Do you need a mindset coach? These might be a sign that you do
Your mindset is one of the most basic and fundamental dictators on how we show up in our lives. It’s so basic that most of us, unless you are deep into personal development spaces, might not even have a clear idea of what mindset really is.
But we all observe that people who have “good,” effective or helpful mindsets seem to be more fulfilled and successful and those with “bad,” destructive or inconsistent mindsets seem to struggle. Does a good mindset directly lead to being fulfilled and/or successful? Can you be successful with a bad mindset? What about fulfilled?
In my experience, I tend to believe that you can have moments of fulfillment and success even with an unhelpful or inconsistent mindset but it’s usually fleeting and doesn’t last. The people who I observe to have long term success and sustainable fulfillment in their lives - basically where they seem to be satisfied with themselves and their life the majority of the time (because nobody has a life without some challenge and struggle) - those people tend to have pretty solid mindsets.
A solid, effective and helpful mindset generally looks like:
Is able to manage their own thoughts - isn’t completely at the whim of their thinking mind, can spot when things are devolving and re-orient course
Resilience - they are not bowled over when something goes wrong and has tools to get themselves back into action within a reasonable time frame
Ability to shift perspectives - they know that sometimes their initial take on a situation is not the only one and are able to explore multiple different ways they could think about a situation or experience and make a conscious choice which one they’d like to use
A sense of trust and/or belief (for some people this is related to faith, but you absolutely do not need to be religious or have spiritual beliefs to have this) - they are comfortable with the fact that there are forces at play that they will never fully understand or control and this is not alarming, rather it’s comforting
It’s easy to see how these traits and behaviors can lead to being willing to work harder before you’ve seen results, be able to form deeper and more trusting relationships, accomplish more in harder circumstances and feel more present and grateful regardless of what’s going on in life. So it makes sense why mindset is the key to shifting many of the patterns when we are not seeing the results we want in life.
And yet, when we are struggling with relationships, clarity over our career path, feeling stuck in scarcity when it comes to money, self-doubt, body insecurity and any other host of frustrating patterns that are affecting our ability to feel fulfilled and successful, we turn to physical, tactical things like: updating our dating profile, networking, cancelling subscriptions to save money, buying new clothes, going to the gym more… you get the idea.
We are trying to fix how we feel and yet we’re not addressing the fundamental system that’s affecting how we feel. Meanwhile what we all really want is to enjoy the experience of being in our own mind, right?!
So how do you get to an effective helpful mindset?
This is something you can absolutely do on your own - there are thousands of books and podcasts, tons of resources, free content from people like me and so much more that you can seek out and sort through, figuring out what you’d like to implement and what won’t work for you and begin the process of making these shifts.
But for many people, they’ve already been trying this. Or the idea of sorting through it all on your own gets overwhelming. And then they start to wonder if a resource like a coach might be a good fit for them. So today, I want to give you some tips on how you can know if working with a mindset coach is something you’d benefit from…
How to know if working with a mindset coach is right for you
1. You see how patterns are showing up in multiple areas of your life
When things get quiet in a text conversation in the early periods of dating, if you get anxious assuming that he’s completely lost interest and you’re never going to hear from him again AND when things aren’t busy at work, if you get anxious worried that you should be busier and your boss is probably not giving you assignments because she’s going to need to talk to you about your flailing performance first, we have a deeper pattern here.
