In life, people will always encounter events that require the display of certain abilities, such as exams, or social gatherings. In addition to merely being a test of one’s ability, these events are also a test of mindset, which determines the degree to which a person’s ability is displayed. Therefore, having a good mindset and strong ability are equally important. This article will focus on several ways to improve one’s mindset.
First, distinguish the features of mindset. The nature of mindset is constantly changing, temporary, and steady. Because temporality and steadiness of mindset seem to contradict each other, steadiness is often overlooked. For example, the nervousness before an ill-prepared exam comes from a bad mindset. Such emotions are considered to be emotional disorders caused by the normal mindset of being affected by an impending negative event, and such disorders are attributed to the disruption of steadiness rather than to a temporary change. By distinguishing between temporality and steadiness, a healthy and resilient mindset arises from the ability to maintain a normal and stable mindset and the ability to control transient mindset changes.
It is human nature to have a certain ability to master mental stability, but long-term mental stability requires practice. First, according to psychologist Robert Rosenthal, the number of encounters with dopamine-secreting events (in short, pleasurable events) has the following relationship with mental stability: people who encounter a small number of such events have the highest stability, followed by people who encounter a large number of such events. On the other hand, people who experienced moderate amounts of dopamine-producing events had the lowest mental stability, because the dopamine they obtained was not enough to support them through the period of mental fluctuations, and they did not have enough experience to fight against depression accumulated through several negative events.
Therefore, without a lot of exposure to positive events, trying to expose oneself to a moderate amount of negative events and emotions is a good way to exercise mental acceptance. Of course, one should not superfluously accept negative emotions, which can lead to serious mental illness. Nonetheless, the ability to recover from negative emotions requires complex skills and awareness.
First of all, people should realize that it is normal for negative events to cause negative emotions and that a mindset without emotional fluctuations after a blow is not rational.
Second, negative emotions can promote change. According to psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner, feelings of personal embarrassment encourage others to tolerate individual mistakes, and acting upset makes others more empathic.
Then, confidence about the future is vital. Whatever the setback, a positive attitude about the future greatly reduces the emotional impact of that setback. Optimism boosts the brain’s neural receptors so that more action will be taken in response to setbacks.
Finally, emotions are influenced by the current state of the body. For instance, in many cases, people show more grief in the evening because the brain’s frontal cortex is less active due to reduced visual and auditory information, leading to less rational thinking. Therefore, trying to reactivate rational thinking through sleep, deep breathing, and listening to music can reduce impulsive behavior caused by emotional thinking.
To sum up, maintaining a good mindset can not be done overnight, but it does not take much effort to make a lasting change. Recovering from a setback faster will give one more ability to cope with the next obstacle so that the negative emotions of multiple impediments don’t snowball.
