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Rocky Balboa said to his son, “It’s not how hard you hit, it’s how hard you can GET hit, and keep moving forward.”  I can choose to be defeated and merely exist, or I choose to grow through that adversity, moving forward, flourishing.  Growth, progress, living, flourishing… We have a choice to LIVE life, or we have a choice to merely exist. Mindset, Mindfulness and Motivation, “3 Ms of Moving Forward”, can help us do just that.

Mindset.  More specifically, what Stanford University Psychology professor, Dr. Carol Dweck, calls a “Growth Mindset”, vice a “Fixed Mindset” enables us to see opportunities not roadblocks, we see a job as an opportunity to learn vice an expert in a field.  Dr. John Maxwell, in his book of the same name,  phrases it as such, “You win, or you learn” in that we only “lose” per se if we don’t try.  We can win and be happy or we can “lose” and gain wisdom, again its a choice.  It can be helpful for us to reframe who we see a particular task by phrasing it as I don’t know how to do it YET, vice I just dont know.  It’s not that I don’t know how to do a particular task.

Mindfulness. “Deep Work” author & Mathematician Cal Newport calls us to, “Leave the distracted masses & join the focused few”. Consider this phrase, when our anxiety may be peaking: “It’s OK, Just Pull it into PORT.” This can be the catalyst for us to:

1. Pause and take a deep breath.  Feel the impact of that small act. 
2. Observe our thoughts & feelings without judgement. Recognize anxiety, stress, anger, etc.
3. Reflect on this question, “What is important right now?”.  At  a job interview, what’s important right now is presenting our best self to the interviewer, DESPITE how nervous we may be.  If getting our child to clear their room, what’s important right now is our child feeling loved, supported and guided, DESPITE how angry we may be. 
4. Take purposeful action. Depending on the answer to “What is important right now?” will determine the actions taken.  It may be knocking the socks off that HR person interviewing us, it may be respectfully communicating with our child vice yelling.

Dr. Albert Ellis showed us that we react not to events, but to what we THINK about an event.  Mindfulness can help us make a healthy, wise choice that enables growth & life.  

Growth Mindset and Mindfulness can be extremely helpful when our desire is to grow and flourish.  Our final “M” is “Motivation”.  This can be revealed by asking, “What keeps me up at night?”,  “What distracts me?”,  “What’s my 5-9?”, “Why Do I Walk the Planet”, “What Is My Purpose”, or as Simon Sinek phrases it, “What is Our Why”.  A “Why Equation” can help us critically think about our why and looks like this: P=B+V+P (Purpose=Beliefs, Values, Principles).  Considering our personal (not someone else’s)  beliefs, values, and principles, we begin to see what is important to us and “what makes us tick”. When we can recognize aspects of ourselves and base our decisions and actions on those aspects.  When we operate in our purpose it better enables our growth mindset and we can use what others may see as a “roadblock” as merely an opportunity to operate 

Lyricist Andy Mineo stated, “We can either make moves or make excuses”, let’s choose to make Mindset, Mindfulness and Motivation our Moves, creating that Momentum to Flourish.