Episode #3: Part 1: How to get your mind to work FOR you (rather than against you)
In this episode I share EXACTLY how to get your mind to start working for you, rather than against you.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
- How working Mums have a desire to evolve and to contribute in a meaningful way, not only at home with your kids but also in the work that you do
- What holds you back and keeps you from achieving what you truly want - your mindset (“you are the one that want to make a change, but you are also your own biggest obstacles”)
- I share my personal experience on how I was able to transform mindset (from crippling self-doubt, perfectionism and anxiety) to feeling so much more confident and content, by learning the skill of how to manage my mindset
- What you need to do when your mind is working against you
- The reasons behind WHY your mind often works against you
- Practical strategies on what you need to do when your mind is working against you, to make it work FOR you instead
Subscribe to this podcast here for more insights and proven strategies so you can learn exactly how to create a career that you love WHILST being an amazing and present Mum to your kids.
Subscribe on:
____________________________________________
Schedule your FREE Mini Coaching Session: https://calendly.com/loren-finger/30min
Contact Loren: podcast@lorenfinger.com
TLC for Working Mums - www.tlcforworkingmums.com
Follow your host Loren on Instagram - @lorenfingerofficial
Grab your FREE Career Change Starter Kit: www.tlcforworkingmums.com/kit
TLC for Working Mums Episode 3 - Full Transcript
Welcome to TLC for Working Mums podcast, a.k.a. The Life Coach for Working Mums. This podcast gives you the skills, proven strategies, and practical tips so you can confidently create a thriving career whilst being an amazing and present Mum to your kids. Whether you're a working Mum that wants to change careers, advance in your current career, or just become the best version of yourself, you've come to the right place.
I'm your host Loren, a certified life and career coach for Mums. I've worked in corporate, not for profit, and as an entrepreneur as a working Mum, and have learned that the secret to success and happiness lies in how well you can manage your mindset. I believe all Mums need TLC, so if you want to create a career that you love whilst showing up as the Mum you've always wanted to be, let's go!
Hi, my amazing working Mums and welcome to another episode of TLC for working Mums podcast I'm the life coach for working Mums, Lauren And today we are going to talk all about how to get your mind to work for you rather than against you if you're anything like me as a working Mum, you're likely someone that's A high achiever.
You want to grow and evolve and contribute to this world in a meaningful way. You want to be an amazing Mum to your kids. Unfortunately, you might also be quite hard on yourself, like I used to be. Really critical towards yourself. Perhaps you're a perfectionist and a people pleaser. Those used to be two of my main traits, for sure.
You might also doubt yourself and your abilities, especially when it comes to work and your career. You might often question whether you're good enough to do something, whether it be at work or if you want to change jobs or your career path. Our minds serve us in so many ways, but they also hold us back.
There's a saying that we are our own worst enemies. I'm sure you've said it many times. And we are often our own biggest obstacles. And it's because our mind sometimes works against us. There's a quote that I often say: we are the ones that want to make a change, but we are also our own biggest obstacles.
And it's because of our minds. We unconsciously think and believe many things that don't serve our highest potential, that don't move us forward, that keep us stuck. And often we're not even aware that we are thinking these things and they are showing up in our lives and making us feel so insecure and so much self doubt that we don't take the action we really want to take and that will serve our highest potential to help us achieve the results that we want to in our lives.
So in today's episode, I want to share five really valuable insights that I've learned over the years working in the personal and professional development space and as a certified coach. And of course, as a working Mum that has really helped me manage my mind in a way that works for me rather than against me.
My hope is that these insights will resonate with you as much as they did for me, because they changed the way I thought about myself and how you think, And what you make it mean about who you are as a person and as a motivated career go getter and as a Mum is everything so Here's a value pack summary to to understand a bit more about how I mind and how the human brain works and of course, I am not a psychiatrist or anything like that, but these are just Insights that i've gathered that have really helped me Uh, understand more about the mind, understand why we think the way we do, because then I understand that I am not alone and I, my brain is just a human brain functioning as a human brain.
Nothing has gone wrong. Okay. So our minds are truly exceptional. Think about this, every single thing that's man made in this world, if you look out there. was created and started from a thought in someone's mind. Can you believe that? When I heard this, my brain kind of exploded. Every single person's mind is so unique and different as well.
