who mattered to them and pledged to take one action within the next week to nurture that relationship.
One student pledged to call his girlfriend and support her through a medical diagnosis.
Another student planned to go looking for a small gift for his girlfriend when she comes to visit. A third student decided to send flowers to a friend who had volunteered to play for my student’s audition tapes, even though the friend had her degree recital the same week.
- Emotional Well-Being:
Emotional well-being recognizes the importance of accepting all our emotions, even difficult ones, and then cultivating optimism through positive emotions. One way to cultivate positive emotions is through a daily gratitude practice by writing down 3 things for which you are grateful. You can make that practice even stronger by telling someone that you are grateful for them and experience both emotional and relational well-being!
Here are three more ways to cultivate positive emotions:
- Do a short Flow meditation and take actions to embody one of your Flow words, thereby experiencing both spiritual and emotional wellbeing.
- Make it a point to use one of your strengths and see how that experience brings on positive emotions.
- Journal about difficult experiences to capture what you learned from the experience.
Bottom line:
There are many ways to cultivate a positive mindset, so select a few of these action steps and see how they can help to elevate your sense of optimism!