👋🏽 Welcome or welcome back to The Spark Files [TSF] - your treasured artefact for living audaciously and building a purposeful life you love.

In this release, we describe the how, observe behaviors, and connect the dots of how our internal world shows up in our expression and interaction with the external world. Let connect puzzle pieces!🧩🌍

Manifestation is turning our thoughts and beliefs into physical reality. This means the quality of your thoughts determines the quality and kind of life you live. Everything from the person you become to the reality you create for yourself, it all starts within — in your mind.

This is what we believe about our own ability to learn new things, assimilate knowledge, and develop new skills. Whether in a classroom, in the workplace, on our own, or interacting with others.

Have you heard someone say “I’m stupid” when they try to learn something new but it’s not sticking yet? That is them vocalizing what they believe about their own abilities.

This belief is rooted in an ideology that because it looks “easy” for others to learn or that it takes them more time than it takes others to learn about something; then, they are stupid.

This is a form of repetition through self-talk. Their minds believe them and sadly, they continue to reinforce that about themselves instead of recalibrating.

There are two kinds of mindsets in this category — fixed and growth mindset.

With a fixed mindset, the belief is that one’s ability to learn and grow is finite. That regardless of whether you try or don’t try, you just won’t get it.

You’ll find this mindset prevalent in the school of thought of those who belief that certain people are born with certain gifts/talents that others aren’t. For those not born with it, they simply can’t have or learn it.

Some patterns associated with having a fixed mindset is fearing failure (without ever trying), interpreting feedback as judgement of one’s abilities, actively avoiding challenges, staying stagnant, and very comfortable doing what they know.

Behaviors: If something feels “too hard” or out of their comfort zone, they quit or drop it immediately. They seldom try new things because they belief that either they’re good at something or they’re bad at it and effort does not change the outcome.

Conversely, one with a growth mindset believes that everything can be learned with time, effort, and commitment. A new skill can be developed, a specific talent can be nurtured, new knowledge can be assimilated and applied.

The patterns that show up with this mindset is seeking challenges, seeing failure as data, asking for and valuing feedback, and continuous improvement.

Behaviors: People with a growth mindset are generally curious. They are self-starters actively looking to learn different things in different ways. They have a good awareness of how best they learn and create the kind of environment they need to make it happen.

For this category, think about a pie. There are many different flavors, recipes, and ingredient combos to make a mouthwatering pie. But, who gets to decide how the pie is cut? The size of each cut? And how many there is to go around?

Perhaps, the owner of the pie gets to decide or whoever goes to ration the portions first 🤷🏽‍♀️.

The math is simple:

The pie is somewhat “limited”. There’s only soo much that can go around because the focus is on the pie.

Let’s flip the script, what happens if you know the ingredients you need to make a flavorful pie? And also how to make this pie so well that people keep coming back for more?

Regardless of the number of people, there will be more than enough pie to go around.

And if or when all of the pie is consumed because people love it sooo much, you’ll just make another one because there is plenty where the pie came from — you’re the source and there’s abundance.

The focus shifts from the pie itself to the ability to create the pie.

When we operate from a mindset of abundance, there is a knowing that there will always be enough and more to go around; and whenever needed, we can always create more (options) or find them over time.

How this mindset translates in behavior is generosity with resources and access, creating win-win situations, other people winning is registered as possibility, and never running out of options because they can be created.

Patterns: There is less competition and more collaboration with others, they stay creating new lanes, ownership is attractive, they get what they want, and the world is literally their oyster because they always find a way.

Scarcity on the other hand can sometimes be masked as greed. There is a belief that there is not enough to go around because the resources and options are already limited.

You’ll see this manifested in behavior as envy, sabotaging others to get an upper hand, not sharing opportunities, and creating toxic environments to breed unhealthy competition.

Patterns associated with having a scarcity mindset are wanting what others have because you believe in taking not creating, translating others success as a personal loss, thriving on rumors or false accusations of others.

This is a tricky category because nature already skews us to one side of the spectrum — having a negative bias.

A longgg time ago, we as humans had to be on the active lookout for threats to our lives i.e. wild animals that could kill us.

Naturally, our senses were heightened to detect and react quickly to this occurrence so we could preserve our lives and continue on for generations.

That’s why you’ll sometimes hear in the science literature that humans are wired to hold on to “the negative”

The key difference in our world today is that “the negative” has evolved into different forms just as the world we live in evolves.

Positive mindsets defaults to what went well and how to get more of it i.e. looking on the bright side while negative mindsets default to what is wrong and why things don’t work.

When someone is positive, they create solutions and come up with options to better a situation. When someone is negative, they see problems everywhere and with everyone.

I like this category because it is very situation dependent and a good idea to bounce through different mindsets when opportunities arise.

We are constantly exposed to opportunities in many areas like in our careers, relationships, experiences, significant life decisions, financials, and many more.

You don’t want to jump at every opportunity that comes your way, you want to analyze and make sure it aligns with you and what you want to achieve.

And at the same time, you don’t want to sit on your bum analyzing an opportunity so long that it passes you by.

How do you see “the cup” (different situations and different opportunities)?

Here’s a twist, how about reframing the question to, what’s inside the cup?

This question brings on two critical follow ups:

The answer to these question helps you determine how to perceive, analyze, and leverage an opportunity when it presents itself.

This shift moves the conversation from mindset to action.

The difference between all three mindset is perspective and action.

They are hopeful, positive, and focus on good outcomes that favor them. They expect the best case scenario.

They are cynical, negative, and focus on outcomes that work against them. They expect the worst case scenario.

They put their best interest at the center and focus on making an outcome work for them. They simply act on opportunities.

Here’s a variation of the “half-full vs half-empty” mindsets you may not have heard.

In this category, no mindset is inherently bad.

Being optimistic helps us persist in the face of challenges, being pessimistic allows us to accurately evaluate risks, and being opportunistic keeps us adaptable and proactive in leveraging opportunities that come our way.

💭 This release has thought sparklers sprinkled all over for each mindset category. Take some time to reflect, analyze, and recalibrate wherever needed.

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