Why do I feel stuck?
Is this a question you’ve asked yourself lately?
You aren’t alone in your self- questioning. There are hundreds of professional, accomplished, Godly women just like you who ask themselves this same question every day.
If that’s the case, and it is, you may be wondering how you can get past feeling stuck and move into a place you are fully thriving as the woman God called you to be.
Getting unstuck is possible.
Learn the difference between a fixed mindset and growth mindset on today’s podcast!
Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
Welcome to the unstick, your mind podcast on Mimika TV, get ready to get unstuck align with your true purpose and unlock your God. Given potential over the years, I’ve really developed this, this intention of building something from nothing, but of course, like everyone knows building a business is not for the faint of heart, right? They, you do get challenges and you never switch off. Now, in my personal story, I’ve had four different types of business models from, being a photographer, Fixed and Growth Mindset to being a website designer and a marketing and branding strategist. Now for all us women out there, I like lists. I’m sure those, our type a types are like the control freaks who love everything exactly the way they like it. But sometimes life throws us a few lemons, right? Things don’t always go to plan. So what do we do in these situations where things aren’t following the blueprint of what we expected, cuz we can’t control other people’s thoughts and actions, feelings, and behaviors.
We can only control ours. And I learned this through the hard way through the school of hard knocks by experiencing the ups and downs of life. Now what got me into doing mindset training and coaching is, is a few things is obviously my love for entrepreneurship and working and helping people reach their potential. Cuz I believe a lot, all of us have untapped potential in us, but we come with a lot of junk in our trunk, usually from childhood that we don’t really think about what we thinking about. And a lot of the things that we do are based in habits now, habits are formed usually in the formative years, as we will know, by the time we age 10 language is established our family values and belief systems in place because we’ve learned things through mirroring, usually from our parents and environment we’re in now some of those things we learned don’t really service as adults, but we’ve never challenged them as to why we still have them or why we function under them.
We wonder why we hit the walls or hit these ceilings of patterns of behavior. We keep repeating like, you all heard about the story of the girlfriend who keeps attracting the same bad boyfriend all over again. The thing with business owners, right? Why do we keep attracting the same clients and go through the same process is because clearly we haven’t moved past whatever is blocking us. Now I know for women, especially men find this a little easier to separate their who from their do, but as women are a little bit more, we, we look at our self concept and we get a lot of our identity in what we do. So it’s very hard to separate. Like if someone, for instance, if a business failure fails, we take it personally. And oftentimes those things are rooted in old thinking or behavior patterns that are sort of simmering below the surface that we’ve never really challenged or looked at.
So my whole process in this is really it’s come from having gone through this process myself. Whereas I say I’m a recovering control freak. I up my membership to control freaks, anonymous, and ever since then, I’m so much happier because I’m no longer worried about the details of having everything done perfectly. Cuz I can guess that a lot of our, our listeners and watches are actually high achievers who like high standards and we often are the hardest on ourselves. We don’t give ourselves a lot of breaks, especially when things don’t go, don’t go according to plan. And for me personally, I got to a stage where, being a high performer, always doing all the things and not watching the signs until eventually I hit a wall and personally hit and breakdown. No believe me, it’s not a pretty sight. When you get to that stage where you literally are in your pajamas, eating Ben and Jerry’s all day and like, oh my gosh, I feel terrible.
Discussing Fixed vs Growth Mindset
And all the wheels fall off the bus clearly not useful to you and anyone else. And what I had found is that I just kept ignoring the signs. The overworking always being hard on myself, never celebrating the wins, always thinking there’s another to do to do and never knowing how to switch off. How many of us like take our work home, especially when you’re an entrepreneur, there is no off button. There is no day off. Cause the boss who’s yourself is the hardest task master? And it’s hard to kind of separate that. So, and what I’d find is, even though I kind of liken this to being in a car, right, we’re going down the highway and there’s the speed limits that like it’s fine. I can go faster than that. I can keep going.
Everything’s working great. And eventually, the gas are starting to run out and the oil light is flashing, but it’s good. We can keep going. Now if we don’t go to take a little side road and go fill up the gas tank, you have either two options is you will either run out of gas or you’ll crash and burn. Neither of those two options are really good or you get stuck on the side of the road and you need to bail, have someone to come and bail you out. Now this is classically. What happens when clients find me is they feel stuck. They’re doing all the things that they’ve done before it used to work then, but it’s no longer working. They’ve realized that their self-care is almost non-existent. They’re not taking care of themselves. And just like they say on the airplane, you’ve gotta put your own oxygen mask on in before you help others.