But there are some similarities that we all have in the way it functions. And as I mentioned in the last episode, and if you haven't listened to it yet, I highly recommend you do because these episodes build on one another. But as a quick recap, part of what I said in the previous episode was that circumstances happen in the world that we can't control.
These are things that happen outside of us. They are other people, they are the past, they are factual events that occur. Circumstances are completely neutral until we have a thought about them. And your thoughts are where you make meaning of your circumstances. They are the story you tell yourself about the circumstances.
They are not facts. And most of us believe we are our thoughts. And our thoughts are our facts. I hear so many of you saying that, I've always been a perfectionist. I can't do this. I'm not good enough. It's too much for me. You're saying these things as though they're facts about your, your abilities.
As I said, like you're conveying the news. These are not facts. These are thoughts. And you can't control your circumstances, but you can control your thinking about those circumstances. You can choose what to think about any circumstance. And most people think that it's the circumstance of your life that's creating your experience in the world, but really it's your thinking about those circumstances that is creating your experience in the world.
Most of us believe that we are our thoughts. We believe that what we think about ourselves is who we are, but it's not. I remember when I started doing this work, I would wake up in the morning, So much more aware of how my impact, my thinking impacted my life experience. And I would be so surprised with how many negative anxiety producing thoughts my mind was still offering up to me.
And at first, of course, I would beat myself up for having negative thoughts. I wanted to be an A plus student in managing my mindset. I wanted to know how to master my mindset immediately. Of course, this would just compound the negativity I was experiencing and thinking about myself. But when I learned more about the human brain and how we think, it really helped me understand my own mind.
So the first thing to know is this. In 2005, the National Science Foundation published a study That shows that us humans think around 60, 000 thoughts a day. Can you believe that? 60, 000 thoughts. They've also discovered that 95 percent of those thoughts are the same thoughts that we had the day before.
We are habitual creatures. And guess what? 80 percent of those thoughts are negative. So that's why my brain offers up so many negative thoughts. Us Mums often think that that must be something wrong with us. But I'm here to tell you that it's not. You are a human with a human brain. That is why you think negative thoughts.
It is not you. It's your brain. And us humans have a negativity bias. It's just the way that we were created. And this is great, or this was great, during our caveman days, where any wrong move would mean certain death. Should we leave the cave? No, probably not. We would be eaten by, say, the toothed tiger.
Today, however, this negativity bias still exists in our human brain, despite our surroundings being vastly different. Human biology hasn't caught up with this exponential technological advancements that have occurred in this world and therefore our brain still constantly reverts to negative, to thinking negative thoughts above positive ones at every opportunity.
Just understanding that us humans have a negativity bias and so my human brain will naturally steer itself towards negative thoughts has helped me immensely. So when I wake up thinking negative thoughts or I'm in a negative thought loop about something and I catch myself in it, I'm compassionate with myself rather than beating myself up.
I don't make it mean something terrible about myself. In fact, I just think my brain is functioning as a human brain. It is doing its job. The next insight that helped me a lot is this. Your brain is constantly scanning for evidence to prove itself correct. It's constantly looking out to the world and scanning its environment for evidence to reinforce the thoughts it offers up.
So if you're thinking something like, I don't have the right experience to change careers, Your brain is going to search for evidence to support that thought. So you'll look at job descriptions and all you'll see is what experience you don't have. And you'll be at your current work and something will happen which will reinforce your belief that you won't be able to change careers.
You don't know enough in this career let alone another one. However, as I said before, I don't have the right experience to change careers. It's just a thought. It's not a fact. And it's an optional thought, an optional sentence in your brain. So why use your energy and have your brain focus on that unhelpful thought and collect evidence to support that unhelpful thought?
There is no upside. You don't need permission to believe in yourself, to think positive thoughts about yourself. You just need to choose thoughts that will better serve you. Your brain doesn't really care what it's thinking about, but it will go to work reinforcing what you are thinking about. So you may as well think about something that benefits you and that will help move you forward.
As I said, you don't need permission to think better thoughts about yourself. And if you think you need permission, I hereby give you permission to start thinking better thoughts about yourself. And inevitably, the negative ones are going to come up, but you can offer it some more positive thoughts that will help move you forward.
The next insight is this. Our brain is an efficiency machine. One of its main jobs is to conserve energy, and that's why it loves delegating things to autopilot. As I mentioned, 95 percent of our thoughts are unconscious. They're thoughts that we thought yesterday, and this is super helpful in some ways.
