Angee's Health and Wellness CoachingWhen I first began my journey towards weight loss, I believed that the secret to success was to eat less and exercise more. Despite my best efforts, I found it difficult to stick to my plan.
However, I noticed that when I started to shift my mindset and changed the way I thought about food and exercise, I began to see real progress.
By adopting a new perspective and showing myself kindness, I was able to make changes that I could sustain, resulting in a healthier and happier version of myself.
The word ‘mindset’ has been trending over the past few years.
Positive mindset, business mindset, growth mindset…
There are so many ‘mindset’ gurus out there throwing the phrase that it has become overused based on a whole lot of talk and very little substance.
But when it comes to living a happy, fulfilling life, I am here to tell you that mindset is everything.
Your mindset will determine whether you can achieve your goals, how you deal with disappointment, how you work through challenges, and how you get through your darkest days.
Your mindset also determines what you weigh as well. But I will get into that in a little while.
Firstly, let’s look at what mindset actually means.
What is mindset?
Basically, mindset refers to your thoughts, beliefs and habits that shape your behaviours. Your mindset determines what you believe about the world, yourself, and others. It also determines how you behave and how you react to situations. You can either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
Fixed mindset
If you have a fixed mindset, you believe your abilities, attributes, habits, and beliefs are set in a certain way and cannot change. You believe that everything from your talents, intelligence, earning money, and body shape are set in a certain way, and there is no room for you to grow and evolve. You also dismiss small changes as unimportant or irrelevant.
People with a fixed mindset:
Avoid challenges by living a complacent life.
Give up easily when obstacles come their way.
See effort or learning something new as pointless or a waste of time.
Believe that change is impossible.
Don’t believe they can achieve their goals.
Ignore constructive feedback or take it as personal criticism.
Feel threatened when other people succeed.
Gossip about other people to feel better about themselves.
Think they know better than everyone else.
Never reach their full potential.
Growth mindset
If you have a growth mindset you believe that change is possible through perseverance and consistent effort. You see mistakes as stepping stones to success, and challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.
You don’t believe that everything about you is static but rather that you have the power to determine what your life will look like. You also understand that small changes add up to big changes over time.
People with a growth mindset:
Have a desire to learn and grow.
Embrace challenges.
Persist even when they experience setbacks.
Value work and effort because they know it will lead to change.
Learn from their mistakes.
Use constructive feedback as a way to improve themselves or their performance.
Look for the lessons in other people’s success.
Find other success stories inspiring.
Reach higher levels of success and are more likely to reach their full potential.
A good example of the difference between fixed and growth mindsets is the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. The hare was so certain that he would win the race, that he stopped halfway through, lay down and had a nap. Meanwhile, the tortoise kept going, pushing along, always moving forward.
By the time the hare woke up, the tortoise had overtaken him. Even running as fast as he could, the hare could not catch up to the tortoise, who ended up winning the race.
The hare had a fixed mindset because he believed that his fast, running skills would be enough to win and he thought he knew better than the tortoise
The tortoise had a growth mindset because he believed that he just needed to keep working hard and keep going to win. He never doubted his ability to win or wasn’t afraid to lose. If he did, he would never have agreed to the race in the first place.
So now you know the different mindsets, it’s time to look at why having a growth mindset is so important.
Why mindset is important
Your mindset will make or break you. Your mindset is the single most important influence on success and happiness. This is because it influences everything that you do. Even if you have the best of intentions to achieve something, your mindset will determine whether or not you succeed or not.
Let’s look at an example.
Sarai wants to lose weight but she’s not sure that she can. She has tried so many times but each time, something prevented her from sticking to her plan. This time, Sarai has decided to join a gym and work with a weight loss coach. She figures that reaching her goal will be easier if someone else can push her to do what she needs to do because she’s never been good at motivating herself to exercise or eat well.
