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In this episode, I’ll tell you about why your mindset is so important…it’s actually one of the most critical things to get right if you want to succeed as a guitar teacher! If you have the wrong mindset, you’ll never reach your full potential in your business or in your life.
I’ll explain all the benefits of developing a positive mindset and tell you all the reasons WHY you need to do this to be a successful person. I’ll also go into detail about WHAT a successful mindset looks like and I’ll even give you a bunch of ways you can TAKE ACTION and develop your own million dollar mindset…starting today!
PLUS, for STG All-Access members ONLY, I’ll give you 5 BONUS ACTION STEPS for developing your mindset!
To call in with a question, a comment or to leave feedback for the show, call the Listener Feedback Hotline at (719) 428-5480 and leave a message! I just might include your recorded message in a future episode.
Items Mentioned In This Episode:
Link – Group Guitar Launch Formula
Book – “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill
Video – “The Secret” (watch the first 20 minutes free)
Free eBook – “The Science of Getting Rich”
Book – “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber
Podcast Transcript
All right, let’s jump right into the episode today. In this episode here, we’re going to talk about the components of a million-dollar mindset. And that title might sound kind of hypey or something like that, you know, that you can earn a million dollars just if you change your mindset. I’m not going to say that that’s not true. That’s really not the focus of this today. It’s about how a mindset can improve your guitar teaching business and give you success in every area of your life, all by improving your mindset. But if you really want to become successful to the point that you become a millionaire, then your mindset is what’s going to enable you to do that.
So, you have the potential to do anything you want to do in your life and in your teaching business, but your mindset is the key to making those things happen. And honestly, if I had to pick the two most important things to your success as a guitar teacher, you know, there’s a lot of things to choose from, but I had to pick the top two things that would make a different in your success, they would have to be marketing and your mindset. And it’s kind of funny because those are the two biggest things that most musicians usually get wrong. It’s really ironic.
The two things that can make you the most successful are the two biggest things that musicians and guitar teachers get wrong. Most musicians, guitar teachers included, know nothing about marketing and they also have some of the worst mindsets of anybody that you might meet. That’s not to say that there aren’t exceptions to that. I know some of you guys, especially if you listen to the Start Teaching Guitar Podcast, I talk about mindset a lot, so you’re probably well ahead of a lot of the other teachers and musicians out there that don’t listen to the podcast. But in general, musicians tend to be insecure, and I’m a musician too, so I’m throwing myself in this category.
We tend to be kind of insecure, egotistical at times, and we tend to base our self-worth on our performance. Our value as a person is based on how we well we play and how well we perform, and all of that kind of stuff. And you know, our mindsets are just totally messed up and mixed up. So, as musicians, we tend to have terrible mindsets and that’s the reason I wanted to do this episode today; is because mindset is so huge that it deserves some in-depth discussion so that we can all improve our mindsets and become more positive and see the kind of success that we have the potential to reach in our teaching businesses and in our lives.
So, honestly, more often than not, it’s your mindset that determines whether you fail or succeed. So, everything that measures success in your teaching business, from the number of new students you sign up to your student retention rate and everything in between, is all directly related to your mindset, whether you realize it or not. If you think you can succeed, then you normally will. And the cool thing is that other people are going to think that too. You know, our thinking is contagious. If we think positive things, then a lot of times that’s going to influence the people around us to think more positive too.
But if you don’t think or believe that you can succeed, then you usually are not even going to try, and that’s what’s really tragic, because we all have the potential within us to be successful, to be amazing guitar teachers and business owners and musicians, and you know, husbands and fathers and wives, and everything. Every area of our lives, we really do have the potential for greatness. But if we don’t think we do or if we don’t believe that we do, then a lot of those areas are just going to fall to the wayside and a lot of times we won’t even try.