Some other common ways I see a mindset issue popping up in multiple areas of client’s lives:
Feeling like even if they’re making a good salary that they always need to be worried about being “responsible” so that the money doesn’t run out AND considering whether their standards are too high in dating and they should “take what they can get” (both of these are related to a scarcity pattern and the client is trying to keep themselves safe to an unhelpful degree)
Afraid to ask for feedback at work and constantly seeking reassurance that they’re doing a good job AND not speaking up for themselves in their friendships because they don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings or face the pushback that might come from difficult conversations (both of these are related to people pleasing and caring what other people thing and the client is trying to manufacture a world where they never have to deal with someone having a negative opinion of them)
Constantly starting new projects or wellness habits and abandoning them shortly after, leaving them feeling like they are lazy and never follow through AND having a series of first and maybe second dates but rarely making it past a third date before they start to nitpick and find things that aren’t a good fit about the person they’re seeing (both of these are related to handling nuance and challenges and the client is often pulling the ripcord in situations early to avoid having to navigate the difficult emotions that come with intimacy, discipline and other ingredients that are actually required for the big things they want in life)
I could go on and on but if this applies to you, you can probably recognize some feelings that are crossing over in multiple areas of your life. When this happens there is always something deeper that is in the basic fabric of how you think and feel and approach situations.
The benefit of this is that when you’re inside of coaching, you don’t have to get stuck in one area of your life and you can test your skills and tools in multiple areas. This is especially beneficial because for most people, it will be easier in one are than others and you can apply what you’ve learned wherever it felt easier. I was a solid negotiator in my early 20s but it took until the last few years of my 20s to master speaking up for myself in my friendships and relationships (but the pattern was in both places)!
2. You find yourself overthinking and spiraling on worries often and can’t snap yourself out of it
One of the hardest part about managing our minds is that the most powerful tool you have to shift your mindset is also the thing that needs shifting. Human’s have the capability for what’s called “metacognition,” basically thinking about your thoughts, which is unlike the majority of other life on this planet (at least as far as we know). Our ability to notice our own thoughts and interact with them with some level of choice and agency is incredible.
But in order to make use of metacognition, there is an incredibly important step 0 which is the moment when you “pop out.” You can visualize it as a zoom out - the moment when you notice, “geez I’m kind of spiraling on this right now” or “wow, I feel like I’m being really negative.”
This skill is absolutely crucial to shifting your mindset because it’s the moment that you switch from the passenger seat to the driver seat of your own mind.
And it’s incredibly hard to do when we’re emotional.
If you are struggling with this, especially when your emotions get in play, it can be incredibly powerful to have a long-term, third party support system. The value of having somebody third party is they’re already “popped out” so they can help you see a different perspective or just reflect back the pattern of your own thoughts so you can start to see them as separate from you.
For all my ladies with anxiety and overthinking as the top of your to do list to work through, I will say from personal experience that having somebody get to know you and be able to nail down your patterns is a huge unlock. When my first coach was able to spot what tended to send me spiraling or reflect back to me how often my overthinking on a variety of topics always came back to me being worried that somebody would say I was being irresponsible, it gave me invaluable direction on what situations I needed to be especially on my guard to protect my peace and also a roadmap to the areas that I wanted to focus on deeper in my healing work to potentially eradicate the problem all together.
3. You feel like you never follow through on the “healthy habits” or patterns you’re trying to build
In Gretchen Rubin’s book “Better than Before,” she spends a lot of time diving into different categories of habit builders. I will not summarize them all here but I am an “Upholder” which basically means that I am really good at keeping commitments to other people but struggle more with keeping commitments to myself. I was mind blown because suddenly my love of accountability (it’s not really love because it often feels frustrating in the moment but does get my ass in gear!) and some deep down thoughts of “I never follow through” or even “I’m lazy” were connected.
If you feel like you often don’t follow through, you start things but don’t finish them, or you feel like you’ve tried to do a bunch of personal work on yourself but nothing’s changing and you are concerned that this might just be who you are, there’s a solid chance that you are an “Upholder” as well and here’s a major takeaway from this realization:
The fact that you haven’t accomplished something doesn’t mean that you’re not capable of it, it just might mean that you’re going about it the wrong way.
Our hyper-individual, “bootstrapping” obsessed culture likes to imply that if you need help to achieve something, it’s less impressive than having achieved something on your own. Needing help is weak (ummm… anybody sensing a slight patriarchal narrative in here?).
