I will start by saying that I am well aware that the book Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy is old. However, it is amazing, and everyone should read it. And I mean, go out and find a copy of it now and read it.
Are you still here? Well, okay, I’ll go on.
There are many invaluable points in the book; however, for this post, I will focus on the concept of psychosclerosis.
Tracy describes it as “Psychosclerosis is another name for ‘hardening of the attitudes.’ This is experienced by a particular type of person who is rigid, inflexible, and unchanging. This is the kind of person who develops fixed attitudes on a certain person or subject and then resists any attempt to change his mind. This is often called the mechanical way of thinking.”
The term psychosclerosis perfectly sums up a fixed mindset in a way I didn’t know was possible.
Just as we want to ensure our bodies remain healthy and limber, we should want to do the same for our minds. It not only keeps us open to new ideas and ways of thinking but helps to keep our brains active and healthy.
I have mentioned some of these things previously, but because brain health is so important to me, I regularly do things to avoid psychosclerosis:
It is easy to fall into the habit of just doing things the way they have always been - but I challenge you to do the difficult things that will help you avoid psychosclerosis. As E.M. Gray said, “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do.”