What Mindsets? Walking the Thinking Path

We’re constantly telling ourselves what something means, and we’re not good at it, and sometimes what we think it means is not true at all.

We give that voice in our head way more credit than it deserves.

“As long as the problem is ‘out there’ you can’t fix it. You’re just the victim. I’m not trying to shame you. I am trying to empower you. You can’t change your results until you accept full responsibility for them.” - Michael Hyatt’s executive coach talking to him about his mindset

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” - Romans 12

Let’s pretend.

This story isn’t completely true, but it could have been. The part about me is kinda true, but Brenda never had this reaction, although she could have.

Let’s say Brenda and I get married and set up a home.

Years go by and she gets more and more disappointed with me because I don’t keep up with projects important to her.

She could start coming to some conclusions - he’s lazy, he doesn’t care about our home, he doesn’t care about what I want. That’s a mindset.

Thinking that, she could start treating me differently, the way you might treat a lazy person who doesn’t care. Of course if this happened, it would influence my attitude and behavior, too. Which would in turn again influence hers.

Let’s say this continues and her conclusions escalate -

She starts thinking, “He doesn’t care about me, and he’ll never change.” Another mindset.

If she thought that, she could start treating me the way you might treat a person who doesn’t care about you and who will never change. Right? You could get critical, assume overall bad motives, and start grumbling and muttering to others. Maybe even begin to think of this person as your enemy.

She would now have fixed mindsets that influence her relationship with me. She’s come to some conclusions, and those conclusions dictate her negative expectations and a lot of her attitude and behavior toward me.

"Your mind will be like its habitual thoughts; the soul becomes dyed by the color of its thoughts." - Marcus Aurelius

And her mindsets would be understandable.

Real things happen or don’t happen. There are facts that are true.

And then we assign meaning to the things and facts, to the words and events and behaviors.

The meaning could be true or not true.

The meaning becomes the story we attach to what happens.

The meaning becomes “a truth” - something we believe is true. It becomes an expectation, a mindset.

And then we interpret words and behavior and events through the mindset we have. Once it’s a mindset, it self-fulfills.

But is the mindset the whole absolute truth, carved in stone?

Maybe, or maybe not.

“Our brains make maps of ourselves, others, and the world. If we do not intentionally make sure those maps are accurate, our lives will suffer and be limited.” - Dr. Henry Cloud

Are there any other “truths” that have a role in this? Maybe or maybe not.

Do I have any understandable mindsets of my own that influenced what I did or didn’t do with those projects? Probably.

I could have my own conclusions and mindsets, and guess what, she might not look good in mine either. But would mine be the whole absolute truth? Probably not.

My mindset is an attitude, a mentality. It’s what I believe about my marriage, myself, my spouse. It’s what I believe about what happens and why it happens and what it means.

When we become frustrated with our partner, we start to develop rigid, critical beliefs about them and about the relationship.

A key sign that this is happening is when we start to talk about our partner in absolutes: “You never show me you care,” or “You are always so unreasonable,” or “You are so lazy.”

Or we use absolutes to talk about the relationship: “It’s always hard work,” or “We will never be as close as I want us to be.”

We even conjure absolute beliefs about ourselves: “I am always such a pushover,” or “I will never express myself.”

- Elizabeth Earnshaw

To me, this is one kind of mindset - let’s call it a “People Mindset.”

It’s about my spouse, our relationship and marriage, or myself.

One thing about this kind of mindset. They say we have either “fixed” or “growth” mindsets.

A fixed mindset is set in stone. We think it can’t change, that there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s fatalistic.

A growth mindset has hope. It acknowledges the present reality but believes there are things that can happen to bring change.

Fatalism is the attitude that makes us live as passive victims of exterior circumstances beyond our control. The opposite of fatalism is faith. Faith is the deep trust that God's love is stronger than all the anonymous powers of the world… - Henri Nouwen

To me, any people mindsets I have come from what I focus on most.

I’m not talking about the cliche “positive thinking.”

I’m just saying there are plenty of absolutely true negative things I can focus on, and there are plenty of absolutely true positive things I can focus on.

I can major on one or the other if I want.

And whatever I decide to major on I can back up with evidence that it’s true.

