10 Mindset Facts That Changed How I Think + See the World
There’s a simple truth out there that I think most of us can agree on: your mindset is everything. But why is this and what exactly do we mean when we say it?
And more importantly, what effect does our mindset have on our lives?
I hope to answer these questions (and many more) in this post.
But really, I hope this article inspires you to review your current mindset, so you can (if necessary) change how you think or at least become more aware of the thoughts and beliefs you hold.
I hope I can expand your perspectives on mindset and better understand how our daily thinking patterns can impact on our biology and life.
I like to see the facts in this post as a sort of gateway to unlocking our innate mental superpowers.
So let’s wrap up this chit chat and jump in.
But first, let’s start with a quick definition of mindset.
So, What Is Mindset?
Mindset is how you see, perceive and experience the world. It’s connected to your personality traits, thoughts, beliefs, experiences and perceptions.
Your mindset includes what you think about, what you believe is possible and the emotions attached to your thinking.
It’s my hope that this post will especially expand on the what-you-believe-is-possible aspect of your mindset.
Because some of the facts below honestly still surprise me.
So let’s stop teasing them and finally look at these surprising facts I keep talking about.
Your Mindset Is Everything (10 facts that changed my mind)
1. Our Thoughts + Beliefs Can Change Our Biology
Our thoughts can change our biology, bodies and genetic expression.
Or rather, the expectations and beliefs about our thoughts can.
This is a bit related to visualization and affirmations. You know, imagining something in our minds, saying positive phrases out loud and hoping they become a reality.
But do these things work?
If it’s just a thought or repeated mantra with no deep belief in them, then no, probably not.
Positive thinking is a great thing and I definitely have an optimistic dreamer personality – for sure.
But there’s an important piece missing in many visualization and affirmation discussions:
An emotional component and the expectation of, or belief in, a result (and of course, taking action for outside things).
Saying you want health or some profound internal or external result is not enough if you don’t deep down believe it or connect emotionally with what you’re saying.
Consider stress hormones or anxiety. When they pop up, we believe it. We feel it. We fear it. We often have a lot of external “support” and evidence for these stresses (unfortunately).
So, over time, our biology literally changes and adapts to these thoughts (in a negative way).
But if you can truly believe something positive (and emotionally feel as if it’s already happened), and you can confidently expect the result from a visualization, there is evidence that a real positive biological change is happening inside your body.
I know what you may be thinking, this is starting to sound a little woo-woo. That was my first reaction. But, there is real science and ongoing research to back up these claims.
So let’s look at some of that evidence.
Note: A lot of the evidence I provide below leans on the power of meditation specifically. But this is tied directly to our thoughts and beliefs, as it’s kind of required for becoming aware of negative thoughts and creating positive beliefs to change our minds and bodies.
Some examples and clinical evidence of how thoughts can change our biology and bodies:
Visualizing muscle growth leads to actual muscle growth
Meditation releases hormones and neurotransmitters that influence your physiology
Meditation can enhance stem cell functioning and activity
Positive thinking makes you healthier (more on this topic in #5)
We can improve vision and eyesight by thought and expectation alone
Meditation linked to reduced brain aging
Simply believing and perceiving something as exercise can produce the biological benefits of “real” exercise
If your mind perceives something detached from your body to be part of your body, you’ll feel it
The numerous (and growing number of) case studies of people using their minds to self heal
Learn More:
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic (and how to harness it), here’s an interesting video talking about the power of your mind and its influence on our bodies and life.
2. The Placebo Effect Is Real (and you can harness it)
This next fact piggybacks a bit off of the first one, but I thought it deserved its own spot on this list.
So here it is: the placebo effect is real and you can harness it.
If you’re unfamiliar with this term, the placebo effect is when you experience the positive effects of something from simply believing you’ll experience the results. It’s the ‘sugar pill’ effect.
The opposite is also true though.
The nocebo effect is when you experience the negative effects of something (like a drug), even if you were never actually exposed to the thing. Your mind just believes it was, so your body reacts accordingly.
So if our mindsets always believe in and expect the negative, are we potentially creating the negative result simply because we believed it would happen? The nocebo effect.
Conversely, if we shift and train our focus and mindset to start expecting positive effects, would our results and physiological life change?
There’s interesting research going on about this potential. And I tend to be in the camp that says yes, we can alter our perspectives and start creating our own placebo effects.
I think the human body and our minds have a lot of unused potential for taking advantage of the placebo effect to literally change our bodies and physiological responses to things.
So this is definitely a topic worth exploring more.
Learn More:
The book You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter by Dr. Joe Dispenza is a great place to learn more. Or you can start down the rabbit hole of watching all his various interviews on YouTube.
