4 Mindset Changes That Massively Improved My Life

Summary

In this video, the creator shares four life-enhancing mindset hacks he's developed over the past decade. He encourages embracing being the least skilled to learn from others, viewing real-life goals as video game levels to embrace failure as part of the process, confronting harsh realities to formulate effective plans, and constantly questioning one's own assumptions to uncover blind spots. These hacks are aimed at personal growth and overcoming mental barriers to success.

Takeaways

• 😀 Mindset hack #1: Embrace being the least skilled in a group to learn and improve quickly.
• 🚴 Embrace challenges like downhill mountain biking to push personal boundaries.
• 🎮 Mindset hack #2: Treat real-life goals like video game levels, where failure is part of the learning process.
• 🕹 Use video game mindset to overcome the fear of failure and to learn from mistakes.
• 📚 Mindset hack #3: Confront harsh realities or bad news head-on to formulate effective solutions.
• 🔍 Learn from the book 'Good to Great' to face realities and avoid denial or avoidance.
• 🤔 Mindset hack #4: Continuously question your own beliefs and assumptions to uncover blind spots.
• 🧠 Develop a metacognitive skill to challenge your own thoughts and biases.
• 📈 Use platforms like Brilliant.org to practice problem-solving and enhance learning efficiency.
• 🎓 Engage with daily problems to keep the mind sharp and explore new areas of interest.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the video?

The main theme of the video is about mindset hacks or changes that the speaker has made over the past decade to improve his life.

Why did the speaker start keeping a note in Evernote called 'five self-improvement tips'?

The speaker started keeping a note in Evernote to jot down subtle or significant mindset changes that he felt improved his life, with the initial intention of making a video about them.

What is the first mindset hack mentioned in the video?

The first mindset hack is to become okay with being the worst person in the room, meaning being the least skilled at a new activity, which can help in learning and improving.

How does the speaker illustrate the first mindset hack with a personal example?

The speaker illustrates the first mindset hack with his experience of starting downhill mountain biking, where he initially felt self-conscious but then improved by following and learning from more skilled riders.

What is the second mindset hack discussed in the video?

The second mindset hack is to treat real-life goals like video game levels, embracing failure as a part of the learning process.

Why does the speaker relate video games to real-life goals?

The speaker relates video games to real-life goals because in games, failure is seen as a part of the learning process and is not feared, which should be the approach in real life as well.

What is the third mindset hack presented in the video?

The third mindset hack is to become comfortable with confronting harsh realities or bad news, as avoiding them can lead to bigger problems.

Which book and quote influenced the speaker's third mindset hack?

The book 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins and a quote by Fred Purdue, an executive of Pitney Bowes, influenced the speaker's third mindset hack.

What is the fourth and most impactful mindset hack according to the speaker?

The fourth mindset hack is building a background loop in one's head that constantly questions one's own assumptions and seeks out blind spots.

How did the speaker develop the fourth mindset hack?

The speaker developed the fourth mindset hack after a painful breakup that made him reflect on his need to always be right, leading him to question his own beliefs and assumptions.

What resources does the speaker mention for improving rational thinking and identifying blind spots?

The speaker mentions books like 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality', 'Thinking Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman, and blog posts on LessWrong.com as resources for improving rational thinking and identifying blind spots.

What is the role of Brilliant.org in the video?

Brilliant.org is mentioned as a platform for improving problem-solving skills through daily challenges and in-depth courses, and it is a sponsor of the video.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Embracing the Mindset of Being the 'Worst'

The speaker introduces a video focused on self-improvement through mindset changes. They share their experience of noting down five tips over four months, which led to significant life improvements. The first mindset hack discussed is learning to be okay with being the least skilled in a group, which can help overcome the fear of inadequacy and promote learning from others. The speaker illustrates this with their personal experience of learning downhill mountain biking, where initially being the worst pushed them to learn quickly by following more skilled riders. They emphasize that people are generally self-absorbed and less judgmental than one might think, so it's beneficial to embrace this mindset when starting new hobbies or self-improvement activities.

