[00:00:00] Christine: . Do you ever find yourself thinking, I could never do that. That’s not something I’m naturally good at. That’s not my school set. That’s not possible for me. I’m not smart enough, talented enough, whatever the thing is. All of those thoughts are normal and they all come from a. or a perception of what is and is not possible for us and what we believe we are capable of achieving.

[00:00:31] Did you catch that? It’s just a belief, but it’s a belief that can dramatically influence how we live our lives. The beliefs and mindsets that we hold can help us achieve our biggest goals and dreams. or they can keep us stuck and afraid to take. The good news is that we have the power to change our thoughts, our beliefs, and our mindsets.

[00:00:58] So today we are talking about an extremely powerful mindset that can dramatically influence your success in life. Yep. Today we are diving into the power of a growth mindset. What it is, what the research tells us about this mindset, how it can boost our productivity and help us achieve our biggest goals and dreams.

[00:01:24] And no podcast episode would be complete without a few tips to help you begin to adopt a growth mindset today. So what do you say? Let’s dive into the show.

[00:02:28] Friend, you are more than a milspouse, but do you ever find yourself wondering what that more really is? You know, you wanna do something other than just hold down the home front. You want something of your own, your own purpose, the thing that you can pour yourself into, but. You might be getting held up on what that actually is or how to actually start to chase your dreams in the midst of the craziness of military life.

[00:02:59] Friend, if that is you, I am here to help. If you are tired of throwing spaghetti at a wild, trying to figure out how to live with more meaning and less over. on your own, then it’s time to book a complimentary unstuck session with me. In this session, you will get the clarity you need to take back control of your life and begin reclaiming your life and dreams.

[00:03:24] We’re going to unpack where it is that you’re actually getting stuck, and help you get crystal clear on what your next action step needs to be so that you can stop feeling frustrated and unfulfilled, and finally find a way to chase your. So you can trade that frustration for fulfillment and that isolation for a life of impact.

[00:03:46] Designing a life you love and creating a purpose fueled business is possible for you as a military spouse. And if you need help. I’m here to make that happen. The first step is just to book that unstuck session. Go to milspouse mastermind.com/unstuck to book your free session today. Now, I don’t know about you, but I kind of grew up learning that we all had.

[00:04:14] A set of skills and abilities and an iq and there were some things that you were just naturally gifted at and some things that you worked, and so you just needed to accept what was and do the best with what you have. . But here’s the problem with this thinking. We, because of this, we tend to put a ceiling on what we believe is possible for us.

[00:04:41] We become the thing that actually holds us back. Because what holds us back is our belief about what we’re capable. About three or four years ago, I knew very little about this concept of mindset and our thought life and how our brain and our mind actually operate in our ability to influence our success and our behavior.

[00:05:09] But I stumbled across the book Mindset, the New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol Dweck. And she says, the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. I’ll say that again. The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. And as I read this book, it was truly eye-opening for me because I realized how much that, even though I loved learning.

[00:05:46] I had developed this mindset that was holding me back, and that was affecting the choices that I made. It was affecting how I viewed myself and what my ambitions in life really were. And as I dug into this, I began to shift. My mindset and my world changed, and this is the concept that I want to introduce to you today because I truly believe that adopt.

[00:06:14] a growth mindset will transform your life, and that’s specifically what this book mindset is about. It’s about a growth mindset. Dr. Dweck is professor of psychology and she began to explore the power of people’s beliefs and what the impact of that thinking. On their intelligence and their personality and study after study that they did found that what they believed about themselves, impacted how they performed.

[00:06:50] Every single outcome was the same. Those that were told prior to the event that their intelligence and personality could be developed. Outperformed those who believed that their intelligence and personality were fixed. The belief was the key because it changed the meaning of effort. in a fixed mindset, you can say effort is the key to success, but your mind is telling you a different story.

[00:07:23] It’s telling you that success is about being more gifted. That. Is for those who can’t make it or don’t have the talent. Whereas in a growth mindset effort really is seen as the key to success because while we all may differ in talent, in interests, in aptitudes, in life experiences, all of us has the ability to change and grow through application and experience.

[00:07:54] So if we put in the effort, it really does help us. So in a nutshell, a growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things that you can cultivate through effort, strategies, and help from others. It means that you embrace challenges, you persist in the face of setbacks, and you take responsibility for your words and your actions in a growth mindset.

