Your Mindset May Be Holding You Back
Your brain is far more malleable than you realize. Experience can alter neuron connectivity so, the more you do something the stronger those existing neurons become. It also means that picking up a new thing and doing it repeatedly can change the way these connections fire to adapt to something new.
This is great news for people with negative mindsets or fixed mindsets. Right now, your mindset might be holding you back. But it doesn’t have to. You can change it.
Yet
Yet. What does it mean?
It’s a word you probably use all the time. If you were to think about it in normie terms, it would be the word you use almost as an excuse. I haven’t gotten to that yet, boss. I haven’t had time to do that yet. It’s almost used as an apology.
But those people are using it wrong because what yet truly is, is a word that denotes time. It is something that takes time, something that is worth waiting for, and something that requires work to achieve. Yet is a journey. And it’s a journey that I would like for us to begin together right now.
To understand the power of yet, you must first change your mindset. But you can’t change your mindset until you understand it.
Carol Dweck, who you may know from her work in motivating people to develop growth mindsets, also has a lot to say about the power of yet. Dweck encourages people to frame little mistakes as opportunities to grow.
As a professor, she focuses on encouraging her students to reframe a low grade as an opportunity. A low grade isn’t the final result. A mistake you make on your path to somewhere isn’t the end of your journey. Dweck uses yet to instill confidence in her students so that they feel empowered to keep learning.
Some people believe that qualities, such as intelligence or talent, are fixed. You can’t increase your intelligence levels. You can’t grow your talent in a particular field. That is what experts mean when they talk about someone with a fixed mindset.
The power of yet comes from having a growth mindset. The power of yet is rooted in experiencing hiccups, going through failures, running into setbacks, and still seeing the path ahead as open. It hasn’t gone your way. Yet. But it still can, and it will. Those are where the possibilities are.
Yet is a reminder that you are still walking the right path, you’ve just hit a pothole. You can watch her Ted Talk for yourself, but she opens it with an anecdote about students in a Chicago high school.
The students were required to pass several courses to graduate, but the school didn’t hand out failing grades to the students who didn’t pass. Instead, the report cards read not yet. Not yet. Two powerful words – small words – gave those students the hope they needed and the motivation to keep going. A failing grade might as well have read give up already.
Those two words, not yet, were an invitation to keep going – like shining a light on the path forward. The future was still there for the taking. It is still there for the taking.
Your Words Hold Meaning
Changing your mindset can be a challenging process. It is the same level of work as banishing a bad habit and replacing it with a good habit. It’s hard, and you slip up, but you will get there through consistency and it is worth it. One of the things you have to do, whether you’re changing your mindset or banishing habits, is paying attention to your self-talk.
In correcting your self-talk, you address your mindset, and you alter the words you speak as well. It all has to start within yourself. So, the words that you use when you talk to yourself influence the words that you speak to others and all of that influences the way you see the world and interact with it.
Start paying attention to how you speak to yourself. Start taking notice of the negative words you use when you talk to yourself and when you speak to others. Pay attention to how you speak about others, and how you talk about the events that occur to you.
If you are still not convinced think about the negative statements you often repeat, the one that plagues you the most, and add a yet to it. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen. I haven’t found my dream job feels hopeless. It feels like you have given up.
I haven’t found my dream job yet is still a hopeful thought that suggests you believe you will find your dream job. So, a great way to quickly correct negative self-talk is to add yet to the sentence. If the form of your sentence doesn’t allow you to add yet, then change the sentence so that yet makes sense.
Take one step into a growth mindset and it’s easy to recognize how powerful the word yet can be. It’s only three letters, and it’s often used as a throwaway, an excuse. But you can change that by changing those words. Or more importantly, changing how you use those words.
Why The Yet Mindset Is So Important
1| Yet Implies Expectation Of Action
Yet Is Hope. Yet Is Unfinished Business.
You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room to be successful. In fact, some of the most famous rich people are living proof of how unintelligent you can be while still being wildly successful. You don’t have to be the most attractive person in the world to find a love that lasts. You just have to find your person.
The key to navigating any situation is dedication. The key to coming through it is discipline.
Understanding the power of yet is the beginning of the journey to knowledge. It manifests in many ways.
