The Making of Your Mindset

I was at a social gathering recently and I was chatting with another woman. We were deep in conversation and she said, “Renee, you know, not everyone thinks like you do.” I responded, “Yes I know, but I wish they did” and I laughed. I was not kidding.??

My perspective has taken several years to refine. I believe we are all equal. I treat everyone I encounter as if they are my mom or a family member, which means I treat them with ultimate kindness and respect and am never quick to judge. This has taken time to refine, which all starts with the thoughts inside my head.??

I decided to share my journey with transforming my mindset because I wish I had learned about it earlier in life. Perhaps my experience will help others. The gains I’ve made within myself are remarkable. This is directly reflected in my quality of life and my happiness.?

After working at Target Corporation for seven years, I started my own company, TalentQ, in early 2015. I quickly realized even though I was a phenomenal recruiter, I knew nothing about running a business. I knew I needed help with this so I hired a business coach. My business coaches were multi-dimensional. They assisted me in two areas; the first was business strategy and the second was mindset. My coach’s philosophy was that whatever limitations existed in my mindset also carried over to limit my business. Yikes! That is deep.?

However, this prompted me to jump headfirst into learning about how the brain works and mindset strategies. Both require being open, sitting in curiosity, and tons of awareness.?At the beginning of working with my coaches, I learned that thoughts are things. Such as, if you are tuning into the radio to listen to music. The music is always in the room, but you can only hear it if your stereo is tuned into that specific station. Thoughts are the same, thoughts are unseen energy. When you think something, off to the universe it goes. Your thoughts become emotions you feel and those emotions turn into actions...but at the root of everything are beliefs we have.??

Some beliefs we hold true because it was part of our upbringing, how our parents raised us. Some beliefs are cultural, some environmental...as we become adults the good news is we get to weed through those beliefs and pick the ones we feel are true and leave the others behind. Now this is much easier said than done. I have had to rewire my beliefs numerous times. A great question to ask yourself when a belief pops up is “How true is that?” Most of the time when it comes down to it, the thought is not true.??

I could write a book on my mindset journey, however, I’ll give you the first step I took with my thoughts. I used to have 3,000 thoughts spinning around in my head at all times. Yes, I’m super type A+++. With my coach, I was trained to write down my negative thoughts that popped up. When I did this, I was able to recognize what I was saying to myself. For example, I would think, “I’m not good enough.” I wrote it down. Then I would ask myself, “How true is that?” and I would tell myself it’s not true. I am good enough. That’s how it all started. Writing down each negative thought and asking that one question, “How true is that?” repeatedly.??

Over time I added my own positive thoughts about myself and stuck a post-it note in my bathroom so I would see it every morning when I was getting ready for the day. It said, “I am amazing!” I would repeat that statement to myself daily. I kept reciting it until I believed it.?

If you practice these things, you’ll start to rewire those negative thoughts and they will dissipate. Now this doesn’t happen overnight, it probably took me over a year. Continuously being aware, writing my thoughts down and rewriting them. I am a work in progress. I continue to guard my thoughts with only positive self-talk about myself.?

I read countless books and listened to all the podcasts on this topic. My favorite book to this day is, The Science of Getting Rich, by Wallace Wattles. I read it once a month because it is a super quick read and helps me stay in alignment. It’s basically the cliff notes version of, Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill but, The Science of Getting Rich was written in 1910. My suspicion is Napolean Hill modeled some of his teachings after Wallace Wattles.??

My favorite podcast to listen to is, The Successful Mind, with David Neagle. He is an expert on mindset, and I think I’ve listened to every single episode which is nearly 566 of them! I encourage you to check them out if you would like to embark on personal growth.?

This barely scratches the surface of the mindset work I have practiced. I’m continuously on the hike up the mountain that is me.?

Cheers!?