“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” – Henry Ford
How we see things depends on the mindset we are choosing at that time. Very simply put, if you’re in a negative mindset, you’ll see the negative around you. If you’re in a positive mindset, you’ll see – you guessed it – the positive around you.
Things will appear and present themselves differently depending on your mindset.
As a leader, it’s key to consciously choose your mindset ahead of the day. As a team, it helps to collectively choose which mindset will serve you the most for the day ahead. However it tends to be something we leave to chance.
Depending on what you’re about to embrace or tackle in the day, you may want to choose a mindset of, for example; resilience, accountability, collaboration or learning.
Another mindset that can help you see your team, stakeholders and clients or customers in a different light is that of curiosity.
A curiosity mindset will give you more insight into how others are thinking, feeling, intending and perhaps more importantly, why.
A curiosity mindset will give you clues and prompt you to ask questions that will encourage a divulgence of internal motivation, drivers, or beliefs.
You may well discover that someone is not who you thought they were, has different ambitions than you presumed, another skill set that hasn’t been unearthed yet or diverse ideas about your project.
It’s so easy to just assume, but if we switch into a curiosity mindset, it forces you to put your assumptions aside, to really listen and to see a different reality.
Perception is a powerful thing – change your mindset to change your perception. Change your perception to change what you see.