In this episode I ask what vocabulary you use that is conducive to a Growth Mindset? Can you change simple parts of your language to help your mindset shift?
I’m Dinah Liversidge and I’m a Coach and Trainer, a Celebrant and co-host of The Charcoal Hut, a woodland cabin in Myddfai, Carmarthenshire. I’m also a no-box-thinker. I believe when we stop trying to ‘think outside the box’ we take away labels and limitations that were always an illusion. There never was a box.
I love being a Coach, a Celebrant and a Host. All these aspects of my life help me achieve that illusive ‘work-life balance’ so many seem to be striving for. Join me in Myddfai in our woodland garden for a #MyddfaiMinute and listen to one minute of birdsong. I hope it brings you some peace.
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Dinah
Speaker 1:
Hi there, I'm Diner Liver . Welcome to my No Box Thinking podcast, and this month I'm focusing on our language and how it impacts our mindset. Today I wanted to talk about basic vocabulary for a growth mindset. Here's the thing. I honestly believe in order to really change your mindset to a place of growth and openness, you have to do a bit less talking and a bit more listening. I learned that from, I guess, spending a lot of time with my husband, who is a natural listener, and also my daughter who changed the way I network by listening more than we talk. And I think the same is true for our mindset. We need to listen. We need to listen to other people. We need to listen to new ideas and different opinions, and we need to do it without something in our head over rolling it over, dominating it, kind of shouting it down. When did you last listen to somebody with a totally opposing opinion to yours and not hear that voice in your head going, yeah, yeah , whatever. Or huh , do they know what they sound like? Or waiting to be able to answer them with your pre-prepared o oso clever response. We all do it. And it feels to me particularly over the last few years , um, maybe specifically over the last four or five years, as if it's become them and us more than ever. And the them and us applies on, on so many different levels in so many different places. And of course, language plays an absolutely key role in that. So that them and us language takes us to a closed mindset. We are instantly shutting down and not listening. We are believing that our opinion or thought or belief is the right one. And as a result, we really have very, very little chance of being in a place of real listening, of being open to other people's ideas and of any hope of growing. Because if we
Speaker 2:
Are so sure we are right , that we are never going to listen to anybody else. Nothing new can happen. No positive change can take place. You can't learn if you think you already know it all. And you know, the other thing we tend to do is we talk to ourselves this way too. When we make a mistake, we say things in our head like a stupid person. You idiot, I can't believe you did that. And this reinforces not just things like our imposter mindset, but it also closes us down to hearing from others that what we do is good or right, or beneficial or fabulous because we are now in a closed place. And any feedback, even positive feedback, doesn't actually sink in. When somebody tells you, you've done a great job, are you really hearing that? Are you hearing it and repeating it to yourself? Because that's how you change your basic vocabulary. Going from words like should and locking them away. Put it in room 1 0 1. The word should is, is so damaging and so dangerous. I often say to clients who say, I should by now have done this or felt this or achieve this. I often say, stop and ask, where is that coming from? That should according to whom. And often it's something historical that does not serve us anymore. But that vocabulary that should has become part of our closed mindset practice. It doesn't serve you. So think about a basic vocabulary that would allow you to be more open, a way of being present where you are not always will listening in order to respond, but instead you are listening in order to hear something new or different. I'd love to know how you get on. Thank you for joining me on the podcast. Please share, I'd love to reach more people and to help them consider whether they are still desperately trying to think outside the box instead of knowing that there is no box .