Go-Kart Mindset or F1 Mindset: How do you rank ?

Apr 16

Hand drawn illustration of a go-kart and F1 racer

Junior high had to be the best 3 years of school for me. One of the things we did at that time was build and ride go-karts. Our speedway was a nearby paved hill behind a local shopping centre that was free of traffic every weeknight and during the weekends—I think it was used only for deliveries.

I don’t recall who built the first racer, but once I saw what the guys in the neighbourhood were doing, I had to be part of it. The go-karts were made of nothing more than 2x4’s, wheels from damaged grocery carts and a rope for steering. Nails held it together and served as axels.

At the time, it felt like we driving F1 racers. It was magical.

I’ve never driven a Formula 1 car but I know there’s a huge difference in performance between my old go-kart and my current sedan !

Here’s the thing, your mindset functions like a vehicle and if you get to choose whether your mindset runs like my grade 8 go-kart or an F1 race car.

Let me explain:

vehicles have natural tendencies. F1 cars are highly tuned and have lots of power
vehicles can travel at different rates. F1 racers can go very fast if you know how to drive one
in a given span of time, vehicles can travel different distances. An F1 vehicle covers in 30 seconds, what would take my go-kart 10 minutes speeding downhill !
the more you practice driving an F1 racer, the better able you are to operate the vehicle at it’s highest capacity

When you layer on the notion of a grateful frame of mind, the go-kart to F1 is a good analogy.

Similar to a vehicle, you have a natural tendency to be grateful—it’s either low capacity like my go-kart or high capacity like the F1. The greater your disposition to being grateful, the more you experience higher levels of gratitude (i.e. go faster) and influence and impact more people (go further). Further, we know that the more you develop your gratitude habits (like making a list), the more disposed to being grateful you become (i.e. it’s like trading up to a faster vehicle). The end result is that you more deeply experience gratitude (i.e. you go even faster) and the more you outwardly express gratitude and influence others (i.e. you go even further).

Said another way, the daily practise of making a gratitude list will upscale your mindset from a 15 year-old's homemade go-kart mindset to a world class F1 mindset.

I don’t know where you’d rank your mindset if you looked at your past 4-6 weeks, but if you want more of an F1 mindset more often, it’s within reach—it really is. Simply commit to making a gratitude list each day.

This practice is very simple—but based on what thousands of people have told me, maintaining a gratitude habit is not easy, which is why I’m here to support you. We’ve got The Daily Gratitudes—it's a weekday email from me that includes 3 gratitudes from me and 3 gratitudes from a guest. More importantly, the email serves as a reliable nudge about the importance of your gratitude practice. The email is the equivalent of a pit crew that enables your mindset to continually function like an F1 racer—no matter the conditions.

Get The Daily Gratitudes here - https://www.gratitudeatwork.ca/the-daily-gratitudes/habitual-ritual