We all have been there. We start a new job, we thrive in the honeymoon phase and the prospects of success are tantalizing. As time goes by, the novelty of the position dissipates. Expectations become more demanding. Into focus comes the morale around us, which likely was always this poor, but we ignored warning signs of this for years. Honeymooners can hardly envision a future of sleeping in separate rooms until it happens.
This likely bleeds into our personal lives. We wake up to an alarm clock that might as well be reading our unread emails at us – the stress of the previous day still lingering as today’s anticipated stress follows us to our first cup of coffee. We rush to get to work, or sign online, mainly because we’re running late, not because we’re excited to get there.
After our workday, it’s crucial that we explain to someone how bad our day was being sure to include the stress, the emails, and the poor leadership. Whether it’s a call to a friend, an unsolicited bombardment of our partner, or a text message to mom, this debriefing of our workday is habitual.
It’s a strange word, isn’t it? Workday. It’s the word we use to justify separating who we are for 8-12 hours per day from the person we are at home. The people who know you at work don’t really know you – They know your brand. How many times have you run into your boss at the market? Has your finance manager ever tagged along to your kid’s soccer game? What about the time you went to Europe with your team lead?
Your brand is linked to your mindset. Your mindset is linked to your approach to everything. It’s how people perceive you and when you boil it down, that’s all that matters. You might volunteer countless hours in your community and your brand to them is solid, but the perception of you at work is what defines you for 8-12 hours per day. Unfortunately, the latter is what we center our mindset around, not the former. The alarm clock speed-reading your emails and the pre-dinner ritual that invades family time are casualties of the mindset that your workday has created.
The Link Between Your Mindset and Your Brand
By definition, a mindset is a “mental attitude or inclination”, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Chances are you have a specific mindset that has been shaped by your job, your marriage, your finances, and so on. I want you to achieve a mindset that shapes your work and fulfills you and your passions.
As we know it, a mindset is something that is inside of us. It’s an intangible part of our lives and is usually on autopilot. If you want to be physically fit, you commit to working out. If you want to be an accomplished artist, you commit to drawing every day. What if you want to have a mindset that directly impacts your success?
Some comedians try to write at least one joke per day. Many authors commit to writing at least 1000 words per day. Athletes practice their craft until it becomes muscle memory, so even if their brain forgets what to do, their body won’t. These are building blocks of a mindset.
Simply doing a good job at work and failing to add value elsewhere probably makes for a pretty simple brand. You’re a doer, but you’re likely not the person for the next big collaboration project. Likewise, if you do poor work, but you’re constantly looking to work with others, you’re probably the person who relies too much on others. You see where I am going with this.
Building a strong brand is not an overnight affair. It requires deliberate effort in many areas over and over, each time getting better and better. However, a failed deadline here, or an ill-advised email there can weigh heavier than your successes. If you haven’t already read Building Your Personal Brand at Work and The Power of Perception, considering diving into that article before continuing on with this one. That article will shape the way you view your brand and how you can effectively change the way people perceive you.
Do It For You
What is it about spending money on ourselves or making decisions on behalf of our own success that seem so daunting to us? We can control every aspect of our lives, yet we choose to suffer through so much of what we do. Building a strong brand doesn’t have to be hard, yet we seem to make it so. Stop guessing what people think of you and start shaping how they perceive you. Do you want to be viewed as a reliable and valuable partner to your stakeholders? Great, find out how they define value and fill that need. Another article that is a must-read in order to grasp the full impact of this one is How to Be the CEO of your Own Life.
How you handle failure and how you prepare for success look very similar. You need to take some losses before you can stack your wins. However, learning from mistakes and taking accountability are prerequisites to leveraging failure. Failure itself does not automatically translate to future success. How you handle failure and success is embedded in your mindset, influencing your brand and sending messages to those around you at all times.
I Can See Your… Mindset
Instead of thinking about your mindset as exclusively internal, think of it as something that is always on display. Imagine you can zoom out and see everyone’s unique mindset. Each mindset starts with standard dimensions, colors and structure. Imagine you own your mindset space and you can physically be within it – imagine that it is the vehicle that travels with you everywhere you go. Every mindset is equipped with 4 walls made of vertical bars, a bare floor, a ceiling and a door. Your mindset requires maintenance. Without maintenance, the bars will be unsightly and repel opportunities; the floor and ceiling will become fragile and uncertain.
There are no restrictions to the possibilities of what your mindset could look like, but your efforts and intentions influence the view of your mindset to those around you. Would your mindset be have clear direction and inspire others? Or would it be random and off-putting, seemingly on the verge going on autopilot?
Some might read the description of the standard model of a mindset I described and think it sounds like a prison. Unsightly bars? Fragile floors? Gross! Others read this and envision a sanctuary. A place of utter curiosity and creativity with endless potential for them to grow and imagine new successes. The idea is to achieve a mindset that you can control, not something that controls you. We all have a mindset, but not all of us maximize its potential.
It might be hard to imagine an intangible thing like a mindset as something that your can physically be within, but isn’t that what it is? Doesn’t it take up space in your brain and affect how to handle hundreds of situations per day? Doesn’t it require physical time and energy to execute the thoughts and feelings cultivated within the sanctuary that is your mindset?
The way you react to everything is a direct reflection of your mindset. For example, when faced with an obstacle, do you avoid it or build a springboard into your mindset to leap over it? Remember the idea of perception and brand? If your mindset is weak and generally fragile, so too is your brand and perception. Achieving a powerful and inspiring mindset requires deliberate and thoughtful curation. You can learn a lot from simply being aware of yourself and understanding what your mindset looks like to others.
Mindset With an Open Door Policy
Let me give you an example to put this all into context. If you could see my mindset it would include structure and balance. My habits would be present (i.e. 4:30am coffee; two hours of reading or writing, 6:30am workout, 8:00am breakfast, 8:30am productivity, and so on). I don’t need to tell you what my goals are because after seeing my consistent effort and deliberate action, you know exactly what my mindset looks like. My mindset would have endless Medici intersections with ideas flowing from unrelated areas of life that address problems and present potential solutions. Ever-present would be obstacles retrofitted with springboards and an area for learning – of course I would need a place to grow. The color of my bars would frequently be updated to incorporate a healthy dose of change and my mindset would welcome diverse thought and encourage feedback. Knowledge would enter and exit freely to spark growth and while I find comfort in this space, you would often see me stepping outside of this box. Despite the bars that contain my mindset, there are no barriers to the goals achievable by my mindset, because my mindset has an open door policy.
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