Below are the show notes/summary for this episode. Please listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for the full show! Xo, Alex

 

 

This episode is all about mindset. Mindset is so much behind a business, so much behind a life, so much behind so many damn things that you do.

Instead of preparing something, I’m going to talk to you as a friend today and just have a conversation into this microphone. I’m just going to talk to you guys a friend today because this conversation is a hard one because it deals so much with our mental health, our emotional state, how we’re feeling what’s been happening in our lives. And that is such an up and down roller coaster, through every week, through every month through every year. I am, of course, not a doctor of any kind. These are just things that have pushed me when I felt I needed a push. And these are things that I’ve learned just from living my own life—going through business ups and downs and everything.

So, this episode is titled mindset is everything. And it’s such an important episode to me. And that’s because I can tell when my mind is not in the right place, that it’s just not appropriate for me to do things. For instance, I don’t push myself to do creative work when I’m not feeling 100% or if I’m not feeling creative or inspired or something happens to me in the day that just takes my mood and turns it upside down. I don’t push myself past my limitations and, I don’t want to say limitations because I don’t believe in limits. I don’t think that I think that we’re capable of doing much more than we believe we are. And that’s a part of this mindset thing.  I think that on those days where I am choosing to stop and not force creativity, I also believe on those days that maybe I could have pushed, maybe some of those days I could have pushed and done something great. You never know, but I am somebody who always goes with my gut, and I trust myself. And I think that that’s huge. Part of mindset is just believing in yourself 150%.

 

#1:  You have to be all in.

 

And I’ve talked about this before, about how you need to treat your business a marriage. For me, I’m currently single. I have been single for a while, and I’m totally okay with it because my parents have been married, I don’t know how many years it is now, but I don’t ever intend on marrying somebody just to marry them. And I know it’s never anybody’s intention to get divorced, but it means so much to me. When I make that decision, that’s my decision. That’s what I’m choosing is I’m going into that marriage. I’m marrying that person. I know there’s probably a lot of people don’t believe in marriage. It’s not even about marriage. When I find somebody that I want to be with for the rest of my life, I’m all in. I’m doing this for the rest of my life. I’m making this choice. I’m 150% in both feet are here. Nothing is holding me back. Once I make that decision, there’s nothing holding me back. And that’s the same with business.

When you have your business, you cannot hold yourself back. That is so detrimental to your success. And it, I mean, it might not happen at first. You might not see the failures by holding yourself back. But eventually, it will come out of the closet, and you’ll have to fight because you don’t believe in yourself fully. You don’t want to be the person to ruin your business, right? You don’t want to be the person to hold yourself back. So, when you’re in business, your mindset is everything. You need to be, listen here, I am going to fucking succeed. And I don’t give a shit how or what I’m going to do to get there. Obviously, you have to be a good person. You don’t want to do scammy weird shit. So, I don’t mean anything bad by what I just said.

I’m going to do anything. I’m going to work really, really hard. I’m going to do the best work that I possibly can. If something’s not working, I’m going to figure out why. I’m going to pivot. I mean, look at COVID, right? There were a lot of businesses that went under, and yes, it sucks. It really sucks. But in my business mind, if I were in a position where my business was going under, I would be alright, we need to sit down right now at the table and figure out how to make this happen. That’s when I see all these Pilates studios who are now doing online classes. The whole online virtual world isn’t going to leave once COVID is gone.

So that’s going to be sustainable for them for life. So now they tapped into a completely different market. They worked really hard to bring something into the world that they weren’t familiar with. They learned new practices. They tried new business techniques, and some of them probably failed, but some of them worked. Cause they’re still alive. So, for me, I’m in my business, I will never let this thing die. Ever. I will scratch myself out of a fucking grave before my business goes under. So, you have to believe that you have to trust yourself 100% if you’re going into a business. And don’t really know if I’m good at this. I mean, we all have doubts. Don’t get me wrong. You can have your doubt for one second. The next second, you need to remind yourself, bitch, shut up. You got this. We can do this. I believe that I’m scrappy enough to get this done. And if I don’t 100% believe in my skills, then learn, take a course from somebody that you look up to do something to gain that confidence.