Cause believe me, if you run out of air and you pass out, you ain’t helping nobody. So what I’d find is, a lot of the time, I have to help women figure out how to get their air back in their lungs and how to breathe and to find themselves and get to that stage where you might feel like you on the side of the road you’ve blown a head gasket or you you’ve run out of gas or you have a flat tire. We need to take the time in order to regroup. Sometimes the best thing we can do is have a breakdown so we can break through cuz there’s only so much we can continue doing in our own strength where we wear ourselves out to where we don’t have any, all the oxygen is left the room and you cannot move forward.
Now I do not suggest you do that. Do not follow my example where you literally wait until you need like CPR. What I would say is there are always signs, but we need to be willing to look at these things. And we all like when you’re feeling like you’re stuck or you’re hitting a wall or these patterns of behavior and you can’t of like, can’t seem to figure out what that is. A lot of the time, it’s a way that our brains have been rewired through experience and how we’ve just learned to adapt to our environment. But the good news is it doesn’t matter your past. It doesn’t matter your history or what you have done before. There’s always new ways to learn, to do new things. Because the amazing thing in science is catching up that our brains are plastic through the use of neuroplasticity.
Speaking about Growth Mindset
The brain can be retrained. We can rewire those old habits. We can it’s even like changing what we think our personality traits can actually be overcome through training and intentional processes. Now I come from like a sports background and I’m a classically trained ballet dancer. And I also do competitive figure skating. So this idea of, especially those who love their sports are gonna understand this concept of when you’re practicing for something, it doesn’t always feel good. When your coach is telling you good to see you tomorrow, whether you feel like it or not, you’ve gotta get yourself out there. When you go to the gym, how do we get stronger? Is we push against resistance, right? We pull those weights. We do the things. We break a bit of a sweat, but we know that the bigger picture of doing the work, the hard work is really gonna turn out to our favor.
We’re gonna be stronger, more agile, more resilient, able to take on life’s challenges because life is full of challenges. But instead of having a defeat attitude of, oh well woe is me being like Eeyore it’s such a terrible day. And just letting it get down on you, we realize that we can overcome these things because we are always looking at it from the outside in. And I always like to say to people like your life is like a movie, but instead of you being an actor, being all dramatic on screen, how about we put you in the audience, give you the remote control and you get to control. Whether you go fast forward or rewind or pause, that kind of distance will help you think about things more objectively. So when you’re having a conflict at hope or with an employee or with a team member, a lot of us, we are human beings made of emotions.
And if you think about it, emotion is energy emotion. So if we get ourselves worked up, the other, person’s gonna get ourselves worked up. So the best thing we can do is to think, learn, to think about what we’re thinking about. So kind of like when you’re feeling, having, having a little bit of a freak vest, hit the pause button on the remotes and think, Hmm, let me get an objective view of how I’m behaving and reacting. Have I maybe brushed up against some old hurts or old wounds or old Greek programming that maybe needs to be challenged. This is the good news that no matter where you are in your life and you’re never too old, like, ah, believe me, you can teach an old dog new tricks. Cause I’m proof of that. I started skating at 31 and now I’m on mom at forties.
Talking about Fixed vs Growth Mindset
I can tell you it’s taken a lot longer. Like I had to stretch the timeline. But the proof is that you can change the way that you think your patterns and your responses. And the good news about that is that there are no limitations. So when we lift the lid of your potential, we can leverage your mind and your thinking and get you aligned to get the car back on the road. So you’re no longer chugging along in a 1970s beetle, we can actually get you into a Ferrari. You can then go at much faster speeds and get your destination and much better style having been in that situation of knowing what it’s like to feel frustrated, to feel like disappointed. And what do you do? Like how do you get yourself unstuck when you feel like you’re in the ditch? So that’s really my passion and my purpose now is to really help women who were like me, avoid the crash and burn, regroup and get them ready.
So they can actually set off on, on the mission that they know they’re on to do whatever they need to do. Creating self-awareness is a process. It’s like if I always say, if it took you a while to get into a mess, it’s gonna take you a hot minute to get out. So first is first and foremost, give yourself a little grace. It will take a bit of time and it’s not like you can pop a pull and all of a sudden, or this is the magic thing it’s gonna happen overnight. This is something we have to learn. And this is why I think habits and reforming habits is a great way. It’s like catching yourself before. I always say, before you get onto the drama queen train, let’s not buy a ticket and start to question why we feel, we need to take that path.
