“Never quit something with great long-term potentials just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment” — Seth Godwin

In my book, Dangote’s Ten Commandments on Money, which Wall Street Journal, the biggest and highest circulating newspaper in the United States, rated as one of the best development books in the world, I laid a lot of emphasis on the power of the mind.

I stated that winning or excelling in any endavour starts in the mind. I said that if I am to put in figures, winning is 90 per cent mental and only 10 per cent physical.

You may have all the skills, all the talents, all the knowledge in the world but if you don’t believe in your mind that you’re going to excel, you will never.

In other words, skill, talent and knowledge are not really enough to make one successful.

There must be the mind factor.

If your thoughts and actions are not aligned with each other, frustration is bound to get in the way.

Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Put in another way, thoughts are things and we are what we think.

That is the reason why in life we usually get what we think.

If you always think of solutions, problems would be submitting to you.

On the other hand, if you always think of problems, your life would be filled with problems.

In fact, problems would be weighing you down.

That is where growth mindset comes in.

Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, wrote a book titled, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. In the book, she made an important distinction between two mindsets – fixed and growth mindsets.

According to her, a fixed mindset is when you think the world is fixed, that everything stays the same forever. That people cannot even change and cannot control lives.

On the other hand, she said that if you develop growth mindset, you start seeing yourself as one who can better his life and skills, if you work constantly on them.

Furthermore, she said that one very important thing about having a growth mindset is, instead of feeling powerless and weak, you feel more powerful about making positive changes in your life.

Growth mindset is no doubt a new knowledge and a lot of people have grown without it.

The more reason why so many people are struggling.

I know that you cannot re-write your past.

But you can pick a pen and paper today and write your future by first of all training your mind for success.

Solution oriented mindset is the greatest skill you need to have.

Sam Harris, a neuro–scientist, philosopher and New York bestselling author said that your mind is the basis of everything that you experience and of every contribution you make to the life of other people. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it.

So when you train your mind, you develop growth mindset and one thing that it gives to you is the ability not to give up when things get tough, hard or even ugly.

It would make you to realize that nothing big or truly amazing happens in a day, in a month or even in a year.

That means you have to learn patience.

When you fall, do your best to get up, dust yourself and keep going.

Growth mindset always help to keep your eyes on the goal and makes you to know that when things are not really working out, you don’t change the goal, rather you change the strategy.

You don’t shrink because your big dream is taking time to come true.

Like Steve Corey said, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

So developing growth mindset is the greatest skill that you need if you really want to do something out of the box in your life, because without breaking barriers, you can never break record.

The easiest way to train your mind is to be doing whatever you said that you will do.

When you said something and don’t do it and keep on repeating it over and over, you stop respecting yourself.

You would stop taking yourself serious.

Even your own words would be sounding hollow in your own ears.

That is when doubt sets in.

You would stop believing yourself.

When you get to that stage, whatever you say would not manifest because there is no more power in your words.

Your thoughts and actions are not aligned and as such nothing you said would work out.

But those who have developed growth mindset are not afraid of challenges because they are confident of their abilities to triumph, the same way birds sitting on a tree are not afraid of the branch breaking because their trust is not on the branch, but rather on their wings.

•Peter Anosike has a Ph.D in Consulting and Profit Management. He is an international bestselling author and founder, Ultimate Entrepreneurs Academy, an organisation that trains college students, under graduates and even workers on how to become successful entrepreneurs. Google Anosike Peter for some of his bestselling books.

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