What do you think about when you hear the word ‘mindset’? Sometimes it can get lumped together with things like mindfulness, a new, trendy ‘buzzword’ and the bandwagon that everyone is jumping on at the moment. But actually, the concept of mindset is set out in the Bible, where God tells us that we can look after our thoughts and that we have power and authority over them.

Mindset is the way a man thinks and the way his heart is also. It is the way we direct and control our thoughts, and it is so important. The video and blog below give you 3 mindset tools that can really help you in your journey. 

1. Philippians 4 v8 tells us: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things”. If your situation is dire, if you can’t see the wood for the trees, it can be so helpful to think about something positive. Even in a situation where things might all be going wrong and you feel really overwhelmed, as so many people do at the moment, challenge yourself to find some chinks of light.

Can you see some of the characteristics and qualities from this verse in that situation? And can you hold onto them in your mind and start thinking on them, because that will really help you to change your perspective. Times are tough at the moment, but earlier this week I used some of these tools to help me get out of overwhelm. So, I speak from experience when I say they can really make a difference!

2. Make a conscious decision each morning about the way you want your day to go. How do you want your day to pan out? Ideally, we’d all start our day in a very positive way, with our minds set on the right things to carry us through the rest of the day. And there are some practical things we can do to set us on a positive track: it might be starting the day with a Bible reading or saying a prayer, perhaps focusing on the same verse each day.

Exactly what you choose to do doesn’t matter, as long as it helps you to set your mind on the right things from the beginning of the day.

So, think about what that looks like for you, or what it could look like if you don’t have something in place already. If your morning routine is to get straight up and out, perhaps give yourself a couple of minutes to dwell on a Bible verse or say a quick prayer to set your mind for the way you want your body and soul to follow that day.  

3. Cultivate a growth mindset. We all have challenges, failures and areas of our lives that haven’t gone as we would have liked them to go. But we can learn from these, turn them around and move forward. We can sometimes limit ourselves with labels; for example, we might say: “Oh I never drink enough water”. But making such a blanket statement suggests quite a fixed mindset and guess what’s going to happen? You’re probably never going to drink enough water!

But if you say: “I haven’t drunk enough water in the past, but now I drink more water,” what do you think will happen then? You’re much more likely to change your past habits and drink more water from that point forward.

So, watch carefully what you’re saying over yourself to avoid a fixed mindset about all that’s wrong and all that’s limiting. Instead, try to adopt a growth mindset, where you recognise that you can learn from your failures and move forward.

There’s so much in the Bible about mindset and I really encourage you to take some time to look deeper at this area to help you on your healthy journey.