How You Can Put Life On A Positive Trajectory

To say we’re living in uncertain times is a vast understatement.

From unpredictability in the marketplace to a global pandemic and everything in between, these tumults can further solidify your own personal feelings of unsteadiness or uncertainty.

But, we believe you’re resilient. There are easy and actionable tactics you can take that will not only help bring you personal clarity, but tap into your focus on the things you hope to plan and accomplish now and in the future.

To start, just look to your own personal mindset.

A Mindset Isn’t Fixed, It Grows

The key to unlocking your personal trajectory and potential begins with first acknowledging that you can adopt a growth mindset rather than a fixed one.

What do we mean by this? Well, there are two different mindsets that govern how we view ourselves and help define our personality:

• A fixed mindset is a belief that one’s skills, talents, and abilities cannot be changed or improved. Success is measured by affirmation of inherent intelligence and a barometer which remains static.
• On the other hand, a growth mindset is one in which the individual is inspired and excited by a challenge and thrives on them as a way to catapult themselves to new heights and stretch the limitations of their abilities.

Where a fixed mindset is static, a growth mindset is malleable and can be shaped throughout life. While much of the science around both of these mindsets suggests that they are cemented from a very early age, there is research that shows our brains allow for room to grow and learn later in life. Through a deliberate commitment to practice, training, and lifelong learning, we can continue to adapt and change our course for the better.

Stanford researcher and author Carol Dweck spent more than 20 years studying the impacts of these mindsets on both children and adults and learned that it is merely the “the view you adopt for yourself” which impacts the way in which you are able to lead your life. In doing so, you can help shape the person you want to be. Therein lies one of the most important lessons to reframe your personal trajectory: having a simple belief like a growth mindset has the power to transform your personal psychology and your life.

While the fixed mindset is marked by the hallmark of a fear of failure that opens up our flaws to the world, a growth mindset is one that reframes thinking through non-rigid plasticity that can help us reach new areas of growth. It’s also one which prepares us for the challenges and rigors of life — a newfound personal resilience:

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.

From this newly-imagined mindset comes the ability to garner adaptability where you can make changes and be able to build a response system that can handle both positive and negative emotional events.

[Source: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/]

Tap Your Self-Awareness

One of the best ways to unlock your personal and professional ambitions is to tap into your self-awareness.

Doing so will help unravel personal beliefs and bring you closer to understanding questions about yourself. Once able to do that, you’ll be able to see yourself as a unique individual capable of doing anything. This new-found sense of empowerment is crucial to help make changes needed for self-reflection and to build on areas that need work and identify places where you can improve.

Even in this digital age, you can leverage journaling and writing down answers to these questions that can help you get to renewed areas of self-reflection and learning:

• What does it mean for me to be happy?
• What does a successful life look like for me?
• Do I aspire to a specific person or mentor that is important in my life?
• What are the aspects of my life that I’d like to improve on?

By asking these questions, you really pull back the curtain on your life and put yourself in a position to identify weaknesses and hone in on your strengths. There are also lots of useful tools online you can use to help answer some of these questions and get you started.

If you incorporate these questions into a journal, remember that they’re not just questions to be asked and answered just once. Create a calendar or set reminders where you can answer them once every quarter or annually. That enables an opportunity to really see how far you’ve come from your original introspection. Use a reminder system on your mobile device along with a note-taking tool or just take photos of your journal to remember later.

Consume Meaningful Content

You are what you consume. But for the sake of our personal trajectory, we mean the content and media you take in on a daily basis.

You’d be surprised how much of our positive sentiments and worldview is shaped by that of the cascading social media feeds. To avoid that, define some rules and learn how content and skills can help you find new ways to learn.

Set Boundaries. Distance yourself or schedule social media into your day so it doesn’t overwhelm and negatively affect you.

Find New Stories. In a digital world, unplugging typically means turning to streaming movies or scrolling through our social feeds. Finding time to read actually helps improve your overall well-being. According to research, reading lowered feelings of depression and improved symptroms of lonelieness and isolation.

Learn New Skills. It’s never too late to ‘go back to college’ and despite the current climate, there are plenty of opportunities to learn new skills and take classes virtually. Part of keeping the body active also involves thinking about learning, both the social and the educational aspects that keep us mentally and emotionally fit.

Yes, Your Life is on a Positive Trajectory

So, we’ve given some ideas about how you can build resilience and adaptability but here are a few tools and actionable steps you can use to get there.

Map Your Life. Sometimes, just putting a pencil in your hand and drawing or sketching out your ideas is a great way to figure out what lies ahead. A few weeks ago we held a virtual session with Silicon Valley veterans Jeff Tidwell and Carol McManus about how mapping can be a practical way to reach goals. You can watch and learn more here.

Orient Yourself With True North. When we’re lost, we use a compass to figure out which way is north to establish a sense of direction and a way back home. For our own personal ‘true north’ it is important to ask yourself some defining questions like what are the things I most want to do with my years? What are the things that will define my legacy? Once you get a sense of these answers, you can focus on how to set milestones and reach the goals needed to get there.

Chart The Plans. Future-proof your life’s plans and the big milestones ahead by breaking them down into  manageable segments. If you’re close to retirement, write down the things you need to do so you can visually understand what it takes to get there. Break down milestones into segments so that they’re approachable and doable. Create a separate list of short-term goals and mid-term goals with those that are longer-term goals and the harder things to accomplish. Sometimes, it’s easier to tackle smaller tasks before facing bigger ones.

Honor Your Mistakes. Earlier, we mentioned the importance of journaling and chronicling your life. Doing so allows you to view all of your accomplishments as well as reviewing mistakes. This is so important because looking at your missteps helps you to fix the mistakes in order to reach the goals. Create a “done” list so you can see what you’ve tackled and chronicle a “thank you” list to make sure you can always remember the people or things who helped you reach the goal.

This article is intended for general informational and educational purposes only, and should not be construed as financial or tax advice. For more information about whether a reverse mortgage may be right for you, you should consult an independent financial advisor. For tax advice, please consult a tax professional.