And the same is true. Other people are going to catch those thoughts and beliefs, and they’re going to reinforce them. So, mindset is so critical. And another thing that happens a lot of times is that you might give something a shot. You might think: “Wow, okay, maybe I could do this whole guitar teaching thing and be successful at it,” but then, once you get it established, maybe, if you are like a lot of people, you sabotage yourself. You know? A lot of times we do that just to prove that our negative thoughts were right in the first place. Just so that we can say we tried it and it didn’t work and we were right, so we’ll put ourselves out there and try something like starting up a teaching business or starting something new, and then subconsciously, you know, we can sabotage it.
And a lot of times that happens without us even realizing it, but it’s all based on our mindset. Our mindset affects everything we do every day of our lives. It really is the number one thing that determines whether you succeed or fail. So, changing your mindset, improving your mindset I should say, won’t just make your teaching business better. It will honestly revolutionize every area of your life, and I am not exaggerating. Improving your mindset will set you free and it will empower you to have, to be, and to do everything that you’ve ever dreamed about in your life.
Now, think about that for a second. I want that to sink in. You can be free and you can be empowered to have everything you’ve ever wanted, to be everything you’ve ever wanted to be, to do everything you’ve ever wanted to do, simply by changing the way you think. This might sound crazy to some of you. This might sound too good to be true. I’m not saying it’s easy. Okay, I’ll get into that in a second, but it is possible if you’re just willing to simply change the way that you think. Now, this really is one of the biggest secrets in life, one that all truly successful people know and practice. And yes, it can even make you a millionaire if that’s something that you really want. So, honestly, with the right mindset, the sky is the limit.
Why Working On Your Mindset Is So Important
So let’s jump right into this discussion about mindset here, and talk about why having a positive mindset is so important. There’s a lot of benefits to this, and I just want to go over each one of them really quick so that you understand why this is something that’s worth fighting for in your life and in your business.
1) Working On Your Mindset Boosts Your Confidence
So, first thing a positive mindset gives you is it boosts your confidence level. So, as a guitar teacher, confidence is one of the keys to teaching successful lessons. You know, you have to have confidence in yourself. You have to have confidence in your ability to deal with whatever a student might bring your way. If you don’t have confidence in yourself or if you have a low level of confidence, then you’re not going to feel good about what you’re doing as a teacher. And when you don’t feel good about what you’re doing, you tend to second-guess yourself and you wonder whether you’re making the right decisions or not, you’re not really sure if you’re doing the right things with your students, and you end up playing it safe and you end up not taking risks in your business and in your life, just because you’re not sure about what’s going on. You don’t have confidence in yourself.
And honestly, confidence comes directly from having the right mindset. If you think correctly about yourself and your teaching business, then you’re going to see yourself correctly. You’re going to see your teaching business correctly, and then you’re going to feel good about what you see. You’re going to have a lot more confidence in yourself, so it all directly comes from your thinking. So, if you improve your thinking, then you improve your confidence as well. So that’s a big benefit.
2) Working On Your Mindset Helps You Believe In Yourself
The next one is it helps you to believe in yourself. Now, that might sound kind of similar to your confidence, and they’re related to each other, but there’s this old saying that still holds true today. And the old saying is if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will either. That’s kind of harsh, but it’s true. You know, a lot of times, whenever we don’t believe in ourselves and we’re trying to get established doing something that we want to do, it’s like we really need other people to believe in us. But if we don’t believe in ourselves, why should someone else believe in what we’re trying to do either? You see, it all comes back to us.
It comes back to me and my thinking. It comes down to you and your thinking. A lot of the image that we portray to the people around us, including guitar students that you’re sitting down with in your teaching studio, is based on what we believe about ourselves. If you want them to see you as a competent, likable, inspiring professional, then it starts with you believing that about yourself. You can’t expect somebody else to believe something about you that you don’t even believe about yourself. If you don’t believe that you have what it takes to help your students excel on the guitar and learn and improve and reach their goals on the guitar, then they’re not going to believe that you can help them either.
So, it starts with you. You have to believe in yourself. You have to believe in what you’re doing. And working on your mindset really pays big dividends in this area because it corrects your view of reality, which includes your view of yourself. See, a lot of the stuff that we believe about ourselves and about the world around us just isn’t true. And if you can identify the lies, those untrue things that you believe about yourself, and then not just recognize them as lies, but replace them with what is true, then everything starts to change for you and a deep, fundamental level. I know this from firsthand experience.