You can also start with a simple Google search about this topic. But here’s another article from Harvard Medical School talking about the reality and power of the placebo.
3. Your Personality + Mindset Are Not Fixed
Your mindset and personality are not fixed.
This is a hallmark of having a growth mindset, which is the belief that you can always learn new skills or knowledge – regardless of your starting point or experience.
In contrast, a fixed mindset is the belief that skills and talents are fixed and innate – that you cannot learn new skills or talents to any meaningful degree.
It’s that whole mantra that goes, you're either born with it or not.
Luckily, neuroplasticity proves this thinking is wrong. It’s the growth mindset that is the correct one. Our brains and personality traits are not fixed, immovable things.
We can create new neural pathways and learn new skills.
It may take a little effort and intention, but you can always change how you think and perceive the world.
One big caveat though is whether you believe you can change your mindset, skills and personality or not.
Learn More:
Here’s an article with some tips for developing a growth mindset. But, as with most things, I recommend going deeper with your own research and finding information and tips that resonate with you most.
4. Your Mindset Can Influence How Effective Something Is
I’m not a doctor or a researcher – just a novice citizen researcher with a lot of curiosity about motivation, mindset and creativity.
But it’s always interesting to me how people can respond so differently to the same treatments or lessons.
Of course, there are numerous variables at play here – genetics, environment, health, etc.
But one factor that I’m most interested in is the role of our mindset.
Specifically, our belief in a treatment working (or not working) and our mindset when learning new skills or knowledge can dramatically influence the outcome.
From treatments and drug responses to learning and memory retention, our mindset, expectations and perspectives can change the level of results we experience.
For example, if you believe something you’re learning will help you survive, live longer or make you more money, you’ll learn more compared to a nonbelief.
That’s a pretty simple example and I think most of us have experienced this truth.
But what about something like drug or treatment efficacy?
Does our level of belief that some therapy will provide us with benefits actually influence the treatment’s effectiveness and our level of response?
According to some research, yes it can. Apparently, our belief that a drug or treatment will work can account for around 50% of the results.
So my takeaway is this: if you believe something won’t work, the effects will be dampened. But if you believe something will work, the results should be amplified.
Learn More:
This article from NPR provides some more information about this phenomenon.
5. A Positive Mindset Can Make You Healthier and Live Longer
I’ve hinted on this one a bit already (above in #1). So let’s dig deeper.
One of the most interesting things I’ve learned in my research on mindset is how stress and negative thoughts, emotions and beliefs can actually make us sick.
It’s no secret that stress makes us feel worse in the short term. But stretch that anxiety out over weeks, months and years and, well, the outlook looks a bit bleak.
So becoming aware of negative emotions or anxiety responses is essential for avoiding the negative health effects of long-term stress.
Luckily, there’s a silver lining to this: positive and more optimistic thoughts can make us healthier and live longer.
According to research in the journal J Pers Soc Psychol., which followed participants around for 23 years, having a positive attitude increased longevity and health to a greater degree than blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, weight and level of exercise.
And research from the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society showed that an optimistic mindset had a significant correlation with living longer past 90 years old (more than other healthy lifestyle factors).
There are plenty more studies showing the same thing: your attitude and mindset matter for better health and longevity.
So, this is all incredibly interesting and super exciting. We may have a lot more control over our health and longevity than we realize.
So shifting our mindset to a more positive one, if for nothing more than the sake of our general health, just makes sense to me.
Of course, I’m not saying we should ignore our doctors and just meditate our ways to health and bliss. But self healing and positivity are real things, so it’s definitely an avenue worth exploring and using more.
It should be part of a holistic approach.
Learn More:
Here’s another article discussing this topic in more detail.
6. Mental Practice Can Work Just As Well As Real Practice
The power of mental rehearsal is a super fascinating topic.
Essentially, it’s the act of visualizing yourself doing something with emotion – but not actually practicing the thing in physical reality.
Surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly), mental practice creates the same neural pathways in our brains as if we actually practiced the thing in reality.
The result? When we go to do the thing we mentally rehearsed already, we can actually do it.
Crazy, right?
So sitting down and imagining yourself practicing the piano or playing some sport is legit helpful and makes you better.
This may sound familiar. I think mental practice and visualization is a pretty common thing for a lot of professions – athletes, business leaders, actors…
But there’s actual research to back this up.
Research shows that visualization has a big impact on performance and mental rehearsal prepares and primes our minds for real world action.
There’s even more research across various disciplines and applications, from nurses using mental practice to piano player improving memory and performance.
Learn More:
Here’s one more study on the power of mental practice and another article on some of its various applications.
7. Our Mindset Is Influenced By Mostly Unconscious Thoughts + Beliefs
What do you believe? Or rather, what does your subconscious mind believe to be true?