2| Growth
Yet helps you build a growth mentality. It helps you build hope and positive expectations. It enhances your belief in your capacity and that can be a transformative power. It transforms even the most difficult task or situation into a possibility, an opportunity for growth. Every little win gives maximum inspiration and motivation, and it gives you the encouragement you need to effect personal change.
3| Hope
Failure feels final. That’s the problem. Too many people believe that failure is final when that mindset eradicates hope. Stop using the word failure and instead use not yet. It’s a minuscule change in word use, but it has a dramatic impact on how you view these events.
Start using not yet and see how much easier it is to find hope and build resilience rather than allowing thoughts of incompetence to fester. Yet, or not yet, whichever is most appropriate for the particular moment is what instills you with self-confidence and gives you a sense of the possibilities.
4| Positivity
You can use yet or not yet as a way to reframe difficulty or failure. Failure can feel like the end of the world, whether it’s fluffing your lines in a major presentation or not getting the job after three rounds of interviews. It hurts. And it is easy to feel hopeless. It’s easy to embrace that feeling of hopelessness. But it’s not yet, not the end. It’s just a case of reassessing the situation, creating a new strategy, and finding a way to bounce back.
Why Is the Word Yet So Powerful?
Yet is the epitome of optimism. The power of yet is understanding that something good will happen, it’s just a matter of time. It hasn’t happened yet. Success will occur, but you need continued motivation to get there and yet can power you to that belief.
Using children as an example is a great place to start. Whether you’re a parent or not, everyone has encountered a tenacious little kid and everyone knows a timid child. The timid child may feel intimidated by new things. When they are learning how to tie their shoes it can be frustrating. But the power of yet changes their framing. They will learn how to tie their shoes, they just aren’t there yet.
I can’t dance… yet.
I can’t skate the high jumps… yet.
I can’t fix my bike… yet.
Can’t is a trigger word, one that makes the thing you want feel far beyond your reach. It’s a trigger word that makes people give up without trying as hard as they can.
Changing it to can’t yet establishes that it’s learnable, you just can’t do it right now.
Everything is achievable, you just need to apply more effort or change your strategy. Can’t is an acceptance of defeat. Can’t yet is all about embracing the challenge.
That isn’t the only difference between can’t and can’t yet.
Can’t is a feeling of being stuck. You don’t feel good enough.
Can’t yet is motivation, it’s having the vision to improve.
Can’t is making a list of excuses that explain why you can’t.
Can’t yet is making a list of everything you can do to get better, to adjust your path, to change things.
I can’t do it… yet.
It isn’t working… yet.
I’m not good enough at this… yet.
I don’t know enough about that… yet.
That yet is such a big word and it carries weight. It’s a reminder that your state is temporary and there are always steps you can take to move forward.
It is just three little letters, you wouldn’t think three letters could be so powerful. Yet is the nudge you need to take control. It means looking beyond an obstacle right now to pursue the opportunities of tomorrow. Yet is the expectation that you will reach your destination. Yet should inspire you, it should spark excitement, and set you up to do incredible things.
As a human being, you are naturally inclined to look for new ways – whether it’s a new way to do something or a new thought process. Yet helps you reinforce your curiosity, that maybe you’re not good enough right now, but it’s only a matter of time. You aren’t yet.
Whatever it is you are facing up to – it might be scary, but you are more than capable. It might take longer than you want it to, but it will come. It will only come if you are ready to try hard and work hard enough.
You could benefit from a bit of brazen persistence, the kind of persistence that small children have when learning how to tie their shoes. It comes with learning, but everything was a yet at one time.
I haven’t passed the exam… yet.
I haven’t learned how to ride a bike… yet.
I don’t know how to swim… yet.
I haven’t secured the sale… yet.
You didn’t know how to drive, but you learned.
You haven’t sealed the deal yet, but you can negotiate.
You can’t dunk, but… well, that one might take a bit more work depending on how tall you are.
Have you ever sat down with a crossword puzzle or watched a quiz show and thought, I am not smart enough for this? The game show Jeopardy, the British quiz show Only Connect are enough to make anyone feel like a dolt and the New York Times crossword is infamous. But the reality is it has nothing to do with how intelligent you are. It isn’t about how big your vocabulary is. It’s about learning how to read the clue and deduce the answer.