You know, it’s kind of like correcting your course by using a new compass that actually points in the right direction. A lot of times things are so messed up because we’re using a compass that’s pointing us in the wrong direction. You need to fix that. You need to get something that’ll guide you true north and once you work on your mindset, then you start believing the truth about yourself and then everything starts to change. So, working on your mindset helps you believe in yourself. That’s another huge benefit.
3) Working On Your Mindset Strengthens Your Determination
The next one is it strengthens your determination. I talk about determination a lot on the podcast because without determination, you know, it makes you want to quit. The only way that you can be successful is if you keep at it. And if you quit, you lose. You usually only fail in your business and in any area of your life when you give up. Okay, remember this. Giving up is a choice. No one can make that choice, but you. No matter how crazy things might get, no matter what your circumstances might be seeming to dictate to you, no matter what your bank account looks at the end of the month, you know, none of those things has the power to force you to quit.
The only thing that can make you quit is you. No matter how crazy things might get, you can still succeed as long as you don’t quit, but that decision is always going to be up to you. More often than not, people give up just before they would’ve had this huge breakthrough in their teaching business or in some area of their lives. And that reminds me of a quote by Napoleon Hill, who wrote the book Think and Grow Rich. He said, “Effort only releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” As long as quitting is still an option, as long as giving up is still on the table as an option, then your work, your effort is never going to fully release its reward in your life or in your business. You have to get beyond the point of no return, where you’re saying, “I am not going to quit no matter what.” And once you do that, then you make room in your business for things to start happening.
So, when you work on your mindset, this determination really kicks in when you start working on your mindset. You’re fortifying your will and your determination when you start working on improving your mindset. And you feed that part of your soul that wants to be tenacious, like a bulldog or something that just hangs on like a pit bull and refuses to let go. And when you work on your mindset, you expose the fears and the lies that make you want to give up and quit, and you replace them with the truth about who you are and the truth about what you’re capable of. So that’s another benefit, but I hope you’re catching the vision for this, because this is so powerful.
This is so powerful. It’s revolutionized my life. That’s why I get so passionate when I talk about mindset and things like that. So, it strengthens your determination that helps you not quit when the going gets tough.
4) Working On Your Mindset Reduces Confusion And Cloudy Decision Making
The next benefit of working on your mindset is it reduces confusion and cloudy decision-making. Have you ever been in a situation in your teaching business where you know you needed to make a decision about something, but you just really didn’t know what to do? Well, sometimes all the negative thoughts and emotions bouncing around inside of you make it impossible to be decisive. But to success in business, you really do have to be able to make good decision in a reasonably short period of time, so that’s where the mindset piece of it comes in.
Your thinking can get cloudy and confused whenever your mindset is wrong. You know, you can’t see clearly all of the options before you. You just don’t know exactly what to do. You don’t know what the options are, so the tendency is to just get paralyzed and not do anything at all, or maybe you do the opposite of that. You don’t know what to do, so you just make a snap decision based on your gut and it turns out to be the wrong call because it was based on the wrong thinking. So, you can see how you can get yourself into a lot of trouble when you’re making decisions if you don’t have the right information as a basis for that.
But as a business owner, you really do need the ability to make good decisions. You’re going to be faced with dozens of critical choices you have to make every single week, and in a number of different areas, and you need a clear head and reliable information and good instincts so that you can make the right decisions. So, how does your mindset play into that? Well, working on your mindset helps to sharpen your greatest asset, which is your mind. It sharpens your focus on reality so that you have a clear view of your business, a clear view of your students, and a clear view of yourself. And that clarity just does wonders for your ability to make good decisions.
It gives you the confidence in yourself that you need based on the truth. Working on your mindset, trying to develop a more positive mindset, is all about replacing the lies that you think and believe with the truth. It’s replacing the negative that you think and believe with the positive. So, when you do that, you trust yourself more and your instincts get more sharply focused too. And when you filter out all the negativity from your thinking, it makes decision-making a lot easier and it makes it a more reliable process too. So, that’s a huge benefit there.