But I’m only going to MAJOR on one.

Since there’s both positive and negative, how am I going to decide?

For me in our relationship, deciding to major on the true positive isn’t ignoring reality. It’s love.

Happily married couples find positive explanations when they see gaps between expectations and behavior.

When I assume the worst, it turns into a habit, a cycle, that makes me right and them wrong. Every time I do that it contributes to the demise of my marriage

When I choose to believe the best, and I tell them, it contributes to trust and creates margin in our relationship. - Andy Stanley

Whatever I major on is always going to have “another side” to it. Neither the positive nor the negative is whole absolute truth.

So since I’m going to pick, why not purposefully pick the view that my higher self wants to take - the view that says love.

To me, another kind of mindset is a “Design Mindset.”

It’s not about my conclusions about another person’s behavior or motives, it’s about my conclusions about how people and marriage are made to “work.”

Over the years I’ve become convinced of a bunch of design mindsets.

One way I began to see them was over the last bunch of years when I went back and tried to see “what happened that made things better for us?”

I’d just pay attention to how we acted now, and then kinda meditate and reminisce on what our attitudes, words, and actions used to be decades earlier.

Of course I was also reading the Bible and some marriage and relationship things. I was also paying attention the way we all do to people and relationships we know and see.

And it was as if these consistent eternal “truths” rose up and pointed at themselves more and more.

And once I saw them, and believed they were true, and began adopting them, they influenced my attitude, behavior, and words.

And they ended up influencing my “people mindsets” with Brenda.

Beliefs influence the way we act within the relationship, how much motivation we feel, how vulnerable and open we can be, and how flexible we are willing to be. - Elizabeth Earnshaw

To me, the design mindsets come first because they’re universals.

Starting with design mindsets is what changed things for me. I didn’t think it through on purpose, I just naturally gravitated to majoring on the universal thing.

So what are some design mindsets?

Many you’ll be familiar with, some you won’t. Some you may disagree with.

For most of them, I’ll bet you’ve simply underestimated how valuable and important and true they really are. I did for years and years.

It’s not that we don’t know something. It’s that we don’t take it serious.

Here’s a basic one -

“You only control yourself.”

Seems to me we all know and believe this, but we don’t really act like we believe it. We still try to get people to do what we think they should do, and be who we think they should be.

I know and believe the mindset, but I still try to control Brenda without realizing it. Sometimes I even realize it and still do it.

But I think I do it way less these days.

I also think it doesn’t take catching myself and stopping myself as much as it takes a heart and attitude of releasing control and trusting God with her. Which is where the formation path comes in (link)

But I really do accept this mindset and want to live by it.

Here are a few more design mindsets that I’ve discovered.

I’m convinced these are true and I try to let them shape my attitude, expectations, words, and actions. I hope they end up influencing my people mindsets -

People are wired to respond to grace and kindness.

You’re contagious - your attitude, words, and actions can spread.

When people feel you care, they soften towards you.

When you see into someone’s heart, you soften towards them.

If these are true can you see how cooperating with them with your spouse could begin to make a difference?

If I really believed my spouse was wired to respond to grace and kindness, what might I try to do a little more of? Would I try to major on the true positive as opposed to the true negative?

If I really believed I was contagious, what kind of attitudes, words, and actions would I want to spread?

If I really believed that if my spouse feels that I care, she’ll soften towards me, then what might I do so that she feels my caring? (BTW, it’s their call to say if they feel it. I can’t say “Well you should feel it.”)

And if I really believed that if I see into my spouse’s heart that I will soften toward her, what might I do to see into her heart?

Can you see how these could shape what you think and say and do?

Reality leads to hope

For the first twenty years of our marriage, I unknowingly developed negative emotional reactions to Brenda. She did it too with me. Don’t we all?

I didn't see my role in digging a hole in our relationship. I didn’t own that.

I didn’t realize I had developed mindsets of unhelpful thinking, which led to unhelpful words and actions.

And I didn’t realize God was up to something good and personal inside me, and wanted me to let him use my marriage to do it.

Slowly, under pressure, I learned my thinking and mindsets, and my words, and my relationship with God were all one thing. That doesn’t make things simple - but it does make them much simpler.

Email me at gary@garymorland.com.