Only Connect starts to make sense after a while too, it’s about recognizing patterns. And even the most intelligent person can look foolish on Jeopardy because you either know the answer or you don’t.
The point is – you can learn. You are capable of learning anything you want to. You weren’t born knowing how to tie your shoelaces. You weren’t born knowing how to complete the NY Times keyword.
That is applicable to absolutely everything you will encounter in life. Babies are skilled only in pooping and sleeping – they need help with absolutely everything else.
A fixed mindset will push you to give up. But a growth mindset will carry you through. You didn’t fail, you simply haven’t found a way to succeed yet. You won’t give up because you don’t have an answer, you recognize you haven’t found it yet. You don’t convince yourself it can’t be done, you recognize that you haven’t figured it out yet.
Yet is your opportunity to search for ways to improve, to alter your situation for the better, and to be better. It’s a chance to find answers. Yet is your signal of hope, it’s the voice in your head telling you to keep going, to ask questions, to keep pushing, to fight harder, to learn more, to keep pushing.
Yet is the voice in your head that tells you that whatever you are faced with, you can do it, you can overcome, you can make it through, and you can succeed. So, dream big because you can.
The Significance Of Yet
Mindset is important. Do you have a fixed mindset? Or is it a growth mindset?
If you say you can’t do something or you’re not good enough at something, it’s coming from a fixed mindset.
But if you believe you can and will, it comes from a growth mindset.
Someone with a fixed mindset is convinced their traits are fixed – they don’t believe they can get smarter, grow, or improve on their talents. They are what they are and that is all they will ever be. You get what you get.
A growth mindset, on the other hand, is the recognition that you can develop your talents, improve your abilities, and acquire new skills. Everyone is different, and everyone learns at different rates, but everyone is capable of forward progress.
A fixed mindset can be crippling to your progress, and people with fixed mindsets will avoid accountability and tough feedback, and they hide.
A growth mindset pushes you forward, you accept feedback not because you enjoy it, but because you recognize how it can help you evolve.
When you build your self-worth on winning (or losing) you tend to seek out the opportunities you believe will justify that impression of your self-worth. Ultimately, failure is part of the process and the yet is always there, waiting for you to recognize it.
Look at the word yet as a switch you can flick. It takes you from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.
Fixed: I can’t finish 50 push-ups.
Growth: I can’t finish 50 push-ups yet.
Yet carries weight, the implication that you will succeed.
When you push beyond your comfort zone you are forcing your brain to form new neuron connections, which is basically the same as getting smarter with time. Not yet builds confidence and it increases resilience.
Look at the word yet as a switch you can flick. It takes you from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.
Fixed: I can’t finish 50 push-ups.
Growth: I can’t finish 50 push-ups yet.
Yet carries weight, the implication that you will succeed.
When you push beyond your comfort zone you are forcing your brain to form new neuron connections, which is basically the same as getting smarter with time. Not yet builds confidence and it increases resilience.
It’s easy to praise people who are successful. It’s easy to heap flowers on people with talent. But focusing only on the talent and success is indicative of a fixed mindset. Your effort is deserving of praise, even the efforts that end in failure. When you don’t recognize effort, you can feel dumb. It’s easy to give up or to at least feel like giving up when you’re faced with difficulty. Focus on improvement.
So, start recognizing your learning process, recognize your growth, and tip your cap at your perseverance and effort.
Related: 30 Day Challenge To Set Your Growth Mindset
The Purpose Of Yet
Three little words, but what is their purpose? For you, “yet” can be the thing that flips everything on its head. It’s the tool you can use to change your mindset. Use the word yet as a means to realize that the things you want are worth waiting for and they will take some work. It won’t be easy, but this small word can help you leverage that change.
Rather than saying you failed saying you haven’t done it yet. This small change of word can have a big impact because it’s a simple way to move you from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. It’s a good message to send to yourself, to your children, and to the people around you. When there is a difficulty, yet helps you overcome it. You might not be there now, but it’s only a matter of time before you find a way.
Think of it as your learning curve – yet gives you space to realign your focus on the process, to figure out the process, and stop worrying so much about the outcome. We spend so much time chasing the destination, we never take time to look at the view on the way. That’s what yet gives you back. Dream big, but don’t get so caught up in the end.
