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                              Beyond Rigid Mindset

                                            Part-1

                                                    Photo-Marcela Olivera (Pexels)

When a child takes birth, his mind is empty with no thoughts, beliefs and understandings of the physical reality around. He is unaware of ‘who he is and why he is here’ and begins his journey with a clean slate and side by side starts crying. The mother cuddles comforts and feeds him. Gradually as part of evolution, he is fed with beliefs, emotions, and fears and thus his journey with opinions and views begins. At the same time, the mindset takes shape and houses thoughts, beliefs, feelings, desires and fears etc. that are fed to him from time to time. This helps shape his habits, attitudes and thinking patterns. In order to survive and move ahead, he repeatedly gets counselled to change and empower his mind after facing hardships. He learns to write, direct, and act on the script of his life. He increasingly understands that when he changes thinking, it leads to transforming his feelings, reactions and responses to life situations. 

  Flexible Mindset

Flexible mindset amounts to changing thoughts and ideas to overcome obstructions and challenges to meet the life goals without failing. It calls for a planned process of change in thinking and beliefs that are stationed in his subconscious mind. Abilities can be developed and reinforced by being committed and applying hard work. On the contrary Inflexibility ‘thy name is imprudence’. It means lack of wisdom, unbendable character, and obsolete ways of thinking and approach, lacking resilience etc. In the absence of analyzing the mindset, he continues with conflicting self-dialogues. Unfortunately, with fixed mindset he is made to  believe as per the practice that these qualities are inborn; are success prone and  therefore unchangeable.

                                                                            Photo- Courtesy What’s up

As a habit, he resists change because he feels it is risk taking, will disturb his inflexibility and egocentric character, comfort levels and his mind bound by negativities. However, mind is such a powerful store house of energy that affects whole experiences of his life. He is expected to initiate a planned change of inflexibilities followed   by visualizing himself with a new image, habit and skill. With repeated practice and focus, his emotions take the cue and in turn his body receives suitable commands. With practice and a strong intent, he    begins to realize the necessities and reward of a flexible mindset. 

 

Discarding old Ways

We are in the best known of what goes on in our mind but because of prejudices, we fail to decipher what amounts to openness.  Need for generating an urge and drive to develop impulses to change old ways to perform.  There are obviously dozens of emotions that continue part of our psyche and have rightly or wrongly lead to rigidity of our mindsets over the years. It is difficult to pin down each of these in Part-1. However, I have tried to list out few important ones. Some more shall be covered in Part-2 of this post, There are no ways other than initiating a gradual process of change for improvement. Majority of us never strive to peep in to our inner self.

 Following brief story highlights tackling mindset issues step by step:-

 A woman got lost in a desert without water. Just as she was about to collapse, she saw a lake nearby. “Could it be? Or is it just a mirage?” she thought to herself and went near the lake and learned that it was no mirage; it was indeed a large lake full of water.  She stood by the water’s edge and stared down at it. A passerby was watching her behavior asked, “Why don’t you have a drink, ma’am?” “I am dying of thirst,” she said, “But there is too much water here to drink. No matter what I do, I can’t possibly finish it all.” The passerby scooped some water up with his hands, lifted it to the woman’s mouth and said, “Ma’am, your opportunity right now, and as you move forward throughout the rest of your life, is to understand that you don’t have to drink the whole lake to quench your thirst. You can simply take one sip and then another if you choose. Focus only on the mouthful in front of you, and all your anxiety, fear and overwhelm about the rest will gradually fade.

 

 

                                                                              Photo-Robin Higgins (Pixabay)

Focus on Interior                                                                            

Right from toddler days, we are made to focus on our exterior attributes such as communications, conduct, personal attire, relationships etc. Flexibility calls for even greater focus on what goes on inside the mind. The sanctity of our inner self is slowly waning away and getting guided by exterior self. We want to compete with others in our aspirations.  We do not listen to our inner voice but are guided more by how others view us. Our likings for caring, fellow feelings, and conduct are slowly fading away. How often have we analyzed our thoughts, beliefs and emotions? Perhaps rarely because we feel these are routine and can wait. It may be true that we are able to initially market ourselves by our good exterior attributes. But   as we go on in our life, we may not be able to hide features of our true inner mind for long. Sooner our real ‘who am I ‘will get reflected to people. Therefore emphasis has also to be on our inner self-values, thought process, thinking philosophy.

 

Openness 

A section of people  habitually  are in the habit of talking in between the lines, hiding and manipulating information, being secretive even for small issues. They usually speak against the will of their conscious. Why can’t we be straight and open rather than be wishy -washy? We are not on to playing a game of cricket; that driving/hooking straight may end us up  catching.  Imagine our children doing the same with us. How shall we feel? Similarly some of us try to be diplomatic in our dealings but unfortunately it leads unknowingly to playing small political game/ intrigues to cross hurdles fast. There is no guarantee that the energy we spent intriguing, will help successfully sail us across. Should the direction of wind change, rest becomes history. Also some of us habitually try to be clever enough to sail on two boats for obvious reasons. Long back in one of my previous organizations, I tried to be extra smart and rode two horses simultaneously. As luck would have it, I fell off and lost both the horses. Yet another ailing is common of fighting from behind the curtain/ using others shoulders to fire. Also the egoistic attitudes some of us reflect gets known to people around. It is advisable to have balanced emotions and not excessively get guided by head or heart to color the feelings. The foundation of a flexible mind is openness and being simple and clear cut.

 

My Way or Highway

Rigid thinking patterns such as ‘take it or leave it’ habit is surely unbending trait and against family values. People with such self-centered and selfish mindset would even not be welcomed by those who themselves believe in such rigidity. A flexible mindset calls for bending and being elastic enough to build and maintain relationships.

 

 Self-Dialogue

Whether there is a setback or the going is favorable, our mind keeps chatting internally 24x7 and most of it is negative and downbeat. Any questioning of our capability/ doubting strength installs fear, de-motivates and adds to rigidity. Self-assertions and positive strokes help developing a flexible mindset.

 

                                                   ( To Be Continued)

 ( Part 2 of this Blog Post  detailing other important perspectives of Mindset and details on augmented Mindset shall continue next week. Please don’t miss)

 

Bhushan Kachru

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