05:01

🎮 Treating Life Goals Like Video Game Levels

The second mindset hack is to treat real-life goals similarly to video game levels, where failure is an accepted part of the process. The speaker uses their experience with the challenging game Celeste to highlight how repeated failure leads to learning and mastery. They argue that in life, we should view failures as opportunities for growth rather than sources of embarrassment or waste. This perspective can help overcome the fear of failure and allow for a more open and effective learning process. The speaker encourages viewers to adopt a similar attitude towards life's challenges, just as they would in a video game.

10:03

🔍 Confronting Harsh Realities and Bad News

The third mindset hack discussed is the importance of confronting harsh realities and bad news, inspired by the book 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins. The speaker shares a quote from the book that emphasizes the need to face difficult truths rather than avoid them. They argue that avoiding bad news can lead to bigger problems, while confronting it allows for the formulation of a plan to address the issues. The speaker suggests that successful people are those who can face harsh realities head-on, and encourages viewers to push through the mental resistance to confront and deal with difficult situations.

🤔 Constantly Questioning One's Own Beliefs

The final mindset hack is about developing a habit of constantly questioning one's own beliefs and looking for blind spots. The speaker shares a personal story of how a breakup made them realize their need to always be right, leading to a more humble and open-minded approach. They discuss how this mindset can make one more likable and a better problem solver, as it helps to avoid the 'einstellung' effect where past learning hinders the acceptance of new information. The speaker recommends resources like books and websites that can help develop this metacognitive skill and suggests that consciously challenging one's beliefs can lead to personal growth and improved problem-solving abilities.

Keywords

💡Mindset Hacks

Mindset hacks refer to the strategies or mental shifts one can adopt to improve their thinking patterns and behaviors. In the video, the speaker discusses various mindset changes that have positively impacted his life, such as embracing being the worst at something new and treating life goals like video game levels. These hacks are meant to help viewers improve their daily lives by altering their perspectives on challenges and failures.

💡Self-improvement

Self-improvement encompasses the processes and practices individuals engage in to enhance their personal qualities, skills, or abilities. The video focuses on self-improvement by sharing mindset hacks that the speaker has found useful over the years since high school. These hacks are presented as tools for viewers to implement in their own journeys of self-improvement.

💡Fear of Being the Worst

This concept is central to the first mindset hack discussed in the video. It refers to the anxiety or fear that prevents individuals from trying new things or improving at existing skills due to the fear of being perceived as the least skilled or the 'worst' in a group. The speaker encourages viewers to overcome this fear, as being the worst can mean there's only room for improvement and opportunities to learn from others.

💡Video Game Levels

The speaker uses the analogy of video game levels to explain how one should approach real-life goals. In video games, players are often willing to 'die' or fail repeatedly to progress, understanding that each failure is a learning opportunity. This mindset is encouraged to help viewers see failures in real life as part of the learning process, rather than something to be avoided.

💡Confronting Harsh Realities

This term refers to the willingness to face difficult or unpleasant truths or situations head-on. The speaker discusses the importance of not avoiding harsh realities, as doing so can lead to bigger problems down the line. Instead, confronting these realities allows individuals to deal with issues proactively and develop strategies to overcome them.

💡Blind Spots

Blind spots in the context of the video are the aspects of one's own behavior, beliefs, or thinking that one is unaware of or fails to recognize. The speaker talks about the importance of identifying and addressing one's blind spots to improve personal growth and problem-solving. This involves questioning one's own assumptions and being open to alternative perspectives.

💡Humility

Humility is the quality of being modest and not overly proud or self-assured. The video discusses how humility can be a powerful mindset hack, as it allows individuals to recognize their own limitations and be more open to learning from others. It contrasts with arrogance and is presented as a key component in personal development.

💡Einstellung

Einstellung, as mentioned in the video, is a psychological term referring to the mental block that occurs when previous learning or problem-solving strategies interfere with the ability to approach new problems. The speaker suggests that by challenging one's beliefs and looking for blind spots, one can overcome einstellung and improve problem-solving skills.