To which I ask you, which is smarter…
Henry Ford single handedly cutting out and welding parts together to make each and every car OR Henry Ford identifying crafts people who he could pay to help him get each car made faster and in turn, make and sell way more cars
Trying to move a couch all on your own, shoving in inch by inch down the hallway OR getting two friends to each take a side and move the whole thing in 2 minutes
Drafting an entire book, editing it yourself and then beginning to pitch to editors all on your own OR working with an experienced editor after the book proposal stage who can help you avoid common pitfalls that first time writers face in both drafting and the publishing process
We have to acknowledge that we are all not amazing at everything. There will always be parts of you that are ridiculously exceptional, special and cherished and the areas where your natural inclination is not as effective.
Every golfer has a weakest part of their game - driving, irons, chipping, putting. Every dancer has their weakest style. Every business person has an area of business they’re not strongest at.
Every person has certain behavior traits that don’t naturally come to them. It doesn’t mean you’re broken or flawed.
Because golfers hire swing coaches to help them tweak that one swing. Dancers go to classes to get more experience that style. Business people hire great people to support them, advise them or even take on the work entirely for them so that the area doesn’t hold back the business long term.
Unfortunately, you don’t have the option of delegating your mindset so the next best thing is for you to seek out support that will help you hold yourself accountable (and often, even just by hiring somebody the knowledge that they’re there and the money invested will do much of the work).
4. You usually assume the worst in a situation and find it hard to be vulnerable
If you feel like your natural inclination is to scan your world for danger and when you are analyzing what you think is going to happen tend to assume that a bad, if not the worst, outcome is probably the likeliest, this might be you.
If you identify as a “realist,” in the way where it’s safer to always be a glass half empty and not be disappointed than hope for the best and constantly get let down, this might be you.
If you generally think that most people let you down and you can only really count on yourself, this might be you.
Because whether you want to believe it or not, that mindset is the reason why you haven’t achieved what you want.
Assuming the worst and avoiding vulnerability is a sign that you are operating from fight-or-flight, constantly trying to keep yourself safe. But even right at this very moment, you understand that if you are lying on your deathbed, looking back on your life and said to yourself “I was safe,” you wouldn’t be satisfied.
Because success, accomplishment, true joy, love, deep relationships and so much more are not safe.
They require risk and vulnerability and loss. We will lose people we love, if not in a relationship ending then eventually in death. In order to fall deeply in love, you have to open up and share your heart with someone trusting that they will take care of it. In order to build a successful business or make an impact on the world, you will have to do something that is not a sure bet.
So when we are constantly searching for danger, in an attempt to keep ourselves safe, we actually steer ourselves away from the things we want in life because the things we want in life are a little dangerous.
How does this relate back to knowing whether or not you should work with a mindset coach?
This fear-based, scarcity mentality thinking pervades all parts of your life. So as we noted above, it will be most effective to tackle it in a context where you can touch on multiple areas of your life.
When you’ve been thinking this way for your whole life, popping out and noticing when you are in scarcity thinking can be difficult (but not impossible) without a third party to help you notice when these thoughts are at play. So as we noted above, having somebody to get to know your patterns and help you pop out in real time is hugely beneficial rather than going it alone.
And shifting your view of the world takes time. There will absolutely be moments where things get scary or when you’re in a highly emotional moment and your instinct will be to backslide into your prior view of the world and these are the moments where it’s the most important to push yourself to follow through.
Was I obvious enough that this last one hits on all three of the prior reasons? Well, now I bet I have been 🙂
So to wrap this up, here’s one final thing I want you to understand my friend…
Nobody HAS to hire a mindset coach.
It’s not a requirement and plenty of people have led fulfilling and successful lives without them. But I hope this has helped you understand the areas where a mindset coach can accelerate your path or help you avoid mistakes or learn things faster - adjustments that could lead to less frustration, exhaustion and self-doubt along the way.
And if you’ve read this and are interested in learning more about coaching, I keep a roster of coaches who I love to refer to. Reach out via Instagram DM and I’m happy to suggest one to you!