Build your growth mindset by learning to praise yourself every step of the way. As important as it is to praise your successful outcome, it’s just as important to praise the effort you make throughout the process. Praise your effort to learn. Praise your effort to develop yourself. Praise your effort! The point is that you focus praise on the process rather than the talent, skills, or abilities.
If your focus is solely on praising skill and talent, it can feel like you don’t have enough skill or talent to succeed. Worse, it won’t encourage you to rethink your strategies because you will be too caught up in thinking you lack what it takes. So, praise the effort, praise your process, praise your strategies, and be prepared to problem-solve and change the strategy when you need to.
This part might hurt – but be prepared to fail, and when you do, understand that you need to change the process and go again. It’s an opportunity to learn. So, when you fail, ask yourself what the failure is teaching you and what you can try instead. This path of questioning encourages you to find a different way to find success. You can do better.
I can’t do this.
No.
I can’t do this yet.
I’m no good at this.
No.
I’m no good at this yet.
I don’t understand this.
No.
I don’t understand this yet.
It doesn’t work.
No.
It doesn’t work yet.
It doesn’t make sense.
No.
It doesn’t make sense yet.
So, think about what makes you work hard, what made you think hard, and what mistakes you made that brought you learning. What about new strategies you can try? Remember, most people are a combination of growth and fixed mindsets. There are certain things that will trap you back in a fixed mindset, even when you have made great strides in having a growth mindset. That’s okay. Life is a journey.
Just remember, you are capable, which is why you set the bar so high for yourself. That doesn’t mean you should forget to praise yourself at every opportunity, and you should use the right language to do that.
The more you learn, the further you develop your growth mindset, and the more you will realize that mistakes aren’t just a potential outcome, they should be expected because mistakes support your growth.
If something feels too hard, it’s because it’s challenging you to grow, learn, develop, and evolve. So, you tried one thing, what can you try next? That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And if it was easy, it wouldn’t be the learning opportunity you need. So, take time to reflect on your performance and look for the lesson at every turn.
How Yet Helps Your Motivation
Yet helps you remain open, which keeps you intent on possibilities.
When you make negative statements about yourself, you can reframe them by adding yet. It’s a great way to motivate yourself to keep trying.
Think about living with a fixed mindset and how that impedes your ability to grow. When you convince yourself that your abilities are all they can ever be and you can’t improve them or add new ones, how difficult do you think it would be to motivate yourself to succeed?
It’s an incredibly frustrating situation to be in. Nurturing a fixed mindset is trapping yourself in a rut. You effectively convince yourself that your skills are static, and that growth isn’t possible.
It’s downright impossible to motivate yourself from a fixed mindset. But a growth mindset? That’s where motivation is everything because you recognize that skills aren’t static. You are capable of growth. You are capable of learning. And a growth mindset is what helps keep you motivated to do all of those things.
So, putting key phrases or words in place can help you with that – it helps you increase your motivation. Think about your time in school, the moment you uttered the words math isn’t my thing or English isn’t my thing, you didn’t come up with that on your own.
Someone else said it and they said it so often they convinced you that you were right, and they pushed you into a fixed mindset. You might be pretty open to growth in every other avenue, but as long as you are stuck on that fixed point, it will keep coming back to bite you.
So, when you feel it creep in and someone asks you to look over their presentation and you say English isn’t my thing, add the yet. It’s the yet that will carry you through the hardest times.
The key to a growth mindset? Learning and development. When you get comfortable with the idea of a growth mindset, you also get comfortable with the idea of weakness. From a young age, we are convinced by everyone around us that weakness is something bad. It’s something about yourself you should eradicate but that is the fixed mindset talking.
The growth mindset suggests it’s simply a strength in waiting. It’s something you have yet to develop. It might sound small, but it’s what will facilitate your opportunity for growth.
Yet can also be useful for keeping yourself engaged in complex tasks. Or tasks that you feel less enthusiastic about, but that are important to your progress.
So, when you work on something and you hear the word review, the yet gives you more time. Yet puts uneasy people at ease. Yet encourages people to acknowledge their feelings. It gives people wiggle room, which can mean they have the space they need to process what they’re dealing with.