5) Working On Your Mindset Helps You Conquer Your Fears
The next one is working on your mindset helps you conquer your fears. I talk a lot about fear in the podcast, man, because I grew up probably being one of the most fearful people that you would ever meet. And you know, I would never have seen myself doing some of the things that I’m doing today whenever I was younger because I was so full of fear. And as I grew older, I had to learn how to conquer those things, and changing my mindset was a huge component of that. So, it does help you conquer your fears. Fear can be your biggest enemy as a guitar teacher.
If you’ve never gotten started, fear can keep you from starting your business in the first place. Fear can keep you from dealing with things in your students and in yourself that need to be dealt with for you to be successful and for them to be successful. A lot of times fear can stand in the way of that. Fear can make you run like a scared rabbit when a big challenge comes your way. You know, you need to have the courage to face the challenges that come your way and if you’re dominated by fear, a lot of times you’ll just back down and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.
But the truth is, if you look at where fear comes from, most fear is based on incorrect thinking. Improving your mindset actually increases your awareness of reality, like I mentioned, and it exposes fear for what it really is. Fear is really just a smokescreen. It’s just an illusion. In fact, I love this acronym. I don’t remember where I heard this, but I heard it a long time ago. FEAR stands for false evidence that appears real. False evidence that appears real. It’s evidence that’s trying to convince you that you shouldn’t do a certain thing because this bad thing is going to happen, but it’s false evidence that only appears real. So, when you see and you understand and you believe the truth, you see that there’s really nothing to be afraid of at all.
Fear is actually like poison in your teaching business, but working on your mindset is the true antidote for fear. So, if you deal with a lot of fear in your business or in your life, in certain areas of your life, then working on your mindset is going to be a huge way to help you overcome that, so that’s a great benefit.
6) Working On Your Mindset Keeps You From Sabotaging Yourself
The next one is working on your mindset keeps you from sabotaging yourself. I kind of alluded to that at the beginning of the podcast today, but if you don’t deal with your fear, it eventually leads you to sabotaging your own success. So, you end up getting full of worry. Am I going to make enough money to pay my bills this month? You know, is this student going to quit on me? You know, does this person like me? And things like that. You get full of worry. You get full of doubt and negativity. And then those emotions, those negative emotions, start to dictate the decisions that you make.
And if you start thinking that way, you get dominated by negative thoughts and emotions. You’ll do whatever it takes to avoid the things that you’re afraid of, even if it means giving up your teaching business altogether. It’s sad, but it’s true. That’s where that fear and that mindset of worry, doubt, and negativity tries to take you. And nobody usually even realizes that they’ve done this – this sabotage business. There’s always, you know, someone else to blame whenever you give up and quit or something else. Your circumstances. You know, there’s always an excuse, but more often than not, it’s because we just sabotaged ourselves due to our own thinking.
The truth is that with a mind full of fear, you are usually your own worst enemy. Your subconscious programming can actually compel you to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory sometimes. That’s so crazy, but you know, we all do it. I’ve done it. You know, it happens when we let ourselves get dominated by fear and negativity. The good news though is that you can reprogram your brain. Your brain is just like a computer. It’s got a certain set of programming and instructions in it right now that it defaults to, and you can change that. You can work on your mindset and you can deal with fear. And when you do that, you’re a lot less likely to sabotage yourself.
You become more aware of your tendency to do that, and then once you see it, you realize that you’re doing it. It’s a lot easier to stop it before it happens. So, working on your mindset is the secret to that too. So, I have a couple more benefits for you here.
7) Working On Your Mindset Helps You Reach Your Goals
Working on your mindset helps you reach your goals. Working on your mindset reinforces your goals. It gives you energy and it energizes your goals and brings them back to life. It helps you see the things that you want out of your life and out of your teaching business more clearly. It gives you the motivation to keep pressing forward until you reach those goals and the determination, like I mentioned before, to not give up until you see them. The more positive your thinking is, the faster you get what you want. It’s as simple as that.