This is really it’s about helping you build your confidence. So you can regain agency out view of self and choices. So an example is you get challenged by something with someone. You are, you have two choices to either react or respond now bond. Now initially we all are emotional beings. So of course, if somebody offends you or hurts you, or whenever we are challenged with something that truly makes us want to get emotional about things, we need to challenge ourselves and think, okay, why am I feeling like this? What was the thought process that got me into this situation? And before I just react out of emotion, let me think about this. Really again, it’s taking that view. Like I always like to talk in pictures. Like I say to my clients, listen, honey, you might be in the chicken coop and you clicking around with all the chickens.
All you can see is the little seed in front of you with the right up close to your problem, which is the floor. We wanna get you out of the chicken coop. And we want to get you flying with the Eagles. Now with Eagles at that height, if you know anything about Eagles, they have got their Eagle eye vision. They can see so far down the line and getting distance between the problem and them. They’re able to look at it and what happens is it looks smaller. The problem doesn’t become a huge problem when you’re able to rise above and say, I’m not gonna get in the chicken coop with the rest of them. I’m gonna just take a breather, push, I might need to push a little harder and higher up to get to the elevation, but I know I need to get perspective.
This is really self-regulating your thoughts and your emotions. And really it’s about being in touch with yourself. I combine a lot of faith-based principles because I believe we can talk about mindset. And we’ve heard about the whole free will and we’ve gotta like the power of the will to stop doing something. But there’s only one element we need to combine what we have as our three part being, which is our, our body and then our soul, which is our mind, our will and emotions and our spirit. And people in the world, like to call this the gut, the intuition, but really it’s who we are at our core. Now, as believers, we believe, when we become Christians that our faith is then guided by God. So, and what I’m finding is no matter sort of background upbringing, religion, people are in.
Tackling about Fixed and Growth Mindset
We all have that spirit being with us, such as longing to be connected with who we really are. I mean, if we just look at the world and the issues we are having is a lot of the things come down to our identity, like who do we believe we are? What do we believe we are capable of? And if we think about those limiting beliefs, we’ve put on ourselves. Maybe we come from a family that maybe you weren’t raised on the best area. Maybe you grew up in poverty and your family believes the limiting belief that you can’t be wealthy or maybe there’s health issues or whatever the issue is. Those confirmation biases have just been confirmed over and over and over. And your brain then starts to believe it as truth. But how about we start challenging the truth from the lies instead of just accepting things as they are presented to us.
Now, I know this can be a little trippy, but it’s really fun. And it’s almost like you can make this into a game of almost thinking about a process and questioning yourself and asking the big question. Why, why do I feel like this? Why does this bother me? Why does this person irritate me so much? Why am I not where I need to be right now? Why do I feel so tired? Why am I so grumpy? And sometimes it’s not super deep. Sometimes you need to take a nap. Sometimes you need to take a break. Sometimes you need to grab a couple like a glass of water and rehydrate. If you’re feeling like you’re really sluggish and tired and you got headaches, the world ain’t out to get you, honey, you just need to get yourself some food and you need to rest.
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
And as high achievers are pretty bad in the self care department, we kind of will do all the things, keep working. And yeah, when you’re in that mode, you are using adrenaline and cortisol is going through your system, which is the stress warmer, right? And in the moment we are in this fight flight or freeze mode where we are using, we are taxing our adrenals. And if anyone knows, if you’ve ever been in that situation where you have a high powered situation, and then the deadline ends, there is always like a breather at the end, but it’s like, Ugh. Then you feel like terrible afterwards. It’s like the high, high leads to the low, low. And this is classic. If you see especially in like Olympic athletes, like all those build up to train for the Olympics is four year.
You’ve gotta focus, gotta focus. And while they have the goal and they’re doing the training, it’s all great. But what happens when they reach their goals? What happens when they actually win the gold? And this is actually true. It happened to Michael Phelps, where he said he got so depressed. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Once he had achieved his goals, like what do we do when we, we do win? What do we do when we achieve everything? Like what next? Right? And this is why it’s so important to really always take a check like, how am I feeling? What am I thinking? Where is this taking me? So you can then think more clearly and not allow your emotions. And I’m not saying to be an emotional, like Android, no, your emotions are very much part of what makes up you.