For example, we don't really have to think about bending our knees as we go from sitting to standing. We don't really have to think about brushing our teeth. But what's happened is that we've also delegated a lot of negative thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and about the world to autopilot as well.
And if you think of your brain as a ski slope, you have gone down one run. For years and years and years and the grooves are deep but there is hope because there is something called neuroplasticity Which basically means that we can change the neural pathways in our brain. When we learn something, it creates a very weak neural pathway.
And if we repeat it or add a significant amount of emotion to it, it becomes more and more unconscious and effortless. And sure, this sounds fancy, but it basically just means that we can consciously and deliberately start practising thoughts and beliefs that serve us better. And with practice and repetition, those thoughts and beliefs can become our default.
In other words, we need to start thinking on purpose, with intention, if we want to go against our primitive brain that is thinking negative thoughts all the time. So, what do you want to think and believe about yourself and your abilities as a working Mum? Do you want to forever just think that you're not good enough? That you're not worthy? Because I guarantee you that those thoughts are making you feel doubt. Insecurity, fear, and from that place, you're not doing the things you want to do, you're not showing up as a confident and capable career go-getter and amazing Mum that you know you're capable of being. If you want to show up as that confident, empowered, and determined working Mum that's killing it in their career and as a Mum, you need to start thinking thoughts that will help you generate those feelings.
Believe me, negativity, anxiety producing, and self loathing thoughts dominated the skilly slope that was my brain until I learnt this work. And I was coached a lot and then became a certified coach. Because if you don't tell your brain what to focus on or what to think about, it's going to go back to its old patterns.
The brain loves to do what it's really good at. And what it's really good at is stuff that it's done before and done a lot of. And unfortunately, if you're anything like me, For many of us working Mums, that is a lot of negative and anxiety producing thinking. I know this stuff works because my thoughts and beliefs about myself as an entrepreneur and as a working Mum, I was able to change from crippling self doubt, Mum guilt, overwhelm and anxiety to believing and feeling self confidence, clarity and contentment. And sure, my brain still loves to offer up negative and anxiety producing thoughts. But because I've learnt to be the watcher of my mind, to see that it is going down that negative thought spiral, and then to be compassionate that my brain is functioning as a normal human brain because it is thinking negative thoughts.
And that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. And then, learning the skill of redirecting those negative thoughts to ones that better serve me, I've been able to create the most spectacular results in my life. An amazing close knit family, a great relationship with my husband, a thriving business of my own, a confidence that I know and wholeheartedly believe that I'm an amazing and present Mum to my kids.
Managing your mind and deciding what you want to think. is the secret to living a happy life. And that is how you can make your mind work for you, rather than against you. So, just to recap, we think 60, 000 thoughts a day, 95 percent of those thoughts are unconscious, and they're the thoughts that we thought yesterday, and 80 percent of them are negative.
Us humans have a negativity bias, so we're going to naturally divert our thinking to negative thoughts. And your brain is constantly scanning for evidence to prove itself correct. It doesn't care what it's thinking, but whatever it thinks, whatever you offer up, it's going to look out in the world to find evidence for it.
Next, our brain is an efficiency machine. It loves to conserve energy. It loves to create habits, delegate things onto autopilot, and it's just done that with your negative thinking as well. And then we have something called neuroplasticity, which means that we can change the neural pathways in our brain.
If we consciously and deliberately start practising thoughts and beliefs that better serve us, with practice and repetition, those thoughts and beliefs can become our default. And I am testament to it, and so are many of my amazing clients. So, managing your mind and deciding what you want to think is the secret to having a happy life, I promise you.
These are the ways that we can start making our mind think for us, rather than against us, so we can really live in to our highest potential. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and I can't wait to speak to you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to another episode of TLC for Working Mums.
If you haven't already, I would be so grateful if you subscribed to this podcast. And of course, if you loved this episode, please also share it with a fellow working Mum. All working Mums need TLC in their life. And I'd love to hear from you. So if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to talk about on the podcast, please email me at podcast@lorenfinger.com. And if you want to hear more about my one on one exclusive coaching and programs specifically designed for working Mums like you head over to www.tlcforworkingmums.com. I truly hope this podcast helps you create an incredible working Mum mindset so you can build a thriving career whilst being an amazing and present Mum to your kids.