Working on your mindset changes your circumstances. It changes your capabilities, it changes your possibilities, and it changes your outcomes. It changes the rules of the game and it puts them in your favor. It gives you your second wind so that you can keep on running to the finish line and reach your goals. Changing your mindset from positive to negative really is the key to getting what you want out of your teaching business and your life, and it helps you actually reach the goals that you set.
8) Working On Your Mindset Helps You Be More Productive
Another thing it does is working on your mindset helps you be more productive. If you think more positively, then you’re not going to waste all that time worrying about stuff anymore. You’re going to trust yourself more. You’re going to trust that everything is going to work out well. You’re going to trust and believe that everything is going for you. And it’s so important to have that. And you’re not going to be stressed out all the time. You know, that’s one of the biggest things that can kill you; is stress. And you know, you’ll know that whatever happens, you don’t have to worry and stress about it because you’re going to be okay. You have what it takes to handle whatever comes your way. And when you work on your mindset, you actually begin to believe that, then you start to see that it’s true.
You’ll have the clarity to see and get the most important things done first. You’ll prioritize your time. You won’t just work on the easy stuff first just to make yourself feel better. Instead, you’ll work on the things that are most important when you get your mindset right.
9) Working On Your Mindset Helps Contradict The Lies In Your Thinking
And then the last benefit to working on your mindset is that it helps contradict the lies in your thinking. So, unless you work on your mindset and stuff, you won’t even be able to tell the difference between the lies in your head and the truth. You won’t even know that they’re lies. You won’t even know that they’re there if you don’t work on your mindset. When you do work on it, you can identify the lies that you’ve been acting on all these years. You can contradict them, refute them, and then you can change your course. And when you change your course, that’s when you change your destiny.
Okay, so here’s an example of some lies that are in our thinking all the time that we need to get rid of. Like here’s one: you’ve got to have money if you want to make money. You know, that’s a lie. Another one is you’ve got to know someone to get somewhere. Not true at all. Here’s another lie. Life is meant to be a struggle. Maybe you look around at your family history and everyone has always struggled in their lives, and you think that that’s the way life is. Well, that’s not the way life is. That’s a lie. Here’s another one. There’s never enough _____. You know, write in there’s never enough money. There’s never enough time. There’s never enough whatever it is that you think that there’s never enough of. Well, that’s a lie too.
And then the biggest lie of all is: “I can’t.” Whatever it is that you want to do, thinking automatically that you can’t do it. That’s a huge lie. So, what you want to do is you want to contradict those. You want to refute those things. You know, so what is the truth about those particular statements? Well, you know, if the lie is you’ve got to have money to make money, the truth is, well, money is something that you attract and create, and we all have the ability to do this. And it doesn’t require money to do it. That’s the truth. If the lie is you’ve got to know someone to get somewhere, well, the truth is the only person you need to know to get somewhere is yourself. You need to know yourself.
You need to fix the thinking in yourself and understand yourself, and that’s what you need if you want to get somewhere. That’s the truth. What if the lie is life is meant to be a struggle? Well, the truth is life is a universe full of opportunity and it’s meant to give you everything you want. That’s the truth. What if the lie is there’s never enough whatever? Well, the truth is there is always enough whatever. There’s always enough money. There’s always enough time. There’s always enough of whatever it is you need to be successful. You just have to believe that and then go out and get it. And if the lie is I can’t, the truth is I can if I really want to, and that’s how it works.
So, those are the things that working on your mindset can do for you. This is why doing this is so important, why it actually needs to be one of the major goals in your life. So, now let’s dig a little bit deeper into what a mindset is. What it really is and what this is all about.
What Is A “Mindset”?
So, I’ve been using the word mindset a lot so far in this episode, and your mindset is your primary state of mind. It’s the way you think from day to day. That’s what your mindset is. It’s the way that you think, your view of the world. It’s what you think about when you focus on and what you expect from your daily experiences. That’s what it is. It’s the things that you think about, the things that you focus on, and your expectations out of what comes your way in life. It’s all involved in your mindset.