💡Metacognition

Metacognition is the ability to think about and regulate one's own thinking processes. In the video, the speaker highlights the importance of metacognition in personal growth, as it involves self-reflection and the conscious effort to identify and challenge one's own thought patterns and beliefs.

💡Brilliant.org

Brilliant.org is an online learning platform mentioned in the video as a resource for improving problem-solving skills through daily challenges and in-depth courses. It is used as an example of a tool that can help viewers practice and enhance their cognitive abilities, aligning with the video's theme of self-improvement.

Highlights

This week's video discusses four mindset hacks that have significantly improved the creator's life.

The first mindset hack is embracing the role of being the least skilled in a group to foster growth.

Fear of being the worst can prevent people from pursuing their interests or increasing difficulty levels.

By accepting being worse than others, one can learn from everyone around them and improve.

The creator shares his personal experience with downhill mountain biking to illustrate this mindset hack.

Following skilled individuals can push one to overcome fears and improve quickly.

The second mindset hack is treating life goals like video game levels, where failure is part of the learning process.

In video games, failure is accepted as a natural part of progressing and mastering the game.

Applying this to real life can help overcome the fear of failure and embrace the learning process.

The third mindset hack is confronting harsh realities or bad news head-on, as avoidance leads to bigger problems.

A quote from 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins emphasizes the importance of facing harsh realities.

Successful people confront harsh realities to formulate plans for dealing with them.

The final and most impactful mindset hack is constantly questioning one's own assumptions and beliefs.

This self-reflective approach helps identify blind spots and fosters personal growth.

The creator suggests reading books and engaging with resources that promote rational thinking.

Developing the ability to challenge one's beliefs leads to better problem-solving and likability.

The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to adopt these mindset hacks for personal improvement.

Transcripts

- Hey, what's going on, guys?

So this week's video is going to be a little bit different

than most the other videos that I've done on this channel,

because for the most part, the videos that I do

have a pretty set-in-stone topic.

I try to keep a pretty narrow focus

on whatever I'm talking about.

But for the last four months,

I've been keeping a note in Evernote

just called five self-improvement tips.

And I put that number there arbitrarily.

But I came up with something

that I thought was interesting to me.

There was just something that I felt

was, like, a mindset change I made a long time ago,

and it's really improved my life.

And it gave me an idea for a video

where I would just sort of list out

some of the subtle or maybe not-so-subtle mindset changes

that I've made over the last decade or so

since I graduated high school

that have really improved things for me on a daily basis.

And I was gonna wait until I had a longer list

to do a video on these sort of mindset hacks,

but I think the four that I have now,

which I just sort of added over time

as I thought about them, make up a pretty good list.

So today we're gonna go over four mindset hacks

or mindset changes that I've made slowly

over the past 10 or so years

that have really improved my life.

And if you can adopt even just one of these

into your own life, I think you're gonna notice

a marked improvement as well, so let's get into it.

Mindset hack number one is to become okay

with being the worst person in the room,

and by that I mean, like, the worst person

at whatever skill you're trying out.

This fear of being labeled as the worst person in the room

or of looking bad in comparison to everyone else

keeps people from pursuing the things they want to do,

or it keeps them from increasing the difficulty

or moving to the next level

in something they're already pursuing.

And if you can become okay with being

bad at something or comparatively bad,

or if you become okay with being worse

than everyone else in your peer group,

then you start to compete in a higher league.

And when you are the worst person in the room,

that means that there's nowhere for you to go but up.

And everyone else around you

is somebody who you can learn from.

So the example of putting this mindset into action

that immediately comes to mind for me

is from last summer when I started

doing downhill mountain biking,

Now downhill mountain biking,

especially the lift access version

where you literally put your bike

and yourself on a ski lift,

and you go up to the top of a mountain

and then ride down is a pretty difficult

and risky discipline in mountain biking.

In fact, my friend Martin actually broke his finger

doing it back in the fall.

