What you need to know about the right mindset for success

There are people who are extremely intelligent, driven by grit and perseverance, and have evergreen determination to get what they want. But despite all of this, they are often unable to achieve their goals as they lack one crucial ingredient: the mindset for success. A person could be gifted with all the intellect and endurance in the world but can fall short in life due to the wrong mindset. 

Your mindset provides the lens to view the world around you, and wearing the wrong lens can adversely affect how you perceive life. In other words, your mindset can make or break you. Which is why, it is the most important factor for success in your life, both personal and professional. What you think strongly impacts your behaviour and the other way around.

The difference between people who succeed in life and those who keep bumping into dead ends is the right mindset. If you set a mindset that has the tendency to lead you to success, you will reach your goals more quickly and will then find yourself with the opportunity to create new, and possibly even bigger goals. Read further to know what mindset successful people cultivate, and how you can do the same.

The mindset of successful people

To study the right mindset for success, it is important that we take inspiration from those who have been able to achieve their goals in life. A study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences (PNAS) identified 'the strategic mindset' as the key difference between those who succeed in reaching all their goals and those who fail, by conducting multiple experiments. 

A strategic mindset for success involves the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them. The study noted that while others diligently follow the same convoluted path, people with the strategic mindset are constantly looking for a more efficient route forward. 

According to this, having a strategic mindset involves frequently asking oneself questions like: “What can I do to help myself?”, “How else can I do this?”, or “Is there a way to do this even better?”

The ability to question and refine current approaches in the face of setbacks and challenges is what lies at the bottom of a strategic mindset for success. It essentially comes down to what researchers call ‘metacognition’. Metacognitive thinking involves planning, monitoring progress, and flexibly adjusting approaches, while simultaneously pursuing goals. 

Understanding metacognitive strategies 

In simple words, metacognition refers to being aware of your own thoughts. It includes the ability to monitor and evaluate your progress, recognise your weaknesses, and devise ways to overcome them. This encourages having your head up and your mind alert for easier ways to reach your goal.

Possessing such metacognitive strategies often help a person come up with solutions that suit them, and not blindly go with the flow. Suppose you want to learn a new language, let’s say Spanish, your metacognitive thinking will help you conceive methods to easily pick up the language. If you are a visual learner, your metacognition will advise you to rather watch a Spanish movie with subtitles, than walk down the traditionally prescribed way of reading vocabulary lists. 

Cultivating such metacognitive strategies are important, as they promote systematic progress monitoring. It also prompts a person to learn from the mistakes they make. Such regular monitoring is what differentiates the right mindset for success from the rest. 

How you can have the mindset for success

The study carried out by the PNAS stated that one can learn how to develop a mindset for success. In an experiment, they randomly assigned some people to learn about a strategic mindset through a brief training session. Later, they gave these people a new, challenging task to accomplish as quickly as possible. 

When compared to people in the study who weren’t exposed to these ideas, the ones who had learned about a strategic mindset for success were seen to apply more effective strategies to accomplish the task. "What we know now is that adults seem to naturally vary in their strategic mindset and that a strategic mindset can be taught," said one of the study’s co-author after this experiment. 

With these statements, the study encourages people to learn the strategic mindset for success through simple ways. One method involves constantly stepping back and asking yourself if there is a better way of doing a task, and how implementing the decisions you make are helping you. It has also suggested that people should constantly evaluate themselves and track their progress, in order to compile their strengths and weaknesses. 

The authors of the study said that in order to impart knowledge on strategic thinking in a systematic manner, schools and universities could teach curriculums on metacognition and emotional regulation. This will help in embedding the right mindset for success from a young age. 

The bottom line is, intelligence and grit are important, but without the right mindset for success everything can fall apart in seconds. Having a strategic mindset will help you think about any goal, short or long term, in a way that constantly looks for efficiency. Yes, success may be one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration, but with some strategic thinking, we can save ourselves a lot of blood, sweat and tears. 

To learn more about how you can succeed in life with the help of strategic thinking, check out the following links:

1. ‘Success is no Accident' TEDx talk at IIM Amritsar
2. How to devise a smart strategy for CAT preparation? -By Nitish P Nair, 99.67 percentile, IIM Bangalore
3. The blue ocean strategy better demystified!