Valentine's day mindset

Do you feel the love in the air this Valentine’s week or are you single and feeling lonely? Do the affectionate couples out there make you feel warm and fuzzy or are you done with the PDAs? Do you think there is love waiting for you out there someday or has the dating scene worn down your enthusiasm for love? What is your Valentine’s Day mindset?

Your mindset – your habitual way of thinking, feeling and behaving – effects a lot more than just your love life. It has a big impact on your mood, your motivation, your risk aversion, the quality of your relationships and ultimately on your future. When you think that things will never work out, that you aren’t good enough, that you don’t fit in and that nothing ever goes your way, you are likely to feel depressed, skip class, spend your time bingeing TikTok and isolate yourself. Conversely, when you see the world as a place full of opportunities, think that people are basically good and helpful, feel gratitude for all of the good things in your life and thirst for adventure and challenge, you are likely to feel energized, to put in your best effort, to seek out interesting people and events and make the most of your college experience.

How do you see the world? Are you a glass half empty or a glass half full kind of person? Do you wear rose colored glasses or are you a realist (or even a pessimist)? What are your habitual ways of responding to challenges, to failure, to achievement, and to conflict? Are there certain parts of your life which you approach with confidence and curiosity and others which you approach with caution and anxiety?

Is your mindset dragging you down and holding you back? Good news – if you formed a bad habit of looking at the world in a negative way, you can also form a good habit of looking at it in a more positive way. So, what can you do to change your mindset and make it more positive?

Awareness

Sometimes all it takes to turn a bad habit around is awareness of that habit and the impact it is having on your happiness, the happiness of those around you and your likelihood to succeed in enjoying yourself. College is a lot of work, but it should also be a lot of fun.

Pay attention to how you habitually react to daily challenges. Are you consistently negative and defeatist? Do you have a different mindset about friendships than you do about school work? How are your reactions impacted by how much sleep you get, what you have eaten that day, how much stress you are under, the weather, or other factors? Can you use this knowledge to set yourself up for success by limiting your exposure to that which brings you down? Use this awareness to question how helpful these reactions are and if they are the reactions you would choose consciously if they weren’t chosen for you by habit.

Responsibility

Once you are aware that your habitual ways of thinking, feeling and behaving are one of the sources of your problems, you can take responsibility for changing your mindset and building yourself up instead of holding yourself back. When you catch yourself engaging in that bad habit, hold up a stop sign and redirect your thoughts in a more positive direction. You might want to develop an affirmation or two which challenge your most common negative reactions and give you a fresh perspective.

You might not always have a choice about the things which happen to you or the way other people treat you, but you do always have a choice about how you react.

Add new vocabulary

Susie Dent, lexicographer and TV personality, is on a mission to add lost positive words back to our vocabulary. When we use negative language to relate to our world and to others it drags us down and make us think in negative terms. When we use more positive words, we tend to feel better. Is the winter air “cold” or is it “refreshing”? Is the assignment “impossible” or “challenging”? The words we use can have a big impact on our attitude. Check out the article here.

Give these lost, but delightfully positive and Valentine’s week appropriate, words a whirl and see if you can impress your friends.

Adamate – to love very much from the Latin verb amare which means “to love” and the French word amant which means “lover”

Biophilia – love of life, human drive to connect with nature, living things and each other from the Greek words bio which means “life” and philia which means “love or liking”

Mesology - the science of achieving happiness from the French word, mésologie, which refers to the study of the relationship between an organism and its environment

What other positive words can you add to your vocabulary? They don’t have to be obscure like the ones above – switching from a routine “I’m fine” to “I’m fantastic” can make a big difference in your mood and how you relate to others.

If your mindset is holding you back and you’d like to make a change, I suggest you take a look at my Mindset and Goal Setting Workshop or contact me for one-on-one coaching. I’d love to help you make a positive change.