[00:08:28] Is found in doing one’s best in learning and improving. So yes, we are all going to try and when we try, there’s going to be times where we fail, but it’s not the failure that defines you. It’s an opportunity to learn from and grow through. A growth mindset is not about trying to prove so. It’s about continually trying to improve a fixed mindset, on the other hand, sees what happens, the results as a direct measure of their competence and worth.

[00:09:06] So let’s take the example of learning to draw. We can either have a fixed mindset, especially as an adult, toward drawing and say, that’s not a skill I possess. I was not gifted. I am not talented. I am not an artist. Or we can look at drawing from a growth mindset and say, there are different components, different skills.

[00:09:35] Great artist possess. And all of those skills are things that can be learned through time and effort and education and experience. And if I want to know whether I am a good artist, I need to practice, I need to actually learn these skills. And yes, they’re probably going to be people who simply pick, pick up these skills a little bit.

[00:10:02] And some of us are going to have to work harder to learn them, to put those skills together, but I have the ability to learn those skills and to put them into practice just because somebody can do something a little bit easier than me. Doesn’t mean that I cannot do this thing. A growth mindset looks at every challenge as an opportunity to grow and to develop as a person.

[00:10:31] So it’s not just about having the skill or not having the skill, it’s not about being talented or not being talented because like I said, all of us have different life experiences and some of us are. Naturally gifted in a particular area than others, but it doesn’t mean that doing the thing isn’t possible for us.

[00:10:51] We have the ability to learn and to grow. And as Dr. Dweck found a in study after study, the people that believed that they could improve, that they were capable of learning material, of doing something new, outperform. Everyone that was told their ability and their talent was fixed. I am so thankful that this message, that this idea of a growth mindset is becoming more recognized and.

[00:11:23] even taught in some schools because I think it’s so important for kids to begin to adopt this mindset and to recognize, yes, they may not have the resources that other people have had. They may not have the skills or natural abilities, but it is possible to grow and improve and become. And when somebody.

[00:11:46] In you that believes you’re capable and you begin to adopt that belief, that is where true change, true transformation, true success really happens. I have a list of mantras that I remind myself of often, and one of those is the fact that every expert was once a beginner. So even when I start to compare myself and I feel like I’m not as gifted or talented as someone else in a certain area, I remind myself that every expert was once a beginner, and we all have the ability to grow and to develop these.

[00:12:25] And just as I think it is important for children to begin to adopt this growth mindset and to believe that they are capable of achieving great things, I think it is just as important for us as military spouses, especially when we are trying to. Chase a dream when we are trying to do something outside of the box, when we are trying to start a business or do something that we have never done before and it can feel overwhelming, it can feel exhausting.

[00:12:54] We can feel like we are so far behind other people that we want to give up, but the choices ares of whether we’re going to believe it is possible for us, and it all comes back to that level of belief of the thoughts that are in our. So it would not be a milspouse mastermind show podcast without me giving you some practical tips because it’s not just about the theory of growth mindset is great, you should have one.

[00:13:24] But how do we actually begin to develop a growth mindset in our lives? So I have seven quick tips for you today just to encourage. And help you cultivate a growth mindset. Number one is to acknowledge imperfections. We are all imperfect people. We all mess up. We all make mistakes. That is part of the human experience.

[00:13:49] That is part of who we are as human beings, and so if we’re trying to hold ourself to an impossible standard, that we’re just going to feel frustrated. I say this as a recover. Perfectionist who wants to achieve great things, but has to always remind myself that what matters is that I’m showing up, not that it’s done perfectly.

[00:14:09] So number one, acknowledge imperfections. Number two, reframe obstacles as opportunities. Every challenge is an opportunity to grow if we will embrace it. And a lot of things happen that we don’t love, that feel frustrating, that feel difficult, but we. Reframe obstacles as opportunities and grow through them.

[00:14:34] Number three is to step into your authenticity. So often we look to what others are doing. We try to emulate or try to act in a way that others are acting because we think that is the key to how we should be showing up. That is the key to success and truly, you are going to have the most growth and the most success if you can truly step.

[00:15:01] Being yourself in showing up as your full and authentic self. You have something valuable to offer the world and, and the one thing that you can absolutely give that no one else can give is yourself. You have a unique perspective, a unique way of seeing the world, a unique way of showing up, a unique way of serving.

[00:15:23] And when you can fully step into being your authentic self without trying to change yourself because you. People wanna see you act a certain way, then you are truly going to set yourself up for the ability to grow and to succeed in life. B U number four is to practice what I’m calling mind management.

