Here’s why its important for you to fool your heart

At times when you reflect back on some movies or songs, you realize how intelligent or appropriate the lyrics were/are. It happens a lot with heartbreak songs (Yes, all Jagjit Singh lovers, you know what I mean) and even love songs.

But there is a song, which did catch everyone’s fancy and was a chartbuster for a long time, but I am not sure how many of my readers use it as a living philosophy. Hence, with this post today, which is going to talk about how to develop growth mindset that can help you achieve higher satisfaction and results, I am going to remind you all of this famous song from the movie 3 Idiots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-LltgOtFSg

The context is that the protagonist of the movie, Aamir Khan, is telling his friends that our heart can be fooled easily. Whatever the situation is, how bad the circumstances are, you just need to tell your heart that All is Well, and it will then send signals to the brain that everything indeed is fine, and that would help you navigate that particular situation.

This is a brilliant philosophy to adopt in our daily life. After all, our actions are dependent on how we are feeling and thinking. If we are feeling positive and upbeat about a thing, we respond in a positive manner.

An extension of this philosophy is called “Growth Mindset”. It’s a terminology which was coined by someone you don’t need to know. But what this says is very similar to what Aamir Khan was telling his friends- it is easy to fool your heart and that you should fool your heart.

So, imagine this. You have been in this role for more than 2 years now. You are not getting the promotion and the work has also started to bore you a bit. Going to office every day is daunting and you can’t wait for the weekend to come.

You are in this situation.

Read again- YOU are in THIS situation

What would you do?

most of you may be currently in this situation or some of you may have been in this before. What do you do? What did you do?

Now, depending on what mindsets drive your brain, you can react in either of the two ways-

• You can continue being the robot you are and hope for the promotion or that response to the CV you submitted in the new company (basically wait for an external stimulus to change your position)
• You could use this time to ask yourself “How can I make this a better day for myself?” (basically, make an internal choice to better the situation)

The former approach is called a fixed mindset approach and the latter is called a growth mindset approach.

By using growth mindset, if you tell yourself (and your heart) that you learn and grow every day, then indeed you will learn and grow every day.

In our story classes that we do with kids, we use this philosophy a lot. We give them activities or ask them questions that makes them think about growing and brings in them the feeling that “I can do this”.

Don’t worry, your age isn’t a factor and if you are willing, you can start practicing and developing this way of living.

Why? Did I hear someone say Why should I do this?

Well, valid question, and hence before telling you how to instill this, I should tell you why you should. So, here are some of the reasons that should compel you to re-talk to your brain.

• It will help you find solutions- faster and accurate
• It will make you self-reliant (your dependence on external people or factors will reduce)
• It will keep you happy and content (you know you are trying, you accept the eventualities or outcome of a situation, because, you tried your best)
• It will keep you busy (because you will keep looking at alternates or solutions to everything. You will solve one, move to the next one, solve that and so on)
• It will teach you to be aware of challenges and give you the courage to handle them

It’s innumerable- the benefits of it. Long story short- by talking to your brain like this, you will get a lot of positivity and the willingness/strength to manage tough or challenging situations.

So, here’s HOW to develop this mind-set.

Tell your brain that:

1. I can manage this
2. I know how to do this
3. I can find the problem
4. I can get out of this
5. I can find a solution
6. I am on the right track
7. It’s okay if I will commit an error/mistake.
8. I can learn today because failures is not a word, learning is
9. I am in this situation for a reason
10. I am the best
11. I focus on my own results
12. This may take some time, but it will get better
13. I have to practice
14. How/What can I improve?
15. I am enjoying this

These are just 15 of the various positive signals you can send your brain every day.

Challenges/set-backs/ un fair situations come in everybody’s life. It is how you deal with them that helps you get better results.

More often than not, we see people saying:

• I can’t do this. I am just not wired like that
• This is too hard
• He/She can do it (not me)
• It’s good enough, this is acceptable to me
• I give up
• I can’t make this any better (he/she/they can)
• I will be blamed
• Nothing works for me/him/her

When we feed non-positive feelers to our brain, we act accordingly. We fight with our loved one, we procrastinate important decision making, we blame someone else, our relationships get bad, our performance deteriorates and it’s a cycle. Don’t ride that cycle.

Hence, try this for a few days and see if it helps-

1. Consciously, every morning start your day a positive statement- What a great day it’s going to be!
2. While thinking about problems, be positive of a positive outcome (despite all odds against it- remember, your heart can be fooled- don’t give them logic of why all facts are against you- just give them hope that it will get better)
3. Take ownership- of your thoughts and actions. If you are late for a meeting, accept YOU are late- not that the traffic was bad. If YOU have an idea, present it as yours, not saying Research says this and hence we should do this
4. Consciously, every night, reflect on how your day was. Look at all the bright things that happened in the day, and how or what could you do to make tomorrow even better.

This has helped me personally and I have often been complimented by strangers saying I exude warm and positive vibes. Guess, that’s because I always look at Sunny Side Up!

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts on this, and if you are having trouble practicing it. We can work together to make it work for you- if You’d want that (and no, I won’t ask money for it!)

Picture credit- Photo by Unsplash