It’s not just ignoring everything negative though and burying your head in the sand like an ostrich, right? You know, it’s a lot more than that. It’s more about choosing what you think, choosing what you feel, and what you dwell on so that you focus on the positive side of things more often than not. You know, negative things are going to always come your ways. And when that happens, you just deal with them, and then you choose to focus on the positive again. And if you keep doing that over and over, after a while it becomes a way of life.
So, your mindset has to do with all of that. Okay, your mindset is what you believe about yourself and about the world. So, here are some important questions that you can ask yourself to kind of help determine your mindset. This is the classic one, right? Is the glass half empty or half full? Are you the kind of person that sees a glass and sees it that it’s half empty or see that it’s half full when you look at it? Ask yourself that question. Ask yourself this. Is the world basically for you or do you feel like the world is against you? Do you believe that you exist on this planet for a purpose? Think about that question.
Do you believe that you actually have a purpose in life? That’s huge. Do you feel like there is good that you can do in the world or are you just out for what you can get for yourself? Important questions to ask. Do you think you have what it takes to be successful? The answers to those questions are going to reveal a lot about the state of your mindset. If you answered them all in the positive sense, then that means that you have pretty much a positive mindset, but if you answered them all from a negative perspective, then you have a lot of work to do.
You know, this is how it works. I’ve mentioned this several times before, but your thoughts determine your feelings, which become your beliefs. And those turn into your actions. And your actions become your habits. And then those are the things that determine your destiny. So, if you want a different destiny, it starts with thinking different thoughts, which requires a different mindset. So, that’s what mindset is in a nutshell.
The Law Of Attraction
Now I want to talk about one related thing that has to do with your mindset, and this is going to be kind of controversial to some of you guys, so I just want you to listen to what I’m about to tell you and just take it with a grain of salt. If you think I’m crazy, if you think that I’ve totally lost my mind or whatever, then that’s fine. You’re entitled to think that. That’s totally cool. But I want to talk about something called the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction, and I’m going to make a lot of balancing statements whenever I talk about this because I agree with the Law of Attraction at a basic, fundamental level, but some people have taken this Law of Attraction and turned it into this huge belief system that can tend to be kind of weird and everything.
So, I just want you to know that I don’t go that far with it, but at the same time, I do believe there’s an element of truth here and that this is a useful concept for understanding and improving our mindset. So, let me just jump right in and talk about the Law of Attraction for a minute here.
You may have heard about the book and they even made a movie about it, called The Secret, that came out a few years ago. I think it came out in 2006 or something like that. And Oprah Winfrey made a big deal about it and kind of helped popularize it and everything. But that book and that movie basically give you a touchy, feely, new agey kind of overview of the Law of Attraction. And honestly, it’s a little too weird and “new agey” for me the way that it’s presented in that film, but some of the principles mentioned in it are helpful for developing your mindset.
You know, like I definitely disagree with some of the things they teach in the movie, like they put a lot of emphasis on your feelings and they say things like if it feels good, do it. You know, obviously that kind of stuff can get you in trouble. I don’t agree with parts of it. But if you want to, you can watch the first 20 minutes of it for free on YouTube, if you want to kind of watch a little bit of it and find out more for yourself, and you can pick up the DVD on Amazon. It’s available on Netflix as well, but I’ll put a link in the show notes to a YouTube video that has the first 20 minutes of The Secret on it so you can see it for yourself.
So, The Secret talks a lot about the Law of Attraction, and what I like better though, there’s a free eBook that you can download online. It’s called The Science of Getting Rich. It was written in 1910 by a guy who basically explains the Law of Attraction a little more from a scientific standpoint, and it explains it in a less weird, more common sense way. So, I’ll put a link in the show notes to that free eBook, The Science of Getting Rich. It’s about 48 pages long. It’s not very long at all, but it’s got some good information in there if this is something you want to look into a little more.
