Workplace Mental Models in 2020

If 2019 was a tough year for you, don’t worry, a new decade is here! No matter the challenges of last year, we’re here to share with you the recipe for happiness and satisfaction in 2020. In this post, we hope to shed light on the subconscious mind and how it dictates your luck through mental models.

The New Year or birthdays are a great time to reset your thinking because it provides a memorable timeline to help you measure your progress.
Whether you know it or not, you practice mental models in your everyday life.

What are mental models?

Mental models are a collection of thoughts that make up your subconscious attitude.

Over the years and unbeknownst to you, your mind has been creating mental models as a result of your childhood experiences and your perceptions as an adult. Subconsciously, your mind uses the mental models it created to anticipate the results of an event or decision, and also to reason and explain your choices, good or bad.

Let’s look at some examples of mental models. Do any of the following phrases sound familiar to you?

▸ I can’t”
▸ “Why speak up? It won’t make a difference”
▸ “If I want something done right I have to do it myself”
▸ “I don’t care”
▸ “I have no time”
▸ “What’s the point?”

Can you think of a time when your mental models influenced a decision you made in the workplace?

Examples of mental models in the workplace sound like this…

▸ “Seniority rules”
▸ “We can’t be all things to all people”
▸ “Don’t rock the boat”
▸ “Who do they think we are”
▸ “We don’t have the resources”
▸ “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”

But how do mental models influence luck?

The Law of Attraction is the theory that you attract positivity into your life by having a positive outlook on life. The premise is that you can think or speak something into existence. Sounds like hocus pocus right?

There’s a psychological explanation to this theory. Most people understand this theory to work with the following formula:

A leads to B, where “A” represents your “positive” thoughts and “B” represents your reward

However, the Law of Attraction has much to do with you mental models. The law works under the belief that positive mental models allow your brain to recognize when good things are happening to you in life. In other words, your brain’s “radar” is turned on to see opportunities and possibilities as “luck”.

So it’s not that you “attact” something that wasn’t there before, it’s that your mind attributes a positive emotion (gratitude) to a particular event or experience that is happening to you anyway. When you reset your brain’s mental models, this creates a self-feeding cycle of proof for you that good things do happen to you, no matter the size or significance of event or experience.

Examples of positive mental models are:

▸ “I can do it”
▸ “People are fundamentally good”
▸ “We all have our bad days”

Mental models impact behaviour and can either help us achieve our goals or block us from achieving them. Don’t feel bad if some of your mental models need some rethinking- they live in our subconscious where they lurk until we shed a spotlight on them.

How can we change our mental models?

The first step is simply to be aware of your thoughts. Next time you come across a challenge, identify the problem in order to plan a solution.

Planning and organization is the best way to overcome things that scare us. Once you have a plan in order, put it into action and observe the results for future reference. This in turn will recalibrate your brain’s mental models.

Self reflection

When good things happen to you, do you see them as a blessing, or just dumb luck?

EXECUTIVE SPA GROUP

Beauty Industry Resource Centre