GUEST POST from Dennis Stauffer

Mindset is quite a remarkable thing. It can be an invisible hindrance, or a tremendous asset when you know how to manage it. Mindset is your often subconscious beliefs about how the world works. It’s your mental frame, your personal paradigm. It has a huge impact on your ability to innovate and drive effective change.

It may have never occurred to you that when you observe something, what you see and experience is just as much in your head as it is out there. Your brain just gives you its best interpretation—using some innate processing, and based on those often-unconscious assumptions and beliefs that make up your mindset. To a great degree, you shape—or your brain shapes—what you experience.

It can be a little disturbing to realize that your brain is deciding for you what you believe is real—and not warning you about it. For a vivid illustration of just how much influence your mindset can have over you, watch this brief video.

But here’s the good news: you can learn to consciously shape your mindset, to reshape how your brain subconsciously processes what you experience.

As you discover your own unconscious assumptions, you reveal choices you didn’t know you had. You can then shape a mindset that gives you greater control, self-awareness and personal effectiveness. You can become more creative, imaginative, resourceful, open and observant–more innovative.

Innovation tools and change management strategies are important, but your mindset determines how effectively you apply those tools and strategies. It’s your default way of thinking and engaging. The key to your effectiveness is getting in front of your mindset. You need to be intentional about the beliefs you want to have, so you’re able to control your mindset, rather than letting it control you.

That’s how you become someone who creates exceptional value in your life and makes the world better—by innovating yourself.

Image Credit: Unsplash

Sign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.