Yet is also a great tool to use when you are dealing with a powerful person who is also a bit of a jerk. You don’t need to be a jerk back, yet gives you the opportunity to take a step back and focus on balance.
You don’t need to belong, you have a specific set of skills and you can be proud of them. You are also more than capable of expanding on those skills and adding new ones, too. When you deal with jerks, they may be jerks because they’re jerks, but it may also be insecurity jumping out. Perhaps they see your skills as a threat. You can show them the power of yet.
How To Use “Yet” In Your Life
So, how can this small word that is used as a throwaway most of the time be so powerful? How can you benefit from using yet, whether it’s for yourself or in training, teaching, career development, or even performance appraisals?
Be Mindful
Start by being mindful of your negative self-talk. The first step to maximizing the power of yet is building a positive mindset, and you can’t build a positive mindset without first addressing negative self-talk. Negative self-talk will always be a distraction and it’s unwelcome, even when you might not be aware of it roiling around in the back of your mind.
That’s why it’s so important to build self-awareness of be more mindful of that negative self-talk. When you pay attention to it, you can make a difference. And by paying attention you refuse to give in to those negative thoughts.
Identify The Cant’s
If you are convinced that you can’t then you are more than probably correct. If you believe you will never succeed, you won’t. If you believe you aren’t worthy of love, then you won’t be. You convince yourself you can’t, so you don’t.
What you have to do is find those cant’s and start adding yet to them. I haven’t succeeded yet. I haven’t found someone to love me yet.
Face Up To The Challenge
Life is a journey and that road you are traveling is bound to include sharp turns, speed bumps, and wild hills that take you on an exciting, and sometimes painful, trip. It’s how you tackle those turns and speed bumps that will help you stand out from the crowd. The strongest people can manage those ebbs and flows.
It’s Your Time
It doesn’t matter what stage of life you’re in, the power of yet can be impactful. You just learned a new skill, but you’re not an expert… yet. You just learned how to sketch, you’re not an artist… yet. Whatever it is that is holding you back, start adding yet.
Now that you have a better idea of what the power of yet looks like in your life, how do you apply it? Let’s get into using yet.
Can’t Yet
Is there something you’re working on, but you don’t have much experience with? Or, a problem you are trying to address, but you haven’t figured out a solution yet (see what I did there?)?
- What are the problems you are facing?
- How have you been addressing these problems so far?
- Are there other tactics you can try?
- What have you learned from the journey so far?
- Are there things you would like to change?
- What would you like to change? Is it a trait about yourself?
- Or is it something about your situation you would like to change?
- What is preventing you from moving forward with that change right now?
- What strategies have you used so far?
- How have these strategies served you?
- What other strategies have you used?
- What have your current strategies taught you about potential new strategies to deploy?
These are opportunities for you to build skills. This will help you moving forward, so start by making a list of all the things you want to be able to do, but that you can’t do yet. You can even add things you don’t do well yet. Write it all down – what you want to do but can’t. What you wish you could do better, but don’t. And then one by one, write yet after each and every one.
Try Again
If there is one thing that most successful people have in common it’s that they refused to give up, whatever life may have thrown in their path. Thomas Edison kept trying. The Wright Brothers ignored the laughter and kept going. Stephen King kept trying.
These are people who understood that anything worth doing or having will probably take more than one shot. They all changed the relationship they had with failure. None of them viewed failure as final. It was irritating sure, but it was about learning and improving.
The process teaches you what isn’t working, and sometimes it can shine a light on what might work. Either way, it’s a clear indication of a shift in mindset. It is what will distinguish you from someone who refuses to listen and learn to change and someone who takes failure and uses it to their advantage.
Adopt the right attitude because it’s worth it. Not everything will take hundreds of attempts to get you where you want to be. And, if you want to become an expert at something, your attitude matters. Break those goals down into bite sized tasks and go get it.
Seek Help
If you reach a point where none of your strategies are working, no matter how much effort you put in or how much you have switched things up, then it’s important to ask for help. Trying just one more time isn’t going to help matters if you have been chipping away at it for a while. A helping hand doesn’t lessen the progress you make as a result, sometimes teamwork is an important part of the process. The key is knowing when to ask for help.
