How to strengthen your mindset for better decision making

THE ART & SCIENCE OF LEADING SELF
The Power of Distinctions

Thought 1: “What if I make a wrong choice?”

Thought 2: “My team is not prepared to deal with potential setbacks right now.”

Thought 3: “If I can’t control the situation, I know it’s bound to go badly.”

Thought 4: “What if I commit to something and circumstances change?”

My friend, you may not have had all of these thoughts, but you’ve likely had at least one.

Today, I want to talk about the difference between thoughts and beliefs. Why does this matter? Because a clear understanding puts you in the driver’s seat to develop greater capacity in Mindset, Courage, and Resilience.

Then, you get a bonus because developing these capacities sets the conditions for you to drive Innovation (personally and professionally).

Yes, deepening your ability to understand the nuance between thoughts and beliefs helps you develop in 4 critical domains of leadership.

Thoughts versus Beliefs 🤷🏽‍♀️

Thoughts are mental processes or ideas that occur in your mind.

Everyone has them. They are manifestations of temporary mental activities. As such, they are fleeting and tend to change quickly as situations evolve.

Thoughts can range from simple observations to complex ideas.

Beliefs, on the other hand, are convictions that something is true or real.

They shape your worldview, inform how you assign meaning to situations, and influence the decisions you make. You form an emotional connection to beliefs. Consequently, they have a more enduring nature.

Every belief is a thought, but not every thought is a belief. 👈🏽

Let’s explore a simple mental framework for distinguishing between the two.

The Weather and the Climate👇🏽

When you want to distinguish between thoughts and beliefs, think about the difference between weather and climate.

In the same way the weather is influenced by changes in air pressure or humidity, your thoughts may be affected by immediate circumstances, emotion, or other stimuli. You’ve probably noticed that your thoughts can change as rapidly as the weather shifts from sunny skies to overcast to a thunderstorm. The temporary nature of thoughts makes them as transient as weather fronts.

The 4 (paraphrased) thoughts at the beginning of this email are a composite of various thoughts clients have expressed during coaching sessions over the years.

These thoughts were fleeting, but not every leader recognized that.

👉🏽 Important insight: While my clients’ thoughts were transient, their beliefs were far more enduring. That is because beliefs, like climate, represent long-term patterns. In the climate domain, those long-term factors are geographic location, ocean currents etc.

In the domain of beliefs, your life experiences, education, cultural factors, and more are the elements that shape your patterns of belief.

So, the next time you observe your thoughts, use this analogy to determine how to classify them.

➡️ Examine each thought and ask yourself: Is it representative of the weather or the climate?

How To Use This Distinction 🤔

Use the ability to distinguish between thoughts and beliefs to stop taking yourself on emotional roller coaster rides.

Take a minute and think about a few thoughts you had this past week. Using this framework, assess whether they were thoughts or beliefs. If they were thoughts, explore how those thoughts impacted:

• Your mood

• Your interpretations of circumstances

• Your decision making

Now, think about how you might take that insight (and the energy that comes with greater self-awareness) forward into the future.

Beliefs shape your decision making, for good or for bad. Their enduring nature requires you to work to shift beliefs that are not serving you. But thoughts are just thoughts. Observe your thoughts - don’t give them voting rights on your decision making.

You give transient thoughts permission to influence your outcomes when you fail to distinguish them from beliefs.

But you have the power to end that today.

Remember the 4 thoughts above?

In my work with past clients, coaching sessions often involve exploring thoughts so the client develops the ability to parse thoughts from beliefs. The above thoughts were classified as such because the client acknowledged a lack of emotional connection to them and they were transient like the weather.

During this exploration with one client, a strongly-held belief surfaced.

Belief: “Uncertainty is a natural part of life. I have the capacity to adapt to whatever comes my way.”

The way in which this belief was articulated, and the depth of conviction behind it, established it as a clear belief. The decisions that flow from this belief are very different than the decisions that come from the 4 thoughts above. Clarity about the distinction equipped the leader to make decisions more objectively and lead with greater confidence.

Let’s conclude by briefly talking about why this matters to you at the macro and micro level.

FROM INSIGHT TO ACTION
Putting It Into Practice

My goal is to empower leaders so that you can skillfully navigate uncertainty, lead confidently, and drive results.

That begins with self-leadership that is rooted in 4 key capacities: Mindset, Courage, Resilience, and Innovation. The foundation of effective self-leadership is Mindset. Your ability to clearly distinguish between a passing thought and a belief is a key factor of Mindset.

Mastering this distinction empowers you to be more self-aware and lead yourself with greater objectivity.

A strong Mindset positions you to move forward with Courage as you lead yourself and others.

Moving forward with Courage, however, does not mean that all will go according to your desired outcomes on the first or even the hundredth attempt. This is where your ability to adapt well (Resilience) in the face of those setbacks makes the difference. Your Mindset sows the seeds of your Courage and sets the stage for your Resilience.

A big part of Resilience is the ability to iterate and adapt to circumstances.

This means going back to Mindset, stepping forward with Courage, and accessing Resilience as you push forward to unleash Innovation.

Innovation occurs when the conditions that support it are present. Those conditions are found in the work that you do to develop your Mindset, which has positive downstream effects on your Courage and Resilience. This is why the distinction between thoughts and beliefs matters.

You set the conditions for your personal and organizational Innovation through the work you do in Mindset.

One important aspect of that is the ability to separate thoughts from beliefs.

EXCELLENCE UNBOUNDED
How I Can Help You

🚀 CEO Coaching Programs: Are you a CEO who wants to:

• Skillfully navigate uncertainty 

• Lead confidently

• Drive results

Developing greater leadership capacity in 4 key domains (Mindset, Courage, Resilience, & Innovation) will empower you to do all three.

Book time to learn about the bespoke 1:1 coaching programs I deliver. During this call, we will talk about your challenges, your goals, and how we might partner to fully “unbound your excellence.”

🎤 Speaking Engagements: My mom can attest to the fact that I LOVE to talk. 😂 Now, I put that talent to work delivering talks on Mindset, Courage, Resilience, & Innovation.

A few past clients include KraftHeinz, Amazon Women @ Payments, PAHEi, & the Panamá Chapter of the International Coaching Federation (I delivered this talk in Spanish).

If you are interested in having me speak at your event, please fill out this form.

Until next week,

Shawnette