[00:15:47] Practice mind management. This is being mindful of your thoughts and your feelings and really taking time on a regular basis to understand what it is that you’re thinking because it’s so easy for us to fall back into the thought patterns that we’ve had for so many years of our life and those. The natural thought patterns to us, and if we want to be able to shift our thinking, shift the way that we look at life, we have to be intentional and recognize when we’re having those thought patterns that aren’t serving us.

[00:16:23] And to be able to reframe those thoughts and say what is possible for me and for the. The fifth tip is to focus on what is possible, and I particularly love affirmations, visualizations for this. Anything that is reminding me of what truly matters, whether that’s having some Bible verses that you look at every day, whether it’s having some mantras that you repeat yourself.

[00:16:51] Whatever it is you need something that reminds you on a regular basis of what is true, of what your. Needs to be focus on what is possible for you and for your future. This practice has truly evolved for me over the last several years and what is working for me right now. And obviously that could change again as I continually try new practices to figure out what is working.

[00:17:19] But this is what’s working for me right now is. Have a list of affirmations in the notes app on my phone so that I can pull that up every morning and just read through those affirmations as I am starting my day to get me in that mind frame of focusing on. What is possible, what I want to achieve and why that matters.

[00:17:42] So focus on what is possible. Number six, embrace the journey. There’s going to be ups and downs on this journey of life. We’re going to get frustrated. We’re going to fail. We’re going to have seasons where we don’t wanna get back up. But if we are truly embracing and cultivating a growth mindset, we’re going to underst.

[00:18:02] that this is a journey of life and to truly enjoy and embrace the journey it’s going to take commitment. It’s going to take persistence and a willingness to get back up when we feel frustrated and when we feel like we are not moving at the speed that we wanna move at or achieving the things that we wanna achieve, because it’s really about embracing the journey that we’re.

[00:18:28] And then number seven, figure out and understand what triggers your fixed mindset. What events or situations take us to this place of judgment versus development? The interesting thing is that all of us have elements of growth mindsets and fixed mindsets inside of us, and so it’s important for us to be able to understand.

[00:18:50] When our fixed mindset is triggered, and I think that understanding that everyone has some fixed mindset in them can give us more compassion for people and help us to react not from this place of trying to punish someone else or write them off for not being. Showing up the way we want them to show up or having the skills we want them to have, but to rather to embrace the fact that they are at the place they are because of all of these factors that, uh, went into how they view themselves and the world.

[00:19:27] And we can choose to write them off to react from a place of. Or to help them find the conditions under which they can thrive. Because all of us have a journey to take and all of us have the ability to grow and transform beyond where we are today. And beyond the programming and life experiences we have received.

[00:19:52] Some of us have been very privileged and some of us have been, have spent our entire life being told that we were. enough and that we were not worth anything. And it can take a lot to reprogram those thoughts and beliefs, but the more that we understand that this is a journey, and the more that we see that some people have a long ways to go on this journey, the more grace and compassion we can have for ourselves and for others.

[00:20:24] So just to quickly recap these tips, Number one is to acknowledge our imperfections. Number two is to reframe obstacles as opportunities. Number three is to step into our authenticity. Number four is to practice mind management. Number five is to focus on what’s possible. Number six is to embrace the journey, and number seven is to understand what triggers our fixed mindset.

[00:21:00] It is possible to grow. It is possible to change. And believing that and stepping into that belief will absolutely transform your life, will transform your productivity, and will help you be more, do more, achieve more, and experience success in our life and in chasing. Our dreams. Is this going to solve all of our problems?

[00:21:24] No, but it will give us a richer, more fulfilling life. It will make us feel more alive, courageous, and open friend. When we change our mindset, when we change our beliefs and our thoughts about what we are capable of. It changes how we show up, the actions we take and what’s possible for us and for our.

[00:21:49] When we change our mindset, we change our performance and our life, and that’s what I want you to take with you this week as you go about your week, as you try to chase those dreams, as you get clarity on who you are and what you want with your life as you design a life with purpose and actually build that business or pursue that.

[00:22:13] All right, friends, thank you so much for listening, for being a part of this community, for sharing with others about the MilSpouse Mastermind show, for giving me your feedback, letting me know what you wanna hear, what you want us to talk about, how I can help you grow and thrive as a military spouse, how I can help you pursue those dreams.

[00:22:34] I love hearing from. I love helping you experience breakthroughs, and if you are in this place where you are feeling stuck and you need that help, knowing what your next step needs to be, how you begin to craft a life with purpose, then please go take advantage of one of those limited free unstuck sessions.

[00:22:57] Those are available at milspouse mastermind.com slash unstuck. Until next time, may you. Filled, fueled, and full of joy.