But I think it’s really just being more aware and being in touch with what you are feeling and in the moment, and just doing that, like, am I taking care of me? Like if I have a family or a team members, how do I best show up for them? And I know this sounds country intuitive, but the best way you can show up for others is to show up for yourself first. So this is this whole question of happiness. Like, and we’ve all heard the follow, your passions, your passions, cuz your passions will always follow you in the right direction. Actually. No, cause here’s the thing. Feelings are fickle and ethical. And if we go by our feelings and always, as I said, we wanna be in touch with what we are feeling, but we don’t wanna be driven by our feelings where if we feel like we are out of alignment, there’s two sides to this. It could be showing you that you are in the situation or maybe you saying yes to things you shouldn’t, and that you are getting to a situation where you’re ready to pivot or change.
And other times, if we always pursuing happiness, it’s like pursuing a Mirage because happiness is where you are right now. And I know so close the whole thing about enjoying the journey because the destination is gonna keep moving is so true. And the same thing with whether it’s running a business or being a wife or having being a parent managing your mindset, it’s all a process and really it’s okay, what can I learn from this process right now? I’m feeling unfulfilled. So what, why am I feeling unfulfilled, let’s kind of start to ask those layers of questions, go a little deeper, a little deeper. So a great exercise that I would say is just, take pen and paper. Now you don’t wanna do this on the computer. We actually want to write this. Cuz the science has shown that if you used your handwriting, it actually engages the subconscious part of your brain.
Fixed vs Growth Mindset
That’s why we teach kids to use crayons, right? It’s getting their creativity. So whatever it is for you to kind of get into their creative space and often we call this flow. You wanna get in the flow, like you see athletes, they have the earphones on before the Olympics, and like getting in the groove and we’re like, what are they doing? That’s just weird. They’re blocking out any outside stimulus. And they wanna really focus inward to, to really listen to that small voice of what it’s saying. Like your heart might be saying, I really wanna be running a mission in Guatemala, but you’re stuck in a corporate job or you’ in a situation that’s not fulfilling. Those things can be good to lean into the uncomfortableness. That is not something to be ignored. It’s to actually question and say, okay, why am I feeling uncomfortable?
Why am I dissatisfied with where I’m at? Why do I feel unfulfilled? Because as I said, the goals will keep moving and we need to keep making new goals. So we do keep moving cuz that’s our human nature. We want to feel like we are learning and growing. And when you reach that plateau, it’s, it’s a very hard, difficult place to be. And oftentimes whether it’s doing a sport or running a business, when you hit that plateau, the natural tendency is to want to give up or to retreat. But really the plateau is the part where it doesn’t feel like anything’s changing, but there is growth and we need to lean into what am I learning about myself and the process that will help me get positioned for the next stage. So I always say in the way God works in the world, he always makes you uncomfortable before he gets you to where he needs you to go.
Cuz if you were just comfortable sitting in your, in your rocking chair, not going anywhere, you wouldn’t want to move. So I would definitely say the awareness is really key and to really listen to that and journal or whether you like doodling or whether it’s going for a walk, just allow yourself the time to really think and get in tune with like, what are the things that are my heart’s desire? What do I really, if I had no limitations on time, money and resources, what would that look like and allow yourself to dream? Cause I think so many of us have forgotten how to have a vision and dream big. We just got stuck on the right path and believe me the right race. Ain’t so fun because everyone is a rat. So how about we just try to reimagine our own possibilities and just say, what would my life look like if I lifted the lid and leverage the potential of my potential to really get to where I wanna be, the best leadership advice I ever received was really to be, be a learner, be a beginner.
You never know, and you’ve never arrived. And I really think having a beginner’s mindset where if you see kids, like I talk about this when I go skating, I see I’m like really struggling with this thing and I’m overthinking. And then I see a little five year old pop on the as, and then two seconds later I’m like, oh, isn’t that nice? Great. So really I always think the best way we can learn is just to become, the beginner and be willing to learn. Even if we, we feel like we’ve learned a lot, we don’t know everything and there’s always something new to learn. So just saying open and staying curious, I always say, stay curious, not critical, not critical of yourself or the process, but just having their curiosity, just like a five year old is, or a two year old, how they can get fascinated by the ants on the ground, like little things.
How can we ignite curiosity and that love for learning, which is I really think keeps us fresh, keeps us invigorated and keeps us wanting to keep moving no matter what we are presented with. So yeah, go ahead and do something fun today for yourself and your mind will. Thank you.
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