I started this in the summer,

and I started off being pretty bad.

I noticed that all these people

kept passing me up on the trails.

And I kind of felt self-conscious

about my abilities at first.

Then I realized that if I just challenged myself

to follow these people who were better than me,

I actually would get better more quickly.

And I found that this actually did happen.

I was more afraid to do things like go off jumps

or take trails at higher speed when I was alone,

but when I was following somebody,

there was, like, this competitive instinct that kicked in.

I found myself pushing myself a little bit further

and really challenging myself to keep pace

with this other person who was better than me.

And this mindset actually paid off

on the very first day that I went mountain biking,

'cause I went with my cousin

to a bike park in Boulder, Colorado,

and there was a jump that I just could not get myself to do.

Every single time I would go up to the jump,

I would hit the brakes; I would stop.

Then I'd have to take my bike, lift it up,

and walk down past the jump.

I was just too scared to do it.

And my cousin, who was a little bit better

at mountain biking than I was,

not a ton, but a little bit,

said, "all right, this time we're gonna go.

"You're gonna follow me.

"I'm going to hit this jump,

"and you are going to hit it with me."

And watching him do it,

and knowing there was this expectation

that I was going to have to rise to the challenge

because he was doing it as well forced me to do it.

And I actually hit that jump,

and afterwards it became easy.

So again, if you can become comfortable

with being the worst person in the room,

even if it's a self-perception kind of thing,

then you are going to allow yourself

to compete in a higher league.

You're gonna expose yourself to people

who are more skilled

and who can bring you up to speed more quickly.

And one last thing that I do want to note

when it comes to this mindset

is that for the most part

people are kind of self-absorbed.

So say if you go to the gym and you are out of shape,

or you are lifting

the least amount of weight out of the gym,

people aren't going to make fun of you,

because they're there to do their own thing.

They aren't there to judge you.

So just keep that in mind when you start a new hobby

or you start trying to improve yourself in any way.

If you're around other people who are doing the same thing,

they're probably focused on their own goals

and their own efforts.

All right, mindset hack number two

is to treat real-life goals kind of like video game levels.

And the reason that I have this on the list

is that when we play video games,

at least when I play video games,

I am 100% okay with dying or failing,

because I know that in just a few seconds after dying,

I am going to restart the level.

I'm going to try again.

And the process of dying over and over and over again

in some cases is part of the experience.

It's part of the fun.

One of my absolute favorite video games

in the world is called Celeste, which is,

in my opinion, one of the best platformers ever made.

And if you go look at my death stats

for every level in the game, they are ridiculous.

In fact, I think in one of the levels

I have over 1,000 deaths.

But because I've gone through that level

and died 1,000 times,

I can now basically speed-run it,

and the process of doing so looks really cool,

and it's really fun to do.

And I know that all those deaths

are part of the learning process.

Every single time I made a mistake,

I got a little bit better,

I got a little bit more knowledgeable

about what to do in that situation.

I made an adjustment.

Now in real life, a lot of times

we feel like we have to get things right the first time,

whether it be out of embarrassment,

or whether it be out of the fear of wasting too much time.

But that's not how things are.

It's just like a video game.

If we can treat things as a learning process,

even if they're failures,

then we become more open

to going through that learning process,

and we become more able to gain those skills.

The fear of failure is something

that really holds people back.

So if you can start viewing yourself

as a video game character,

at least insofar as you're allowed to fail certain things,

maybe not allowed to fall into pits of spikes,

but if you can fail certain things,

then you're going to sort of move past

that mental roadblock.

Mindset hack number three is to become okay

with confronting harsh realities or bad news.

And this is a mindset hack that I got from the book

Good to Great by Jim Collins.

This is a fantastic business book.

I think anybody who is in the professional world

or an entrepreneur should read this book.

And there is a quote from an executive

of the company Pitney Bowes, his name is Fred Purdue,

that really stuck with me after I read this book.

In fact, I think this might be the concept

that stuck with me more than any other from this book.

And I want to read the quote to you here.

