Mindset traps that trap growth

It’s a lost cause. AI is going to take our jobs. Without the “right connections” there is no future. These are the current talks in most conversations being carried out in companies and in countries. They are very valid. The world is going through an exceptional storm. The depressing war in Gaza creates sadness and hopelessness.

The tariff war between America and the rest of the world has literally swept the carpet out of many exporting countries. Generation Zee has already created challenges for parents, bosses and society. Travelling has become costly and hazardous. Climate is creating killing changes. Where to look for positivity? Where to look for inspiration?

Individuals and organizations are both vulnerable to the mental prison that barricades initiatives and growth. Let us first take individuals and then organizations.

The ability to recycle negativity creates a mental constriction where all thoughts reduce independence.

Being a victim, unlucky, anxious, worrier, are states that take away your freedom. You are trapped in the same self-pity self-talk that makes you see only the dark side of yourself, others and circumstances. This affects effectiveness in personal and professional relationships, reinforcing our own story of “what a loser I am” and “How whatever I touch turns to dust”. To free such people from their mental traps, the reframing of the self-talk is mandatory.

The need to seek professional help to convert the mindlessness into mindfulness is high. A simple daily gratitude journal in which daily all the things that have gone well no matter how small they are needs to be written down and read in the beginning of the next day to start lowering the mental bars.

It is bleak. Yes. It is dreary. Yes. It is uncertain. Yes. It is frightening. Yes. It is dooms day. NO. The dooms day scenario is also a mind creation that has not happened. But the mind creation of the dooms day is happening with a multiplier effect. That is what is more damning than the dooms day itself.

The first thing to understand and remind yourself is that everything is impermanent. Success is impermanent, but the good news is that failure is also impermanent. That means that the present scenario is not the final one.

Getting your mind trapped into the existing scenario and then feeling that this is also true for tomorrow and day after tomorrow is a mindless assumption. These traps are deadly as they seriously limit our brain capacity. They make us feel helpless. They are traps that cage our creativity. They are thoughts that constraint our productivity. The biggest setback in mind perception is that there is no option left.

The words that “I really do not have a choice” are a trap that makes people and organizations comfortable in their inaction. Let us look at how we can deal with them to free ourselves and organizations from the mental chains of being powerless:

1. From catastrophizing to decatastrophizing— The dooms day mindset imagines fast and big the worst. The business is going down. People are disengaged. They will leave. Customers will switch. Factories will have to be shut down. Banks debt will default. This is a mind enslaved to a chain of disasters. That is a chain that needs to be broken. It is known as catastrophizing, where you think everything is leading to a catastrophe.

First of all get out of this trap. The way to get off this trap is to make your top leadership’s mind decatastrophize. The way to do that is to change the thinking from “what if” to “what is”. The constant worry of what might happen creates a vicious cycle of uncertainty, fear, and threat alert that is self-destructive. It is important to focus on the present and make a list of priorities to deal with the most important issues.

The best way to deal with such pressure situation is to go for a change of scene. An organizational retreat of a couple of days with some diverse top minds helps. This retreat needs to be away from social media and other distractions and based more on finding a mental and spiritual reprieve. Another important factor is to bring some research on how more has been invented in times of crisis than in times of ease.

All leadership emerges in tough situations. Most products are innovated when markets become non-responsive. These facts will help the relevant staff to find comfort in the fact that difficulty produces opportunity.

2. Create the best and worst case scenario— Once the panic has subsided and the mind trap has been broken into, time to do some proactive planning. There are many ways of doing that. Organizations need to get a team together of internal and external visionaries who have the experience and expertise of drawing future scenarios with the probabilities assigned to them. This is to be done with the intent to create mind space for all eventualities without ending up in a dark alley.

The usual process is to create three scenarios: the best, the worst and the most likely. These are then backed by plans to execute and be ready for them. This exercise is what makes the brain divert to other possibilities than the dooms day one only.

3. Creating an ODC for breaking the stalemate— Another mind trap release is to develop an opportunity development committee. This committee is comprising people from different backgrounds and experience. They are entrusted with the task of developing new avenues and opportunities. Starting with open brainstorming to shortlisting of ideas, this committee uses a Growth Matrix framework to come up with opportunities of existing markets and products and new markets and products. These are then screened on the dual criteria of desirability and feasibility.

As they say, the only certainty in life is uncertainty. The only way to get to a future you want is to create it. That involves breaking the status quo shackles. That means realizing that success is impermanent and when the going is good making plans for the inevitable downturns. That also means, when the going is bad, making plans for the opportunities it represents. For all this to happen, keep the mind open. Keep the mind’s eye seeing the unseen. That means not letting the dark take over the light. As Fiola said, “Sometimes our mind is a trap that we need to escape from.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025