Because confidence comes with teaching and education and doing and trying and failing, you will fail. Don’t get me wrong.  You will fail. I fail all the time, but it does not bother me. I don’t take it to heart anymore. I’m like, well that didn’t work out. Why didn’t it work out? And I can pretty much pinpoint why it didn’t work out. And then I’m like, all right, not doing that again. Let’s see how I can take what I learned in that situation and make XYZ better for the future. So, it’s all about learning, trusting herself being 150% in.

 

#2: Don’t doubt yourself.

 

You got this. Write yourself little posted notes, put them on your mirror, whatever you need to do. Don’t ever doubt yourself. And if somebody else starts doubting, don’t listen to them. This is something that’s been bugging me so much. Entrepreneurs who feel the need to get every single other person’s opinion. Especially people’s opinions that a, they don’t own their own business. They have no idea about entrepreneurship. They’re not in whatever field.  If one of my clients gets three logos and shows those three concepts to 50 different people of all different backgrounds, they will give 50 different answers to which logo they like, which makes it very confusing.

Just don’t ask people in the first place. Some people know what they’re talking about, but many of the people you ask for opinions don’t actually have a clue. And they’re not the one running the goddamn business, you are. So, stop asking people for opinions and trust yourself. I know it’s hard but try it. The first time it’s going to be really hard when you’re, okay, shit. I have to make this decision by myself. That’s scary. You have fear. Fear is a big thing in business. I have fear too. I’m fearful right now. I’m about to hire my first 40 hours a week full-time person. It’s a big money commitment. It’s going to be a big-time commitment for me. But I literally, today, I just had to look myself in the fucking mirror and be like, Alex, stopping so damn scared. It’s going to be fine. Jump off the cliff. When have you ever let yourself down? You got this; it’s all going to work out. No matter what happens, the universe has your back. You have your back, let’s do this. Let’s go. Let’s stop fucking sitting on this thing. We got this. We have to move forward.

 

#3: Always move forward

 

You always have to move forward. Forward doesn’t always mean releasing a new course or finishing up a client project. Forward sometimes means, “Hey, my mindset today is in the fucking gutter. And I don’t know what’s happening, but I need to recharge. I’m feeling extremely overwhelmed. I’m not going to work today. I’m going to write all my clients and say, Hey, sorry.  that draft I was supposed to deliver today. That’s not going to come. It’s going to come tomorrow because I’m not feeling it today.”

I actually did it tonight. I had a wireframe. The day got away from me. I’m not a very good night worker. I know my mindset. I’m not going to push it. So, I just wrote to them and said, “Hey, it’s coming tomorrow. It’s not coming today.” And I guarantee they’re going to be fine with it. Nobody’s ever not fine with it. Everybody’s always cool. Everybody always understands. They want the best work. Right? So, you have to tell yourself when it comes to your mindset, am I in the state to create the best work I possibly can? And if the answer to that question is no, then you need to take a break. And when you take a break, you cannot get mad at yourself.

 

#4: Don’t feel bad for taking breaks.

 

This is something that I used to do all the time. I would feel super bad. I would take a break, but my whole day of break would be me sitting on my phone, looking at my to-do list, scrolling through Instagram, comparing myself to others, sitting on the couch, feeling bad for myself that I’m taking a break. So really, the day where I was supposed to take a break was not a break at all. I just made myself feel more overwhelmed. So, when you take a break, take a break. Nobody cares. A lot of times, we think as people, people are so obsessed with us. And that’s not the case. I hate to break it to you. And to myself, nobody cares about me as much.

People don’t really give a fuck. They’re worried about themselves. They’re not worried about me. If I’m gone off social media for a few days, nobody cares when I come back. They’re like, great. But realistically, nobody cares. So, stop beating yourself up. And this is all advice to myself too, by the way, whenever I’m talking like this, I’m always pumping myself up because it’s true. Mindset is so damn important. Mindset is involved in every single thing in your business. Even setting boundaries, making sure that you put yourself in a position where you’re not allowing other people to fuck with that mindset of yours. Cause we’re not always going to have perfect clients and perfect work situations. So, you need to be able to be like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, I’m getting angry. I need to take a step back and reevaluate.

