Let me fill you in on a little secret, most of us high-achieving women are overworked and undervalued! Not exactly a secret, you say? Okay, maybe not, but I bet you the underlying reason for this is.
As high-achieving women (many of us entrepreneurs and biz leaders), we can get hooked into the ‘hustle & grind’ mentality…you know, the one our patriarchal society has programmed into our very way of thinking, you know what I mean right? The work, work, work and never stop until you’re retired, at which point you’re physically, mentally and spiritually burnt out and don’t even know how to reconnect with the real you.
I know that’s not what you want for yourself, and I don’t want it for you either. So I say we stand up and say: “We ain’t having it!!”
There is another way sister and it’s time for us to up-level that mentality and tap into what we’ve always known to be true deep down inside.
It’s time for growth. And it’s time to be intentional about our growth.
When we are in this ‘hustle & grind’ mentality, we are stuck in a fixed mindset and we’re usually doing this subconsciously. Have you ever thought to yourself or said out loud:
“I’ll keep doing it this way bc I’ve always done it this way”
or
“I don’t have time (or money) to do anything about that”?
These are thoughts produced by a fixed mindset and when we make these claims without any awareness that we’re doing so, they get lodged into our subconscious programming.
Why is this important?
Because 95% of our behavior and actions are driven by our subconscious mind (according to multiple independent research studies, NIH study included here). So when we tell ourselves, on repeat, that we’ve always done something a certain way or that we don’t have enough time or money for something, we are training our brain to take those statements as truths. The creative part of our brain, that has infinitely more power than our intellectual part, remains dormant, bc it believes that we can’t have it any other way. And so our day-to-day actions are based on these false beliefs. This is why this mentality is sooooooo dangerous!
When I speak at biz workshops, I preach the importance of identifying these fixed mindset statements so that we can begin to reframe them into beliefs that better serve us.
So how do you break free?!
One thing that we should all strive for is to be better versions of ourselves. Staying stuck in a fixed mindset won’t allow it. Doing things the way you’ve always done it is a surefire way to hinder your progress.
The way to opt out of this mindset is to develop a growth mindset. The first step to doing this is by identifying your fixed mindset beliefs. If you feel like you’re stuck in a certain area in life, ask yourself what’s stopping your progression in this area? What stories are you telling yourself?
When I practice this exercise with members of my workshops, we’ll often discover women holding themselves back because they tell themselves a story like “I can’t move forward in my career bc I now have children” or “I can’t take on that caliber of a client bc I don’t have enough experience in my field” or “I can’t charge that rate bc I don’t know if my product/service is good enough to charge that” or “I can’t possibly have a great career, family life and maintain my well-being”.
You see in all of these examples, these are stories we tell ourselves. It’s important to label them as ‘stories’ bc in every one of these instances (and several others), there’s almost always someone who is doing just what we tell ourselves we can’t. Therefore, if it’s possible for that person, it’s also possible for you.
Once we realize the possibility of the fixed belief, we then need to reframe that belief. Ex: Instead of thinking “I can’t possibly have a great career, family life and maintain my well-being”, we flip it to “How would it look to have a great career, family life and maintain my well-being?”
With this simple flip, we now open ourselves up to the possibility. Our powerful, creative part of our brain will start to search for ways to make this possible, showing us examples on the internet, social, in magazines, books etc. It’s like the red-car (or blue car) phenomenon, where you focus on thinking about a red car, and then when you go out into the world, you start to notice red cars everywhere. There’s not an influx of red cars, they’ve always been there. Only now, you’ve intentionally asked your brain to be receptive of them, so you notice them. This works the same way for any other aspect of your life. When you become intentional in co-creating your reality, the world becomes such a wonderful and magical place.
Small disclaimer here, bc I’m not the girl to go all rainbows and butterflies on you without dropping some truth. This mentality flip isn’t a one and done magic trick. It’s called a practice or exercise for a reason. If you’ve been living with a fixed mindset for a while, it will take time and repetition to break out of that mindset. It doesn’t happen overnight. But taking the first step towards awareness is always crucial, bc the more you notice your fixed beliefs showing up, the faster you can reframe them.
If you want to build your growth mindset muscle, I highly recommend starting with some grounding exercises – check out my other blog for more on those. These exercises will help you become more mindful of your thoughts, so you can begin to reframe them. And don’t forget to follow me on the Gram where I am spilling this type of content daily!
My mission is to empower you to up-level your consciousness, bc I know that this is how you truly start to live by design.
With so much love and blessings,
Sara
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