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I’ve just read a book in which the author mentioned a fascinating idea: “There are no miracles in this world, the so-called miracles are the accumulation of quantity.” I think all of us dream about miracles and already have a list of things that we could do once miracles happen. But it's the first time someone shares the formula to create a miracle with us. Or let's think about a closer example: consider a miracle as an ideal role in our career or life, and how can we create that “accumulation of quantity” for it?
The inverted mindset
Before talking about the inverted mindset, let’s talk about the normal one first.
“If I have enough money one day, I will open my own business”
“If I have enough experience and confidence, I will apply for that position”
“If I’m rich, I’ll make more donations to poor people”
“If I have some outstanding achievements, I will share my experience with my team“
… many things like those you may hear before, or you’re the one to say it out.
Same for me, I frequently use them whenever somebody, or even myself, asks me why I don’t do this or do that.
So what is the problem with that?
The problem will be, what are we going to do after saying such things like that? Like we’re having one big problem trying to solve, and our solution is to bring out another unclear condition. There is no definition of done for the condition part to motivate us to take action. So it becomes more like an excuse, procrastination, than the approach. You can also ask yourself follow-up questions like:
“How do we know that we have enough money? Or how can we have enough money?”
“How can I gain enough experience and confidence for that position? What am I missing?”
“How can I get rich?”
“How does it look like my upcoming achievement? At that moment, what experience do I tend to bring to share?”
There comes the inverted mindset.
Normal flow: Have -> Actions -> Become
Inverted flow: Become -> Actions -> Have
Sounds weird, right? I’d like to explain it a bit more with the acting role strategy.
Acting role strategy
We spent a bit of time understanding the cons of the normal mindset. Let’s explore how it works with the inverted mindset in detail via the acting role strategy.
Let’s take an example of an opening business that we mentioned before. What we think in the beginning is that money is the main factor that blocks us from opening our business. But normally, once we have enough money, there are tons of things we need to have to get it ready. Then we keep delaying our goal, right?
So if we just assume that we’re ready to start opening a business, besides the lack of money, we have more chance to fill in the action item list together with the one “having more money” already in the list.
The question we will have in our mind with this strategy will change a bit to:
“As a people in this role, what should I do? How can I solve the problem as this role?...” and the answers you can find out, you can apply it immediately to see how it works.
You may remember the time we’d just graduated and started finding our first job in our first company. We didn’t know much information about the requirements for those open positions. The only way for us to know is by trying to apply and prove ourselves during the internship or probation period. At that moment, the company view is like, “Let's see how that candidate plays in that role during x amount of months, then we can give the official offer.” It works in a similar way that we’re talking about, right?
The growth mindset
I don’t say that the acting role strategy is perfect, and there are no risks at all trying it. We all agree that there are lots of things we need to learn, know, and try to play the role that we’ve never tried before. During that journey, we will make a lot of mistakes. That’s why the acting role strategy will be the best match for those who have a growth mindset only. Why?
A mistake is a mistake, but we can change the view we see it. People with a growth mindset see mistakes from the perspective of learning experiences. More importantly, because right now, you’re just acting the role, the result of making a mistake is less than once we have it with the official title, role, or position.
On the other hand, without having a growth mindset, we may take it seriously and be concerned about our abilities. Instead of taking the lesson learned and carrying on to improve next time, we let the mistake become our fear.
One funny example I found is the way we see the word FAIL. It can be the “First Attempt In Learning” or also the “Final Action In Love.” I believe we all need love, so we better choose the first option then.
Conclusion
I’m a big fan of stories, and from my experience, those stories start with “Last time I had tried … and I realized that … and I gained more things to win ….” are always the interesting ones with lots of changes, colorful moments, and lessons learned. Especially if you compare it with the types of fairy tale stories like “I used to have a goal like … but I know it’s too hard for me so I will wait until one day, luckily I have enough conditions, I will achieve it”.
It’s your own story, so you can decide the way you write it and one day, you may be proud of sharing it with your children. Then let’s make it the most colorful one.
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