Sarai has a lot of difficulty in the beginning because her training sessions are early in the morning. She’s never been a ‘morning person’ so finds it hard to get out of bed so early. She often runs late and sometimes misses her session because it’s just too hard. If she knew she’d have to get up so early she may have looked for a coach who ran sessions later in the day. She also thinks it’s a little unfair that the coach won’t run sessions to suit people like her.
When Sarai’s coach heard her complain about the time of the training sessions, she gave her some tips that would make it easier for her. Sarai felt like she was a ‘naughty girl’ in trouble for complaining so decided that she wasn’t going to say anything anymore. Her coach will just have to accept that she may not be there for every session.
After a few months, Sarai has lost some weight, but not as much as she was hoping for. She compares herself with the others at the gym and feels angry. She decides it’s not fair that some people find it easy to lose weight and she doesn’t.
She tells herself that she’s never been able to lose weight, and she never will. She starts to wonder if she’s wasting her time again.
A week later, Sarai trips up some stairs and sprains her ankle. Her doctor has told her that she won’t be able to do any exercise for at least 3-4 weeks, and when she starts back, she will have to take it slowly. Sarai is angry and frustrated because she knows that without exercise, she’ll never be able to lose weight.
She doesn’t see the point in working with her coach right now, so she decides to stop working with them and tells them she’ll come back when she can get back to exercise.
What happens when you have a fixed mindset?
In the above example, Sarai has a fixed mindset.
She doesn’t believe she can lose weight.
She believes she needs someone to motivate her to lose weight.
She claims she’s not a morning person.
When her coach gives her tips to help her cope with early mornings, she takes it personally.
She’s not willing to try new things to help her get up early.
She believes that other people find it easier to lose weight than she does.
She decides it’s not fair that others can lose weight and she can’t.
She thinks she’s wasting her time even trying.
When she is faced with the challenge of spraining her ankle, she gives up because she doesn’t see the point in trying if she can’t exercise.
It’s safe to say that with Sarai’s fixed mindset, she will never succeed in losing weight.
But what would happen if she had a growth mindset? Let’s take a look.
Why do you need a growth mindset?
You will keep going when it gets tough.
You’ve heard the saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. Well, the tough people are those with a growth mindset. These people are not afraid of challenges and don’t run away from them, because they know that the path to success will always include hurdles and adversity.
Instead of giving up, they will find a way to keep going no matter how many times they may get knocked down.
In the case of Sarai, she was annoyed about the early morning sessions because she found it hard to get up early. She took it personally when her coach tried to help her cope with the early mornings. She got angry when she saw other people succeeding, and she gave up when she sprained her ankle.
If Sarai had a growth mindset, she would have understood that getting up early would become easier if she consistently practised doing it. She would have understood that her coach was only trying to help her with advice, not criticise her and that taking the advice may have made things easier for her.
Sarai could have recognized that with consistent effort, she could lose weight like the person she was comparing herself to, and she could have acknowledged that there were alternative areas to focus on such as sleep, healthier eating, and stress reduction, which could have helped her achieve her weight loss goals. Ultimately, these changes would have enabled Sarah to persist despite the challenges she encountered.
The truth is that a weight loss transformation is not a linear journey. You need to be able to keep going through tough times and not give up, which is why a growth mindset is so important.
You will focus on what you can control.
People with a growth mindset understand that they can’t control everything, and trying to only leads to stress and overwhelm. Instead, they focus on the things within their control and let go of the rest. In the case of Sarai, she was trying to control her weight by focusing on exercise. When she couldn’t use exercise anymore, she freaked out, instead of looking at what else she could have done.
For example, Sarai could have used this time to get better at her meal prep. She could have focused on getting more rest and sleep, or she could have used it to work on her WHY — the reason she wanted to lose weight in the first place There were actually a lot of factors within Sarai’s control, but her fixed mindset caused her to focus on the one thing she couldn’t control. And in the end, she gave up.
When you have a growth mindset, you’ll be able to see the positives in every situation. —This will leave you feeling happier, less overwhelmed, and less stressed, and will ensure that you will continue to progress forward with your weight loss, instead of giving up on it.