The most successful people know when to ask for help and they don’t feel shy in doing so. It is hard to do, and it can feel uncomfortable. But you have to get comfortable with discomfort to move forward. So, if you need help – ask for it. If you have questions – ask the right people for the answers. There is courage in admitting you need help. There is bravery in reaching out for guidance.
Remember, when you ask for help it is a show of self-awareness. You are acknowledging that you aren’t perfect, you’re accepting that you can’t know everything, and you are embracing your thirst for knowledge. You can’t finish what you started until you learn when to ask for help.
Face The Critics
When you relentlessly pursue something, it can be difficult to take criticism. You get wrapped up in the bubble of your journey and that makes it even more difficult to hear and accept criticism. That is going to hold you back. You need to pop that bubble and banish any illusions you have. Criticism hurts, but it is necessary. The only way to move forward is to be prepared to take feedback. That doesn’t mean you have to like it, it simply means you have to accept it so you can apply what is helpful and move forward.
It isn’t enough to accept harsh feedback, sometimes you have to seek it out. So, when you seek out feedback, you can lap up all the you’re great compliments, but learn to sift through all of the noise to find the wisdom that will help you get better.
Yet is powerful, and it doesn’t just benefit you, it can benefit the people around you too. When you utilize the power of yet it creates a ripple and that spreads to the people around you. It gives them pause. It’s a great reminder to people who say they can’t to remember it’s just yet. Whatever it is, whatever you are working on, whatever you have going on, just add yet.
Put YET Into Action
I haven’t achieved my dreams… yet.
I haven’t received a promotion… yet.
I didn’t win… yet.
I haven’t met the right person… yet.
I haven’t found a way to navigate this situation… yet.
I don’t know who I am…yet.
I am not confident…yet.
I didn’t build a strong enough case… yet.
I haven’t done this yet.
The above statements are the normal way someone with a growth mindset thinks.
It means that you believe in your ability to develop and that you believe everything and anything is achievable with enough practice and effort. It is the dramatic opposite of a fixed mindset, where you are convinced that nothing will ever change because it is what it is and that is that.
You can change the game by developing a growth mindset. So, how do you put all of it into action to develop that growth mindset? It’s not as difficult as you think it is, you just need to be consistent.
See Every Challenge As An Opportunity
Life has a way of throwing lemons in your path, and sometimes there’s a banana skin to boot. You can’t see those lemons or banana skins are a setback. You can’t see them as obstacles that are standing in your way.
You don’t have to trick yourself or tell yourself lies. You have to maintain your course and view them for what they are – challenges to overcome. You can keep one eye on the negative, but you have to keep your other eye on the positive within it. It’s a fresh chance to win, but sometimes you have to find another way to win.
Daily Reflection
At the end of every day, you should sit down and take time to reflect. What did you do well? What didn’t go so well? What have you learned that you can apply tomorrow when you go again? Because ultimately, you go again every day. You go to sleep, knowing that when you wake up, you have another day to fight.
But if you don’t consider what you can improve, you risk losing that fight. And if you lose too many on the trot, it can be difficult to get back up to fight again. Fight smarter. Self-reflection is a great habit that will help you see every situation from a different perspective, and that’s the key to success.
No More Approval Seeking
When you seek approval from other people, you’re tackling the wrong objective. Your objective then becomes about impressing everyone else, your goal is that rather than growing as a person, learning as much as you can, and developing yourself as a human.
The thing about approval seeking is, it’s easy to fall into. On the one hand, there are the approval-seeking people who do so simply because they are people pleasers. On the other hand, there are people who seek approval as a means to further their careers.
You know the type, maybe you are the type. You want to impress the higher-ups because you feel like it will benefit your progress, but that becomes your focus. And when that becomes your focus, your focus is no longer where it needs to be. So, if you are prone to approval seeking, whether you’re a people pleaser or a ladder chaser, you need to get control of it.
Celebrate
When you succeed, you should celebrate your success. When others succeed, you should celebrate that as well. More than that, find out what helped them to that success. If you can’t figure it out on your own, just come right out and ask them what steps they took to get to where they are! It doesn’t matter whether it’s a friend who works in an entirely different industry or a colleague who secured a promotion. Any insight into what helps someone maintain motivation can be useful information.