What thoughts are being repeated in your mind and are they influencing our perspectives?
Our unconscious thoughts can have a huge impact on health, life and mindset. But we may not be totally aware of what we’re thinking about or doing most of the time.
According to Cleveland Clinic’s Healthy Brains, our brain processes around 70,000 thoughts per day, but 95% of those thoughts are unconscious.
So if we accept that our thoughts and beliefs have something to do with our mindset, then this is some pretty interesting information.
Especially if we’re trying to change negative beliefs or self-limiting beliefs.
In this case, simply becoming aware of any unconscious negative thinking is a great first step (meditation can come in handy here).
After we become more aware of our unconscious mind, we can start to challenge assumptions and beliefs as they inevitably pop up.
We can practice replacing any self-limiting thoughts with new, more positive ideas and desires.
We can create a more optimistic, growth mindset.
But here’s a quick tip: attach your new thoughts with belief and an elevated emotion (like gratitude). You’ll start to actually feel your new perspectives affecting your body (instead of just thinking about them without any belief or emotion tied to them).
So, what do you (subconsciously) believe about yourself, your skills and what you’re truly capable of?
And is it even accurate? (This is where we’ll pick up for our next fact)
Learn More:
Here’s another interesting article from Scientific American talking more on this topic.
8. Our Memories + Experiences Are Not Fully Accurate
Our memories and experiences make up a large part of our mindset and personality.
But what if things aren’t as accurate as we believe them to be?
Are the details of the memories we hold (and the experiences that shaped us) completely correct?
Well, while our memory for recent events is remarkably good, research shows that our distant memories and beliefs about past experiences may be, well, fallible.
In other words, the details of our memories aren’t necessarily an accurate record of how things actually happened.
Research suggests that our recollections are actually made up of various false memories and details that have been distorted in some way by our minds.
Despite this, we tend to be stubborn and confident in what we remember and think is accurate.
To further complicate things, our memories are also impressionable by how other people tell the stories and experiences we share.
Still, this level of flexibility in our memory is actually kind of interesting – especially when it comes to mindset and our ability to change what we believe.
That is, our minds are already likely altering the objective accuracy of our memories, so we have an innate ability – or tendency – to be flexible and alter our beliefs and perceptions about things.
We can reapply this to our mindset.
This idea circles back to developing a growth mindset and the science of neuroplasticity.
So don’t stress too much about this fact, but instead use it to reconsider what you think you know, believe and how you think.
Learn More:
Here’s an article from Scientific American that talks more about this topic and another from Business Insider.
9. Your Thoughts + Beliefs Are Energy That Carry Quantum Information
Thoughts carry energy and information and create a measurable energy field.
This is standard knowledge, apparently. But does the type of thought you have matter?
And what effect does this have?
According to Dr. Joe Dispenza, positive thoughts and a coherent heart create a magnetic field around you and may be one of the potential reasons for his followers having profound experiences and healings beyond medical explanation.
This field is actually something that he and his team of scientists have measured.
I think quantum physics, energy, consciousness and everything in between still has more question marks than answers – but the field is always expanding and it’s extremely fascinating.
Our thoughts have the potential to influence our bodies in crazy ways (as we’ve talked about). So how is this possible?
One potential explanation comes from quantum physics and how our thoughts may really just be energy messengers.
I’m no expert here, but it’s a topic I’m always trying to learn more about.
So I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject – let me know in the comments what you think about all this!
Learn More:
Here’s an article on consciousness, thoughts and quantum physics (if you’re keen to dig deeper on this topic).
10. Our Thoughts May Influence External Physical Reality
Let’s wrap up this post by pushing our imagination of what’s possible to the edge.
This last points takes #9 above one step further.
If our thoughts carry energy and information outside of our bodies, and energy creates matter (as proved by quantum physics), is it possible for those thoughts to have any influence on physical reality?
Turns out, it may be possible.
I think this research is still limited and it’s difficult to make conclusive arguments, but it’s still a fun thought experiment.
And of course, I am not a scientist or researcher – just a novice hobbyist with an overactive imagination.
But here are some interesting examples of how thoughts could be influencing the physical reality beyond our bodies:
People focusing intently on a specific number can influence a random number generator to break the laws of physics
Collective meditation lowers violence and crime rates in a city
The various claims and science around manifestation and the law of attraction
Plants apparently react differently to negative thoughts and words vs. positive ones
The simple act of measuring and observing particles changes their state, something known as the ‘observer effect’ in quantum physics
A plant in a dark room with a light randomly floating to different corners will attract the light to its corner more often
*(OK yes, this one is about plants, but come on, it’s super interesting!)
Learn More:
Here’s an interesting article from Stanford on the power of our mind and thoughts in shaping our experiences and health.
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