You will embrace the lessons.
Every situation, especially the negative ones, is an opportunity to teach us something. That’s the attitude of someone with a growth mindset. For example, Sarai, someone with a growth mindset who sprained their ankle may have asked themselves what they can learn from the situation.
It may have been an opportunity to look at the reason they tripped up the stairs. Were they tired? If so, why? Was it because they weren’t eating enough or maybe not getting enough sleep? What could they do to improve their sleep?
What could they do to ensure they were eating enough food? Was there something they needed to learn, to prevent something similar from happening again in the future?
You will achieve your goals.
People with a growth mindset achieve their goals because they believe they can. They don’t see setbacks or hurdles as barriers to success, but rather an opportunity to learn something they need to learn to move forward. They are not afraid to make mistakes, because they focus on the lessons they learn, rather than the mistakes they make.
People with growth mindsets are not afraid to take action and don’t run away from challenges. While they may find challenges difficult, they believe that on the other side of them is something even better and so are willing to keep putting in the work, push through the discomfort and come out the other side. They also understand that achieving goals takes work and time.
You will get through your hardest days.
There’s no hiding the fact that we are all going to have dark days. We are all going to get the call that someone we love has died. Or maybe we’ll be diagnosed with a serious illness. Or perhaps you’ll find yourself in a traumatic situation. How we deal with and react to these experiences will be determined by our mindset.
If we have a growth mindset, we’ll cope much better than we would if we had a fixed mindset. That doesn’t mean that we won’t be sad, scared, or devastated, or feel whatever emotion we’ll feel. But it does mean that we will be able to handle the situation without blocking it out with alcohol or engaging in emotional eating.
The truth is that none of us is immune to the difficult curve balls that life will throw at us, so we need to prepare ourselves by developing a healthy mindset.
You will be able to help others through difficult times.
Just as we can’t escape our difficult days, nor can those we love. Having a growth mindset is vital if you want to be a good role model for your kids. If we have a growth mindset, we can support them through it and help them learn lessons of resilience and persistence. But if we have a fixed mindset, we’ll teach them that they are at the mercy of whatever curveballs life decides to dish up. They’ll never learn how to handle difficult situations or learn the important lessons that will help them succeed in life. Instead, they will grow up with fixed mindsets, always destined to give up before they try, never reach their potential, and live a frustrated, unhappy life.
You will thrive, not just survive.
It’s clear that a growth mindset will help you succeed in anything you do, including losing weight. But more than that, it will ensure you thrive, not just survive. Your mindset is the difference between:
Living a mediocre life and living an extraordinary life.
Settling for what you can get, or having whatever you want.
Feeling frustrated and unhappy, or being ridiculously happy
Running away from challenges or rising to meet them.
Feeling like something is missing from life or feeling completely fulfilled.
How to develop a growth mindset
It’s very possible to develop a growth mindset, even if your fixed mindset says it’s not! The key steps are to:
Commit to developing a growth mindset.
Understand and accept that you will have challenges.
Avoid running away from challenges.
Let go of trying to control everything.
Look for the lessons in everything and become teachable.
Celebrate all your wins (big and small)
Work with a coach to help you do these things.
I help people develop strong, healthy mindsets to help them lose weight and equip them for life. Through my program, I work with you to develop the systems, tools, strategies and structures that have stood the test of time to help you develop a strong mindset. Change is hard in the beginning, but we are with you every step of the way if you are willing to do the work.
I am a Health and Wellness coach specialising in building habits, mindset, and holistic weight loss. I love helping people come up with solutions that work for them for long-term weight loss.
I help you develop lifetime habits and mindsets that will help you lose weight for good and keep it off.
My Coaching Programs are a complete all-in-one habits, mindset and holistic weight loss personal coaching program that gives you everything you need to transform your life.
- knowledge
- systems
- tools
- skills
- structure
- accountability
and support to help you lose weight for good so you can reclaim your freedom, vitality, and quality of life.
All you need to do is take the first step in your transformation