So, if you want to learn to be consistent with your action, create a plan that works for you. Create small ways to celebrate at every level of success you can achieve. What will you do for the little wins? What are you doing to do the medium-sized wins and the big ones?
Focused Rewards
There is one really important part of developing a growth mindset that a lot of people miss. When you reward or praise, it should be for action and effort. When people succeed, it’s not because they were born with a specific talent, it’s because they put the hard work in.
There are a lot of different factors to success, but the effort will always push people to the top. So, when you bust your behind to get something done, pat yourself on the back for the effort you put in. When someone else busts their behind, pat them on the back for the effort. It doesn’t matter what the outcome was – the effort matters.
Use The Power of Yet
When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts about what you can’t do, start adding yet onto the end of that negative thought.
As wonderful as it would be to override all of those negative thoughts, you can’t squelch them all. What you can do is reframe and redirect. Yet is an excellent way to reframe every negative thought that comes your way, and if yet doesn’t fit that particular negative thought, you can redirect it to a more positive thought that is more relevant. Learn to be creative with your language because it’s how you unlock a growth mindset.
30 Powerful Can’t Versus Yet Statements
If everyone could learn the skill of positive language, the world would be a better place filled with happier, more fulfilled people. It’s a skill everyone should and can learn. It isn’t just important for how you communicate with other people, it’s important for how you speak to yourself.
When kids struggle, they start to berate themselves for being bad at this or bad at that, and it’s because they hear it from the adults around them, just like the adults around them heard it from the adults around them when they were children. So, if you get your self-talk right now, it can benefit everyone in your life.
Negative self-talk can be your biggest enemy, and it impacts your self-esteem, it can knock your self-confidence, and all of that can feed into your competence levels.
How you speak to yourself impacts the people around you just as much as it does you. Don’t stir up anger and resentment or resistance because it’s going to damage your mental health. Instead, focus on the power of language.
While there are a million different ways to make small changes to your language to make it more positive, introducing the power of yet is one of the most powerful.
You, like all of us, probably heard don’t do that or no you can’t an endless number of times as you were growing up. You probably heard it repeatedly as an adult, too. The language you use can influence actions more than you realize. Someone shouting don’t drop that at you isn’t going to prevent you from dropping it, it might just scare you into dropping it. Wouldn’t a comment like great job being careful feel like a more positive comment to make?
Choosing the positive path is more beneficial to everyone, from body language to action. A lot of people have stories about teachers who didn’t believe in them.
For example, the student who tells their teacher they want to be x y, or z and that teacher’s response is not to encourage, but instead, they laugh as though it’s a ridiculous idea. Those kinds of things stick with people. It’s known as negativity bias.
We are hardwired to remember negatives much easier than positives. So, when you walk down the hall in a new outfit and nine people compliment you, you are more likely to remember the one person who made a negative comment. It imprints so deeply on your brain that you can’t let go.
Stress and negativity are intertwined. When you see or hear the word no when you’re chasing things you want, it can release stress hormones that wreak havoc. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say no or be told no, it just means that you have to be more mindful of the language you do use.
When you improve your awareness of negative language, you can create an environment that is more positive, nurturing, and peaceful. The teacher could have responded with encouragement and offered advice about classes and books that would help.
This is what it takes to get to where you want to be is a whole lot better than laughing at someone’s dreams and ambitions. If you want to stay motivated and happy, you have to use positive language otherwise you will live a life of upset and demoralize yourself at every turn.
Negative words create stress in your brain, but positivity can strengthen your cognitive function and your frontal lobe. So, get it into your head now that hearing positive words is a great way to make yourself feel good.