Or, maybe that’s a time where you’re like, I need to get an outside perspective because I can tell that my mind is high, high vibe. But in a bad way, too high vibe, too angry, too heightened is what I’m trying to say.  My feelings are heightened. If you can tell that, go with your gut for God’s sake.  And this is, again, advice for me. There’s so much outside noise and being present is harder than ever right now. I am not going to lie with everything that’s happening in the world, with phones.  I know I need to take a phone break. I need to detox because I am fully addicted, and I keep putting it off. I keep saying, no, it’s work. It’s work. It’s work. I’ll do it this day or this era this day, and it never comes around.

And then here I am still addicted to my phone. And I know what my mind is telling me. I know my mindset is like, girl, you need to be more present. It will help you. My gut is telling me this, but I’m not listening because I’m being a little brat, and I’m trying to force things. I’m trying to just stay where I’m at when really my mind is ready to expand into new things. And I know this is a little woo, but it’s true. You can tell when you’re ready and when you don’t take this step, it’s because you’re afraid or addicted. But addiction is just being afraid of being without that, whatever it is, right? If you smoke cigarettes, you’re afraid of not having a cigarette. All you can think about is you want a cigarette. If you are addicted to alcohol, you just want to drink, and you’re afraid of what’s going to happen when you don’t have alcohol in your life.

For me, right now, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when I am not as tied down to my phone, but it’s all going to be okay. And I know that it’s going to be okay. And my mind and my body and everything are telling me, girl, you need to take a break. So, I need to shift my mindset around it. And that’s why mindset is everything. You can literally rewire your brain to believe things differently than what you believe them now. It’s just like working out at the gym. It’s not going to happen right away. But you have to shift your mind when you’re feeling bad thoughts. You have to trick yourself. You have to be like, Nope, we’re going to rewire this. We’re going to redirect this thought over here. And we’re going to be thinking this.

I listened to a podcast. It was the skinny confidential, one of my favorite podcasts ever. If you guys don’t listen, you really should. They have amazing business owners and doctors and everything on there. I always learn so much. There was a doctor on, and they said, when you wake up, most people naturally think bad thoughts. And you have to literally rewire your brain to think something good immediately when you wake up because normally, you’ll wake up and be like, oh my God, today’s going, going to be such a long day. Or, what do I have going on today? But if you can rewire your brain to wake up and be like, “woo! Today’s such a good day. I can’t wait to do the work that I have to do. I am so blessed to be doing what I’m passionate about and getting work with amazing people. And I get to hang out with my dog all day, and I get to sit in front of my TV. I can watch Love Island, that episode that I missed last night.”

So, it’s just all the little things you just really have to force yourself to think about the good force yourself to trust yourself. It’s all in the mind. It’s all in the mind. And you can alter your thoughts. Don’t believe that you can’t. You can rewire your brain. It’s incredible. We, as humans, are so incredibly talented with the shit that we can do. It’s not even talent. It’s just we as humans, we’re so lucky to have a giant brain and a wonderful body and all of these things that we can manipulate through our lives for.

And I think manipulation can be such a bad term, but you can really use it for good things too. So even tricking yourself out of those habits? So, if for me, I love food. I could sit and eat food all day. So, I don’t start eating until noon at the earliest generally, because I would just sit in graze all day. And then I would be gaining all this weight. So, I’m tricking myself and just being like, girl, you just need to chill and have coffee until noon. And then you can have a shake. And I always start with a superfood shake. And then I go into my day, and it sets me up for success, right? So, I’m not sitting and eating all day. I have good nutrients in me. My body was feed, so it’s happy.

So, all of those little things, it’s just literally adjusting your mental mindset is everything. I think I’m just going to call it for this episode right now. I hope that this was really useful and helpful. Just know that you can legit change your mind about anything. This is why people get emotionally and mentally abused because people can make you believe things about yourself or the world. But you are also able to shift that. And it takes a lot of fucking work. It takes a lot of work. And it takes a lot of work to shift what you believe yourself, of yourself, of your business, of what you’re capable of if you can reach your dreams. You have to believe, and you have to work on changing your thought process and changing your mindset because once you do that, baby, your business will go crazy.

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