All Things Inspired

Mindset provides the direction, but mindsight provides the manual for the brain's hardware!

We've all been told that a 'growth mindset' is the key to success. That if we just believe we can improve, we will. But have you ever felt stuck in a seemingly endless loop where your positive thinking just can't seem to outrun your deepest emotional reactions? That, my friends, is where mindset meets its more powerful cousin, mindsight!

Mindsight is a term coined by Dr. Daniel Siegel to describe one's capacity for focused attention that allows us to perceive the internal workings of our minds, and the minds of others. While mindset is the lens through which you see the world, mindsight is the skill that lets you look at the lens itself. It's the difference between saying 'I am a failure' and 'I am feeling a sense of failure,' and it is the ultimate tool for anyone ready to stop reacting to life and start authoring their own story.

Before we examine the transition to mindsight, let's review four primary types of mindsets that drive success and personal growth. Developing these mindsets can lead to success and resilience. Here are four effective mindsets:

Growth mindset - believing intelligence, skills and talent can be developed through your effort, development, and persistence. The focus is on embracing challenges over avoiding them.
Challenge mindset - if we view unexpected problems or difficult circumstances as opportunities for growth instead of threats, we improve. This helps us better manage stress and builds resilience.
Entrepreneurial mindset - this mind set thrives from high comfort of risk taking, creativity, and self reliance. If you have this mindset you are more likely to take initiative, have critical thinking skills, and are driven to learn and innovate.
Positive mindset - the basics of optimism, gratitude, and seeing opportunities rather than obstacles. This mindset facilitates coping skills and boosts overall satisfaction with life.

Transitioning from a mindset to mindsight involves moving from believing in growth to actively perceiving the internal processes that hinder it. Think of it this way, mindset is a mental map, mindsight is the 'sixth sense' that enables you to navigate the process in real-time.

There are numerous practical exercises, or daily habits, you can engage in to help bridge the gap between mindset and mindsight. I'm going to list three, and I challenge you to try each of these exercises in the coming days and weeks as you seek to understand the difference between mindset and mindsight. Over the next six weeks, start with number one, then the following week number two, leading to number three. Then repeat this cycle and you'll be through six weeks of this exercise. Here are the three exercises:

Name it to tame it technique - the ideal of this exercise is shifting you from being fused with an emotion to observing it. Start with the habit - when you feel an emotion such as anger, anxiety, or doubt, pause and mentally rephrase your experience. This shift comes from saying "I'm anxious" to saying "I feel a sense of anxiety in my body." The result should create a mental space, activating the activity in the prefrontal cortex of your brain to soothe the emotional centers of the brain.
Start adding the word 'yet' - when you add 'yet' this is a mindsight move to acknowledge that your current state is a process, not a fixed identity. Here's the practice: When you catch yourself in a thought such as "I don't know how to overcome this obstacle in my way", just mentally add 'yet'. This simple mental move signals your brain that the hardware is capable of change. The result is you'll start saying, "I don't know how to overcome this obstacle in my way yet."
The healthy mind platter - this is a daily diet (mentally) to ensure your brain is integrated enough to practice mindsight. This involves a daily "time-in": spending a few moments daily to focus on inward sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts. The second part is creating a reflective journal. At the end of each day, simply reflect (and journal it if you wish) on a challenge you faced. Ask yourself what thoughts came up? Were they based on a fixed belief, or how did I feel in my core?

Again, try one of these each week, and repeat the cycle over the next six weeks. You might just be surprised how much you'll notice a shift from mindset to mindsight.

As we move to close this topic, let's review the core principles of mindsight:

Observation - being able to step back and have awareness of you own thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
Objectivity - the perception of the mental states without being overwhelmed or captivated by them. This is the shift from "I am sad" to "I feel sad."
Openness - the approach to internal experiences with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment.

Again, mindset is a collection of established beliefs that we have, or attitudes that shape how we respond to various situations. Mindsight is the mechanism of awareness. Here's a quick review of the benefits of developing mindsight:

Regulation of emotions - using the name it to tame it concerning emotions, you can move away from reactive or natural behaviors and habitual emotional recurrences.
Empathy and connection - mindsight maps are created through empathy and connection. Mindsight maps of others internal worlds will help you understand their perspectives.
Neural Integration - bridges the different parts of your brain to move from rigidity or chaos to a state of well being.

Now that you are understanding the difference between mindset and mindsight, I want you to understand that change doesn't happen overnight. It happens one 'pause' at a time. I want to again challenge you with a Call-To-Action to implement the six week cycle of the mindsight exercises mentioned earlier in this article. This will help build your retention of mindsight.

Ultimately, while your mindset sets the stage of your goals, mindsight provides the script and the direction. One gives you the 'why', but the other gives you the 'how'. By moving beyond just believing in growth and beginning to perceive the inner workings of your own mind, you stop being a passenger to your impulses and start becoming the architect of your experience. Don't just change your mind, learn to see it, name it, and guide it toward the life you were meant to lead. Have the mindsight to...

Be inspired! Inspire others!