Okay, so that’s enough preface of the Law of Attraction. Now let me tell you what it is.
So, the basic idea of the Law of Attraction is that there are invisible laws that govern the universe and control what happens all around us. Things like the Law of Gravity. Gravity keeps the planets in place. Gravity keeps the ocean from floating up into the sky and all that stuff, right? And then there’s the Laws of Physics. There’s the Laws of Thermodynamics and things like that. There are different physical laws, scientific laws, that are kind of universal and kind of control the way things happen in the world around us.
So, the Law of Attraction, according to this theory, works just like those other laws of nature. And the Law of Attraction is that what you consistently think about and have emotions about is what is going to come about. So, let me repeat that. What you consistently think about and have emotions about is what’s going to come about in your life. So, it’s the principle of like attracts like. And if you follow this principle, you know, it’s kind of like we’re a lot like magnets. We attract more of what we focus on.
Our thoughts, whether they’re positive or negative, become things in our lives. The state of our mind dictates the people, the circumstances, and the events that come into our lives. That’s basically what the Law of Attraction says. So, basically, if I’m full of fear, if I’m full of worry, if I’m full of doubt, then I’m going to draw myself into situations that mirror those negative emotions. You know, and the reverse is also true. If I’m full of thoughts of gratitude, of hope, of success, then I’m going to attract those things instead.
So, that’s basically the Law of Attraction in a nutshell, so that takes mindset to a whole new level. Because not only does our thinking determine the choices that we make. Our thinking actually determines whether good things or bad things come into our lives. If we have negative thinking, then we attract negative things. If we have positive thinking, then we attract positive things. I don’t know about you, but I want to improve my mindset so that I can have as many good things coming into my life as possible.
So, the Law of Attraction is really, really important to understand as it relates to developing your mindset, which is why I brought it up here. And no matter what you think about the Law of Attraction, you might think I’m crazy, that it’s a bunch of new-age hooey or whatever. No matter what you think about it though, your life will definitely improve if you can improve your thinking. Absolutely. You know, a lot of people, like I mentioned, take this basic idea of the Law of Attraction and they try to create a religion out of it or something. You know, they talk about the Hindu philosophy of one universal substance and how we can channel that universal substance with our thoughts, and things like that.
And I don’t believe that necessarily, and that’s not what I’m trying to promote here. My personal faith and beliefs are a lot different than the people that they interview in The Secret, for example, but I believe that this law is real, even if it’s only at a very basic level. And I just know that if you change your thoughts, you can change yourself. And when you do that, then everything around you changes too. You know, there’s really nothing supernatural about it. It’s really just common sense, honestly. And I’m only mentioning it here because it’s a useful way to think about your mindset.
So, take the useful parts of this idea. If there are parts of it that you don’t agree with or that you think are crazy, you know, toss them out, but the truth remains that when you change your mind and your thoughts and your feelings and your beliefs, then you change your life. And when you change your life, everything around you starts to change too. So, the Law of Attraction is helpful in developing your mindset.
5 Ways You Can Improve Your Mindset
So, now, as I kind of bring things to a close here, I want to give you five ways that you can improve your mindset. These are five action steps that you can take right now, starting today, that can help your mindset to get better than it is right now.
1) Work On Your Mindset Every Day
So, the first one is – number one – work on your mindset every day. Work on your mindset. Do something about it every day. This is really all about reprogramming your mind so that you eliminate all the negative thoughts and beliefs that tend to fester in there, and it’s a lot like a daily exercise routine. You just spend a little bit of time doing some of the things that I’m going to tell you about today. If you spend a little time doing it every day, then, over time, you’re going to see big changes and big things happening.
And honestly, you need to do this while you’re working on the other areas of your business. So, while you’re improving your teaching skills, your playing skills, your business skills, you’d also be working on yourself because your business is only going to grow as fast as you do. Okay, so set aside some time everyday to work on your mindset.
2) Think Positive Thoughts
Number two is think positive thoughts. Think positive thoughts. Start paying attention to the things that you think about. And when you catch yourself thinking negative things, then stop and turn that around and correct it. Okay, so some of the ways that you do that is you focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have. You focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. You see, there’s a subtle shift here. Focus on the things that you like, not on the things that you don’t like.
