Why is Mindset Work so Hard?

Mindset is the lens with which you see through the world. Working on mindset means we’re switching out the lenses, embracing the blurry, disjointed experience of adjusting to a new way of seeing the world.

That blurriness is the pain of unlearning ideas you worked so hard to put in focus. It’s, as Naval says, going back down the mountain only to go back up another one:

“The hard parts are not the learning, it is the unlearning. It’s not the climbing up the mountain. It’s the going back down to the bottom of the mountain and starting over. It’s the beginner’s mind that every great artist, or every great business person has, which is: you have to be willing to start from scratch. You have to be willing to hit reset and go back to zero. “

Mindset work is going against what our society consider progress: forward and upward movement. The unlearning process is vulnerable, slow, and unfinished. You don’t know what you don’t know. You’re leaving what’s familiar for what’s unknown.

Mindset work demands all your attention and ideas. If you’re used to running full speed ahead through your to do’s, mindset work will feel like you have 50 pound weights slowing you down.

It goes against the individualism we are told to champion. We see the archetypes who did it their way and “won”. But mindset work is the highest leverage work you can do for yourself and your work. The fear is you have to be open to change, and no one knows what’s on the other side of that acceptance.