The quote goes, "When you turn over rocks

"and look at all the squiggly things underneath,

"you can either put the rock down

"or you can say, "my job is to turn over rocks

""and look at the squiggly things,"

"even if what you see can scare the hell out of you."

The sad thing is, a lot of people

would rather avoid looking at bad news,

avoid looking at harsh realities than confront them.

And this causes a lot of problems.

Some people know they probably didn't do well on the test,

so they avoid looking at the test results

until they realize they've been kicked out of school.

Or some people know their bank account balance

is probably a little bit lower than they'd like it to be,

so they just don't look at it until there's an overdraft

or until there's a bill that isn't paid.

In our quest to avoid pain, we often avoid looking

at things that cause us mental pain,

just because they are, like, the bearer of bad news,

the harbinger of bad news to come.

But the people who are truly successful

are the ones who can confront these harsh realities,

because when you do, when you don't shy away from them

or pretend they don't exist, then you can,

after you get over the emotional pain,

the shock of seeing them,

formulate a plan for dealing with them.

So become okay with confronting these harsh realities.

Yes, it's tough.

Yes, you kind of never really get totally used to it,

'cause you always have that little part of your brain

that just sort of wants to go do something else,

but you have to become able to push through

that mental resistance.

Finally, I want to talk about the one mindset hack

that I think has improved my life more than any other.

And it's simply building

a sort of background loop in my head

that constantly asks where am I wrong

or how am I wrong?

I'm always looking for my own blind spots.

This mindset hack was kind of forced upon me

when I was a teenager

when a girlfriend of mine actually broke up with me,

and she told me the reason that she left me

was that I always had to be right.

Every time we'd get into an argument

or even just a conversation,

I always had to be the person with the last word.

I didn't really realize this at the time,

but when that happened, the pain of being dumped

was so great that I was forced to look at my actions,

to look at the way that I thought.

And I realized that, yes, I did have

this implicit assumption that I was right in all things,

even if I would have never admitted it even to myself.

And I think a lot of people are like this,

especially people who are generally successful

at a lot of the things they do.

There's this sort of hubris or pride

that develops in the back of our minds

and sort of squashes any humility we have.

And it causes us to miss a lot of our blind spots

or to assume things that aren't true.

So even though that experience was very painful,

I count it as a blessing,

because it sort of forced me to develop this assumption

that I'm probably wrong in a lot of areas.

Even when I think that I'm right about something,

there might be a blind spot.

There might be something that I'm missing.

So I ask myself, what could I possibly be missing?

And a lot of times I try to put myself

in the shoes of the person that I'm talking to

and ask, what is their perspective on this?

What could they see that I might not be seeing?

Now I don't think you have to go through

a super painful experience to develop this ability.

And I would say that a lot of its refinement

came from reading books

like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

or Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

or even some of the individual blog posts

over on LessWrong.com,

which was one of the original resources

where I started learning about human rationality,

and learning to notice my own confusion

and notice my blind spots.

Regardless of how you go about developing this ability,

once you do get better at using it

and making it more habitual,

you're gonna become a much more likable person,

because people will see you as not arrogant,

as open to noticing your own flaws and your own blind spots.

And aside from that, it's also gonna make you

a better problem solver.

As Barbara Oakley talks about

in her book A Mind for Numbers,

there's this concept called einstellung,

where the work that you've done

to learn something earlier

can sort of block the ability for you

to consider new information,

because you have these very well-worn neural patterns

that are pretty difficult to break out of.

But if you can build this metacognitive skill

of constantly challenging your beliefs

and looking for your blind spots,

you're gonna be far less susceptible to this einstellung.

So going forward, start tying

to consciously challenge your beliefs.

Start asking yourself, how could I be wrong?

And in doing so you're gonna become

a much better problem solver.

Of course, if you want to boost

those problem-solving skills even further,

then the best way to do it

is to practice problem solving on a daily basis.

And a great place to do this is at Brilliant.org.

Brilliant is an excellent learning platform

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you can go over to Brilliant.org/thomasfrank

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