No matter what it is you’re are trying to achieve, having the right mindset half the battle to getting you closer to your goals.
From personal experience, I know I’m capable of achieving more than I thought possible when I’m not holding myself back with limiting beliefs and poor mindset. And today I’m sharing 4 mindset shifts that have helped changed my life and contributed to my success so far.
And to keep things real, these shifts have not become second nature to me yet. It’s more of a work in progress. However, I’m proud to say, I’m more self-aware now than before. When I default back to my old mindset, I can snap out of the old wiring much quicker.
Literally, I snap my fingers. Step to the side and say out loud, snap out of it. In doing this physical action, it somehow enables my mind to register what’s going on and shift gears to create and strengthen a better pathway to thinking.
Tony Robbins said:
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
So to do something different, you have to shift your mindset so that you can program yourself to change how you react.
1. You Can’t Control Everything
In the Midst of Chaos, There is also Opportunity – Sun-Tzu
As someone who likes to be in control (knowing quite well in life – we can only control what we do and how we choose to react to the external forces that we don’t have power over) has definitely been a work-in-progress for me.
The times when an unfavorable situation arises, it still affects me. When this happens, I allow myself to go through the emotions of feeling frustrated and disappointed. However, what has changed is that I’m more self-aware and able to shift my perspective. I’m able to reframe the obstacle as a plot twist with an opportunity or, see it as an experience to learn and grow. This has helped me to be more resilient and hopeful in feeling I’m able to turn the situation around.
As such, it shortens the recovery rate from dwelling in the low-energy phase to feeling there will be a way to solve a problem much faster. As a result, you’re more apt to want to move towards getting down to business rather than getting down on yourself or on the circumstances.
How you interpret a situation and how you choose to view setbacks, will ultimately affect the way you feel, which can contribute heavily to the final outcome of the situation. So choose wisely, from a place that will empower you. This can really up your odds of turning things back on track in your favor.
2. You Don’t Have to be Perfect to Make Progress
This is crucial to keep you moving forward when you’re feeling stuck and not getting started on anything because you’re afraid you won’t like the end result.
It’s okay to not get something right the first time. Give your permission to suck when you’re kicking off doing something new and learning how to do it. Know that whatever you put out there is not final and not set in stone.
You have the ability to make changes as you go and incrementally improve things over time. This shift in mindset will help liberate you from the perfectionism that is holding you back.
I know… I know… You may be afraid of making mistakes, getting things wrong, screwing up, or thinking you want to just do things right the first time. Well, the thing I’ve learned is the cost of trying to do things right the first time around, sometimes is more costly than just taking a step and learn as you go.
Think of it as just taking one teeny step towards your bigger goal i.e. building your website. You don’t need to get everything right (i.e. the color scheme, fonts or you’re setting up your page) the first time.
However, you do need to know what are important content elements to include on your website, i.e your demos, your contact information, etc. Gather enough information to know what things serve as important building blocks to your overall goals vs. getting caught up with minute details.
So here’s an exercise: Imagine you’re a pseudoscientist. Get a general understanding of what’s required and then break down the process and focus on the components of what you need to do now. Tackle the steps within that phase. For each step look at things as experimentation. If things need adjusting later, then re-adjust it. You don’t need to see the whole staircase.
The beauty of imperfect action is it keeps you moving one little step at a time. And even if you move forward and there’s a setback, you’ve learned something. Your effort is not all wasted.
So aim for progress and not perfection. Tweak and optimize as you go. And slowly you’ll find yourself moving away from the decision fatigue, procrastination phase to the top of the staircase where you’ve achieved your goal.
3. No Inches You Closer to a Yes
As Tony Robbin said: Focus on where you want to go, not what you fear
Instead of letting your fear of no’s paralyze you in asking for help or asking if someone may need your services or get you down whenever you get a rejection from an audition, think of it as it’s getting you closer to what you want. To a yes.
Your mission is to numb your mind from caring about what others think. So long as you made your best effort and are authentically showing up as yourself in alignment with your values, that’s all that matters.
Half the time when people say no, it’s not about you anyway. Sure people may be thinking about you at that moment, but once that moment passes, they’ll be on to the next. Everyone is busy doing their own thing, making the best of their time with whatever is pressing and important in their lives.
And hey! what doesn’t kill you, will you make you stronger. When you look back and connect the dots, you’ll realize you dodged some bullets and along the journey, you also grew a thicker skin and learned a few lessons or two that shaped you into becoming a better version of you.
4. Time is Money
There are two types of currencies in life. Money and Time. Both can be spent and invested.
Know the Difference.
When you spend money where it creates a potential for return. You’re investing it. The money is not just gone, rather you’re taking your money and making it grow.
With time, it’s also true. You can take your time and waste it on things you’re not good at. Doing things that takes you a long time to do and drains you, affecting your ability to grow your income, or, investing your time doing things that fuel you, where your time can create growth in your wealth and well-being.
At the end of the day, we all have only 24hrs in a day to find work and create opportunities.
Get clear on the difference between investing and spending. Learn and decide what you are willing and able to trade your money and time for.
From a voiceover standpoint, there are things that you need to spend money on, i.e. training, marketing, demo. Having this makes you more bookable, which allows you to grow your money.
So think of it as anything you spend money on, if it helps your business grow or increases your freedom of how you spend your time, with whom, and what you do that’s aligned with your values and purpose, it’s an investment.
Now I know, some of you are thinking, I’m still trying to make ends meet. I get it. I’m not telling you to spend all your money on everything that’s worth investing all at once.
You have to decide what are your priorities, where you are in your voiceover journey and, in other areas of life.
Within voiceover, if you need training, allocate whatever you can afford to train. If it’s time to make a demo, start saving and allocate it to that. When you find yourself ready to get out there and audition, you may also want to think about allotting some money towards marketing.
The fact is how and where you decide to spend and invest your money will evolve and change as you grow and what’s going on in your life. Thus, learn the difference between investing and spending because it matters. And only you can take a pulse check of what’s going on in your life to decide what makes sense for you.
So, which of these mindset shifts do you think will help change your life for the better?
Photo by: Lesly Juarez and Werner Sevenster
