The Fundamentals of an Unstoppable Mindset 

The biggest indication of whether someone will become successful or not is not luck, skill, natural talent, or having rich parents, it’s having the kind of mindset that makes you unstoppable.

One that allows you to keep going no matter what. Through pain, discomfort, setbacks and failure. Nothing is able to shake you.

The good news is this mindset isn’t gifted at birth, anyone can build it. The bad news is, it isn’t easy. 

Having an unstoppable mindset doesn’t guarantee you’ll be successful, but not having one almost always guarantees you won’t be.

Here are the 6 fundamentals of the unstoppable mindset

1. Radical Responsibility

Responsibility is taking any given situation you find yourself in, and taking ownership over it. It’s not blaming yourself for anything, it’s understanding that no matter what got you here, you’re the one who’s responsible for changing it.

Without responsibility, you’ll blame external things and people whenever you run into any problems, and if every time you fail, it’s something else’s fault, you’ll never grow.

Responsibility is a superpower, because it puts any situation or circumstance you don’t like, and places them directly into your palm. 

Without control over your problems, how do you expect to change them?

2. Seek failure 

Once you’re able to handle failure, the next step is to seek it.

Failures aren’t setbacks, they’re lessons. They give you the missing information that you couldn’t otherwise see, information that edges you one step closer to success.

And, if failure is learning, it’s only right to learn as much as you possibly can.

This isn’t about purposefully failing, it’s about putting yourself in situations where failing is possible as often as you can.

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Thomas J. Watson

3. Discipline

Successful people don’t only act when they feel like it most, that’s motivation. They act even when it’s the last thing they feel like doing: that’s discipline.

Success is hard, that’s why it’s so sought after, and hard things require consistent action, and the only thing that allows consistent action is discipline.

On the cold, tired, boring and miserable days, discipline pushes you through. Discipline has become slightly overused in the last few years, but for good reason, it really works.

4. Work Without Reward

Most people quit because they’re unable to work without immediate reward, in other words, they’re unable to delay their gratification. In a world filled with dopamine in our pockets, next-day deliveries and Uber Eats, we’ve become quite accustomed to getting what we want very quickly.

Success requires the opposite. Success is working hard for months, sometimes years, with no reward in sight.

Without the ability to delay your gratification, you’ll quit long before seeing any signs that it’s working.

To become unstoppable, you have to refuse to quit, even when you get nothing for your sacrifices for longer than you would like.

5. Emotional Intelligence

If you’re trying to become successful or at least chase a goal, you’re going to experience a bit of discomfort. And, if you’re constantly reacting to that discomfort automatically, then it’s probably holding you back.

If you sleep when you’re tired, shout when you’re angry, eat when you’re hungry, distract yourself when bored and quit when you lose, you probably won’t get very far.

When I say emotional intelligence, I’m not talking about other people’s feelings, I’m talking about you. It’s your ability to recognise, control, and express your emotions in a manner that aligns with your long-term goals.

If you want to know what the opposite of emotional intelligence is, it’s when someone gets out of their car and walks up to another and starts yelling and swearing, and when asked “What are you doing?”, they respond: “He cut me up!”.

Here, there is no clear sign that this person has recognised their own emotions, in this case, anger, let alone express it in a constructive way. If they had, it would look like this:

Recognise: They cut me up, that was dangerous, I’m now angry.

Control: Even though I’m angry and that was dangerous, nothing I do to react here will make a difference, if anything, it’ll just make things worse. 

Express: Deep breaths, smile, move on. 

Unstoppable people don’t let their emotions control them, it’s the other way around.

Without the ability to control your emotions, you’re enslaved by external circumstances you cannot control.

6. Adaptability 

As we’ve covered, success is hard, and sometimes takes years, even decades.

This not only brings the challenge of patience, but the challenge of adapting to the changing circumstances around you.

During this time, you may move house, move country, fall in love, experience heartbreak, change jobs, and deal with health problems, all the while having to continue being effective at whatever it is you’re pursuing.

And for that, you’ll need the ability to adapt. 

If external conditions need to remain almost perfect for you to continue working, let alone effectively, there’s a good chance you’ll be fairly stoppable.

Life is strange, often extremely difficult, and if you’re not able to shift and bend with your changing environment like a tree bends with the wind, you’re probably going to blow over.

Photo by Ady April