A few words on mindset

I find it interesting that almost every success seminar (for life or business – it doesn’t matter) that I have attended spends what might be considered an inordinate amount of time on mindset. Statements like “You have to be comfortable with making money!”,  and “You have to minimize negative self-talk” got beaten to death at the start of many seminars I attended.

So what does this have to do with organization or time-management? Simple. Mindset means nothing if you don’t have a to-do list for today that reflects reality and what needs to be done today (not tomorrow or next week, although those are good for your master list.) If you know where you need to go and you have a list that contains the things you need to do to get there, and you attack that list every day, your mindset and attitude will take care of itself.

The single best piece of no-nonsense advice regarding mindset and attitude I have encountered was from Stephen Covey in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. In essence (I’m paraphrasing here): If you are lost in New York, all of the positive thinking in the world won’t help you much if you are looking at a map of Chicago.

If you aren’t organizing your daily to-do list with tasks that reflect where you are and what will help you get to where you want to be, all the positive mindset and exercises to improve your self-talk aren’t going to do much. So much better to reflect on and execute what needs to be done rather than how you feel about it.