Cultivate a Winner Mindset in your Professional Development
Written by: Jennifer Jones Bryant, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Let’s face it, in the last 18 months. I’ve witnessed people with increased anxiety, fear, and suicidal thoughts due to the stressors of isolation, unemployment, broken relationships, and loss of loved ones. In parallel, I also witnessed people’s creativity, innovation, and kindness towards others by finding ways to celebrate others’ accomplishments while helping others achieve their goals.
Do you want to know the difference between those who are riddled with anxiety and stuck and those who continue to celebrate? A winner’s mindset.
I share the importance of a Winner Mentality on page 50 in my book, Overcoming Personal Challenges to Achieve Professional Success. You can use a winning mentality in your personal relationship and professional career. Look for opportunities to improve; turn negative situations into fuel to win; look at your blessings; never give up. This is when you challenge your mind and learn as they face adversity, knowing they will succeed in their personal and professional lives. You may ask how? Let me share.
Six Ways to Cultivate a Winner’s Mindset for Professional Development
Don’t put limitations on your knowledge. Developing a growth mindset requires a new frame of mind. Your mind is like a muscle. And just like any other muscle, you can exercise it and develop it over time. And although your brain might not grow physically, you develop new neural networks when you challenge yourself or learn something new. The more you try to learn something new or challenge yourself, the more your neurons fire, creating new thought patterns. Reading will help with expanding your knowledge and keep your brain active.
Embrace challenges. Another way to expand your knowledge is to be okay in uncomfortable situations. Taking a chance can mean taking a risk for unknown outcomes. But you need to embrace those challenges to grow and achieve your true potential. Fear of failure often forces us to avoid challenges. But failure itself presents some of our greatest learning opportunities. For example, you may not have gotten a promotion. This is an opportunity to learn more about what that business was looking for in the position. You might also fail at something with lower stakes, like trying a new and interesting recipe. The worst thing that could happen is that you don’t like it so that you can TRY AGAIN. Through failure, you learned how important it is to follow directions or ask for help when you’re confused or uncertain. People fail all the time, but that can lead people to their biggest revelations. Embrace failure and the lessons it teaches you. Even when those lessons sting. No one is forcing you to become an expert in these things, and that’s the fun of it! You get to learn what you want when you want.
Press on in the face of setbacks. Every famous and successful person has failed, but they kept going. You should, too. Setbacks can often feel like monumental hurdles. The easy way out is to stop trying. Instead, embrace this temporary setback as a way to overcome and have a lifelong lesson through learning and growing. The trick is to keep preserving until you succeed and celebrate those wins when you do succeed.
See effort as a path to mastery. Extraordinary efforts yield extraordinary success. Your effort is a sign of your strength. No matter how insignificant your efforts might feel, any effort is better than none. When you change your mindset and perceive your effort as a pathway to mastery, your potential is limitless.
Be inspired by the success of others. I believe in finding inspiration in other’s success. Instead of seeing someone as a competitor, try to see them as a role model, celebrate their success, and potentially a tribe member and cheerleader. A tribe is a unique support system that may go through the same experience as you and serve as a sympathetic ear, a support system, and a motivator.
Celebrate your accomplishments — big or small. I know I shared the importance of celebrating others. Don’t forget to celebrate your successes, no matter how big or small. Taking time to celebrate every success will build your confidence and make it easier to keep pushing to reach those large-scale future goals. Not to mention, a celebration can give you closure on goals you’ve been working toward for a while, provide encouragement to continue, and make every success even more worthwhile.
So now that you’ve accomplished that goal, are you ready to celebrate? Your celebration doesn’t have to be a big deal. It can be something you do alone or something you share with others. It just has to make you feel good and help you enjoy your accomplishments.
Here are some great ways to celebrate your successes, both big and small.
Share the news with friends, family, and colleagues.
Reflect on the path you took.
Write down your success and put it where you can see it every day.
Thank everyone who supported you.
Accept and enjoy the compliments.
Support someone else in reaching his or her goal.
Cheer for yourself. Have a virtual party.
Write your success story to share in a newsletter, blog, social media, or email to clients and colleagues.
Start a success journal.
Treat yourself to a day of rest and relaxation.
Keep in mind in order to get the most out of your celebration. You should do it immediately after reaching your accomplishment and before moving on to your next goal.
Celebrate your winner’s mindset.
I celebrate you as you are adjusting your mental framing to that of a winner’s mindset can be transformative. It changes what’s possible for you. You have what it takes to make it. Reach Within to bring out your winning mentality. Ignite Your fire® and show the world your magic!
Dr. Jennifer Jones Bryant, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Jennifer Jones Bryant was fatherless during her childhood. She spent her teenage years caring for her mother, who was mentally ill when Dr. Bryant’s only sibling was incarcerated. After going through sexual assault and domestic abuse throughout her early twenties and later dealing with the loss of all her loved ones that left her deeply depressed, Dr. Bryant looked past her challenging beginnings and reached within herself and relied on faith find strength. She has since spent her life helping others find and grow their inner strength to accelerate to the next level in their careers. Her 33-year career and executive-level experience with the federal government and corporate spanned many functional areas, including budget and finance, human resources, procurement coordination, logistical support, strategic planning, strategic communication, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. She is Executive Founder of Reaching From Within, an Empowerment Journey LLC, the well sought out coaching and mentoring company with thousands of clients worldwide, including federal government agencies, academia, churches, and community organizations. She provides services through workshops, resume reviews and updates, and interview preparations, and goal setting. Dr. Bryant is also the host of the "Empowerment Journey" Podcast, which is consistently among the top podcasts within the Elite Conversation Community. She was featured in Speakers Magazine, Faith Heart, Glam CEO, Power 20, Women on the Verge, VoyATL, One Tribe, and UpWord global magazines, Making Headlines News, Radio One, Great Day Washington WUSA, NBC and ABC affiliates, and ThatAnitaLiveShow, and numerous Podcast interviews. Her mission: Ignite Your Fire® to Propel Your Professional Development.
