In order for us to get an idea what Mindset is all about, I would like us to look at a ” Watch” and how it works. Right from manufacture, the watch has been set to work and as soon as it is purchased from the shop, its work has begun, it will work: tick, tick, tick non-stop until the owner decides otherwise. In the past the Swiss watches did not operate on batteries, all one needed to do was to “wind it first thing in the morning and the watch has energy to work for the next twenty four hours. However, modern watches now have batteries and once the  battery  still have power ( energy) it will continue to work.

Our brains are set just like  the watch. As soon as the child is born and they take the first oxygen on earth, their brains are activated and they are set to work non-stop until the day of death when the oxygen is cut off. Therefore, to talk of the mindset, we are referring to how our brains work. In the past researchers never considered the brain as of any importance so they did not  spend any  time and resources to study how they work and it is the reason why in Africa as soon as a person shows any signs of fatigue in the brains they are cast out society as Mentally challenged –they are mad. Modern studies conducted by academics and researchers on the brains and thus how the mind works have come up with ideas and suggestions that depression which is the dominant factor of all forms of psychological problems could be treated and people lead normal life

They go further to state that most of things that happen to us depends on how our minds are set. You will recall, I have already stated that our minds are set to work like the watch and as long as we draw breath, our minds which wander around all the time looking for something to do will be working non-stop.

In the 1980s and 1990s, people like Professor Tony Buzan and Carol Dweck have come up with books on the Brain and it is now easier for us to use the full potential of the brain in order to achieve our full potential on mother planet- earth. They contend that most people do not use even 1% of the brain capacity, which means we are all born to be great so why it is that very few people are able to achieve that potential?

Mindset is a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in decades of research on achievement and success—a simple idea that makes all the difference.Mindsets are beliefs—beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities. Think about your intelligence, your talents, and your personality. Are these qualities simply fixed traits, carved in stone and that’s that? Or are they things you can cultivate throughout your life?

She postulates that there are two kinds of Mindsets. There is what she calls Fixed Mindset and the Growth Mindset.

According to her, in a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort. They’re wrong. People with a fixed mindset believe that their traits are just given. They have a certain amount of brains and talent and nothing can change that. If they have a lot, they’re all set, but if they don’t that is it. So people in this mindset worry about their traits and how adequate they are. They have something to prove to themselves and others. In this category you get people who always complain and blame others when things do not go their way. Efforts is not part of their setup, but they live a life of chance, you will most of the time hear them say: If God permits, I will be rich someday, they live a life of hope, like waiting for something to happen, from where? Nobody can tell. People with fixed mindset are most of the time miserable to be around because they don’t know anything about reaching their potential, to them  there is no heights to be scaled., whatever come their way, they deserve it, they don’t have to put in  much effort at all. What happens to them most of the time is, Poverty.

People with a growth mindset, on the other hand, see their qualities as things that can be developed through their dedication and effort. Sure they’re happy if they’re brainy or talented, but that’s just the starting point. They understand that no one has ever accomplished great things—not Mozart, Darwin, or Michael Jordan—without years of passionate practice and learning. People with Growth Mindset understand that until the day they die they would not accomplish their goal. To them, there is no limit to the heights they can scale, they are always looking for new ways of achieving things and as soon as one goal is achieved, they will embark upon new one.

They are setting goals all the time and they make sure they are all attained. To the person with the Growth Mindset, there is no rest as long as they can breathe; every time is an opportunity to do new things.

You can therefore see  the world is what it is today because the pace setters never rested, as soon as one invention had taken place they thought of the next one, thus the strides in science and technology all came about because of those with Growth Mindset.

(Excerpts from Carol Dweck.)

1. The question to you the Ghanaian is: What Mindset are you?

2. Do you brighten the corner where you are?

3. How much effort do you put in a day’s work? How best do you compare with your counterparts in Asia, Europe, and The US?

Given the choice between prosperity and poverty, why have you chosen poverty? You have chosen poverty because anytime you sit idle and waiting for somebody to come and push you to something, you are heading towards the gallows of poverty. What have you ever done to change your situation without waiting for someone else to do it for you?