Most people crave some form of success that is independent to them and based on their own life experiences and preferences. However, many people do not go out of their way to pursue their goals due to limiting factors such as job security, not enough time, and fear of failure among others.
Sigurd Vedal, CEO of Digisec Media with his own life coaching brand, preaches a positive mindset for people to overcome the necessary hurdles to pursuing their passions.
“I am inspired by many others and want to help people conquer their fears, inhibitions, and internal grief,” he says. “In reality, people ‘cure themselves’ and my role is to help them execute a plan by assigning tasks to reach their goals.”
With a positive mindset comes more drive to follow a routine, pursue a goal, and work towards it in your spare time. Changing your mindset is not an overnight task, but rather occurs over time. “Don’t let your mind sabotage your energy, focus, or the direction you want to go in,” says Sigurd.
Evaluating Mindsets and Individual Perspectives
A common reference point for surveying general mindsets when it comes to pursuing success is growth vs. fixed perception.
Growth-focused mindsets are open to criticism, new perspectives, and believe that their ability to improve is wholly dependent on the effort put into becoming better. Conversely, the fixed mindset is more of the deterministic view that abilities are innate and your life experiences are largely dependent on your ingrained talents.
Where growth mindsets are open to improving and overcoming hurdles like failure, fixed mindsets can become distraught by setbacks and are prone to giving up in the face of adversity. In business and personal success, an open, growth mindset is what is taught by life coaches like Sigurd and prominent authors in self-motivation.
For example, Sigurd’s message mirrors the narrative proposed by great motivational authors such as Earl Nightingale who detailed in his book The Strangest Secret:
“We’ve got to put the fuel in before we can expect heat. Likewise, we’ve got to be of service first before we can expect money. Don’t concern yourself with the money. Be of service. Build. Work. Dream. Create. Do this, and you’ll find that there is no limit to the prosperity and abundance that will come to you.”
Starting an ambitious new task or taking a leap of faith is always the most challenging aspect of seeking success, but a positive mindset can help propel you past the barrier holding you back.
Sigurd classifies people into three primary personality projections: the ‘Do-er,’ ‘Talker,’ and ‘Critic.’
Whatever category they fall into, he says that he always remains positive as it is the fuel necessary to push them into executing the agenda to improve their lives and follow the path that they seek.
Once on track, it’s all about executing the plan and putting in the work to reach your goals, no matter if you run into obstacles along the way. The growth mindset conditions you to take failures as lessons, fostering a more conducive personality to improvement. Honing a positive perspective is not solely dependent on the individual either, achieving success and positivity draws significantly from people that you surround yourself with as well.
“Surround yourself with people moving in the same direction and with the same passion as you,” says Sigurd. Friends can have an enormous impact on your life and how you think. One of the most telling examples of the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people to foster a more positive mindset is that of relationships and sculpting of each others’ personalities — known as the Michaelangelo phenomenon.
What the phenomenon details is that, over time, people will strive to become their ‘ideal selves’ due to the promotion of an explicit projection by their partner. Sigurd also takes into account a relationship’s impact on a positive mindset in an individual.
Sigurd’s experiences led him to deeply analyze the effect of personal relationships on individual perspectives, which also led to his ‘Marriage Booster’ brand. “I always ask, ‘Are people happy or not happy?’ The answer is always related to work or relationships,” he says.
In the end, you are what you think, and your perspective, whether positive or negative, can have many evident and unforeseen consequences on your pursuit of success. For many people, excuses come readily, often born from a fixed state of thinking, but for the successful, a more flexible growing mindset is a prerequisite to both positivity and success.
You are what you think, and as Henry Ford once said, “if you think you can or can’t do a thing, you are probably right.”