Think of it as an exercise in positive reinforcement. Words to build pride, security, happiness, and optimism which in turn promote positive and proactive action.
| I Can’t | I Can’t Yet |
| I can’t take the next step to get a promotion. | I can’t take the next step to get a promotion yet. |
| I can’t handle the emotions that come with this situation. | I can’t handle the emotions that come with this situation yet. |
| I can’t win this one. | I can’t win this one yet. |
| I can’t make them listen to me. | I can’t make them listen to me yet. |
| I don’t understand this. | I don’t understand yet. |
| I can’t believe in myself. | I can’t believe in myself yet. |
| I can’t pursue this path. | I can’t pursue this path yet. |
| I can’t overcome this. | I can’t overcome this yet. |
| I can’t master this recipe. | I can’t master this recipe yet. |
| I can’t create my vision. | I can’t create my vision yet. |
| I can’t write this letter. | I can’t write this letter yet. |
| I can’t make amends. | I can’t make amends yet. |
| I can’t handle this. | I can’t handle this yet. |
| I can’t stand this emotional pain. | I can’t stand this emotional pain yet. |
| I can’t cope with everything that’s going on in my life. | I can’t cope with everything that’s going on in my life yet. |
| I can’t do it the right way. | I can’t do it the right way yet. |
| I don’t understand myself. | I don’t understand myself yet. |
| I can’t overcome this. | I can’t overcome this yet. |
| I can’t make it through this. | I can’t make it through this yet. |
| I am not motivated. | I am not motivated yet. |
| I don’t love my self enough. | I don’t love myself enough…yet |
| I can’t find inner peace. | I can’t find inner peace yet. |
| I don’t love the life I am living. | I don’t love the life I am living yet. |
| I am not making enough money. | I am not making enough money yet. |
| I can’t forgive myself. | I can’t forgive myself…yet |
| I can’t respect myself. | I can’t respect myself yet. |
| I can’t lose this weight. | I can’t lose this weight yet. |
| I can’t be happy with who I am. | I can’t be happy with who I am yet. |
| I don’t know how to live. | I don’t know how to live yet. |
| This does not work right. | This does not work right yet. |
Add the yet to all your can’t and dent’s No matter what you feel like you can’t or don’t do, the yet will motivate you to take action towards resolving the can’t and dont’s and implies that these are temporary situations which can be resolved.
You might not feel like you can learn what you need to know, but if you adjust your mindset, you will recognize that it’s simply a case of can’t yet.
Negativity in general creates more issues than it has ever solved. Little things as simple as thanking someone for waiting in a long line rather than apologizing for their wait. It’s not that you are controlling people, it’s just that you are using your language more wisely to influence the response you get.
In the same way, you can use language with others to influence their response, you can use language to influence your own response. The 20 examples above are simple ways to show you just how powerful yet can be. Whatever it is you want to do, you simply haven’t done it yet. There’s still plenty of time.
Final Thoughts
Yet. It’s the sound of possibilities. Can’t is the rut you get caught in, being stuck in the present feeling as though you can’t move forward. When you add the yet – can’t yet – it serves as a reminder that there is a bigger vision. That is what motivates you to improve. When you feel like saying you can’t do something, say you can’t do it yet. Start by identifying the skills that you would like to build. Identify the activities you would like to tackle or the goals you would like to achieve.
If you plan to achieve anything significant in your life, then you probably need to make multiple attempts. As much as you would like to rush in to accomplish your goal, you will probably have to do some experimenting, you will have to accept some failures, and you will need to wash, rinse, and repeat until you get it right.
So, now you can see how powerful yet is, but are you ready to discover it in action? For a three-letter word, it sure packs a major punch. Use yet to encourage learning. Use yet to maintain engagement. Use yet to increase confidence. It’s a word that can have an outsized impact if you just embrace it.
Everyone has a mindset, whether they recognize it or not. Nobody has a pure mindset, whether it’s fixed or growth, it’s usually a spectrum. Your mindset will often depend on the situation you’re in. It doesn’t matter how familiar you are with the concept of growth and fixed mindsets. When you start to reflect on who you are and how you tackle certain situations, you will recognize different traits that suggest you sway one way or another.
Whichever way you sway, you can use the power of the word yet to optimize your growth mindset, learn, and develop. People with a fixed mindset will often discuss being good, whereas, people with a growth mindset are more prone to talking about getting or doing better.
So, if you are striving to get or do better, you will talk about improving the skills you haven’t yet mastered. You are a work in progress, and when you develop a growth mindset you will recognize that. And you will recognize that it’s a good thing.
Start changing your words and you will start changing your mindset.
TRANSFORM YOURSELF WITH THE YET MINDSET.