Instead of saying, “I can’t afford this,” for example, start saying, “What could I do to be able to afford this?” So, you’re just turning the tables on your negative thought patterns and you’re starting to look at the world through positive eyes. That’s all you’re doing. Every time you have a negative thought, put it under arrest, just like a cop, and turn it around and focus on the positive side of that. All right, and that’ll help you to improve your mindset.
3) Believe In Yourself
The next one is to believe in yourself. Okay, what I want you guys to do is I want you to decide. Make up your mind. Decide that starting today, starting right now, you’re going to be your own biggest supporter. You’re going to be your own cheerleader. Every time you start to doubt yourself, then I want you to stop that thought dead in its tracks and I want you to speak the opposite. Start saying things to yourself, like: “I know I can do this. I know I have what it takes. I know I will be successful.”
Those are positive affirmations, and speaking positive affirmations about yourself is a great way to silence those voices of doubt. Now, you might have to repeat these things for a while before you start to believe them. You know, when I first started doing stuff like this, I was like: “Man, this is dumb. You know, I feel so stupid doing this,” but you just keep doing it. And then, after a while, you start to believe it. You start to believe that you can do it. You start to believe that you have what it takes. You start to believe that you will be successful, and then eventually you are. So, repeat them every day. Repeat positive things that mean something to you, and you’re going to start to believe them, and you should believe them because they’re the truth. So, believe in yourself.
4) Believe You Can Improve
And then the next thing you can do to develop a positive mindset is to believe that you can improve. Some of you out there right now might be kind of discouraged. You might feel like you’re stuck in a rut, you know, in your personal life or with your teaching business. But even though it might feel like you’re stuck right now, you don’t have to stay there. You don’t have to stay stuck in a rut. So, what you can do instead is paint yourself a mental picture of what you want your business to look like, or what you want your life to look like, or what you want your marriage to look like, or whatever the areas is that feels like you’re stuck with. Paint yourself a picture, in your mind, about what you want it to look like, and really visualize it in great detail. You know, just think about it.
So, like how much money do you want to be making as a guitar teacher? What kinds of things do you want to be doing differently? How do you really want your life to look as opposed to the way it is today? What do you want it to look like? What improvements do you want to see? Visualize that in your mind, and what this does is it creates a roadmap for your future. It gives you a destination, kind of a goal to look towards. And now that you know what lies ahead, then just believe that you can get there. You can. If you want it, you created it in your mind, you know that you can have this destiny, this awesome outcome for your life, right? Believe that you can get there.
And then, once you believe that, then just focus on the very next step that you need to take. You don’t have to worry about step five or step ten or step 150. Just focus on step one. What’s the next thing I need to do to get closer to where I want to be, and then take action on that one thing, but it all starts with believing that you can improve.
5) Expect The Best In Every Situation
And then number five. The fifth way to improve your mindset is to expect the best in every situation. I have learned this in my own life. Whatever you expect is usually what you’re going to get. If you expect bad things to happen, then most of the time, things that happen to you are going to be bad. If you expect good things to happen, a lot of times they’re going to be good. So, if what you expect is usually what you’re going to get, then why not choose to expect good things? You have a 50-50 chance of being right anyway, and you might be disappointed once in a while, but your mindset is going to improve if you do this and you’re going to see good things a lot more often than you’re going to see bad things if you just have great expectations.
So, if you go into every guitar lesson, every meeting, every situation that you find yourself in and you’re expecting the best out of people, then you’re a lot more likely to actually get the best out of them. So, expect the best in every situation. That’s the fifth way to improve your mindset.
And guess what. Surprise! I have four more ways, actually five more ways that you can improve your mindset, but I’m going to save those for STG All-Access members only. So, if you want to hear the next five ways you can work on your mindset and improve your positive thinking, then go to STGAllAccess.com and sign up for your own membership today.
Thank You For Listening!
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