Episode 8: 3 Mindset Upgrades I’m Making This Year

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I’m feeling a big upgrade in my life and business this year. I’ve set the goals, I’ve planned it all out, and I have studied all the strategies. But I know all the strategies in the world won’t get me where I want to go without also having the right mindset. Some people say mindset makes up more than 50% of our success. Just ask any athlete out there. As we continue to grow and learn, our mindsets have to grow with us to take us to that next level. 

In this week’s episode, I’m sharing the 3 mindset shifts I’m making this year to Upgrade my life, business, and career.

Full Transcript:

[00:01:05] Hi there. Welcome back to the Upgraded Career podcast. I am your host Nicole Case, and today I'm sharing my three mindset upgrades that I am making this year. You know, I believe that I'm an optimist. Change excites me. I like to try new things and I get bored really easily, but I also want to continue to grow and succeed in my business and career.

[00:01:27] And I know that mindset has a lot to. with that success, if you kind of Google that to see like what percentage of success is mindset and what percentage of strategy? Well, you'll find all kinds of different percentages. Um, I haven't quite found a really great, um, solid research article around that, but I don't even know how they would, how they would structure, um, uh, research study around that.

[00:01:51] But anyway, you'll see anything from 50 to 90% of success is mindset. And I would say, fine. Whatever that percentage is for you is great, but I bet no matter what that it is at least 50% or more, and I know that, I think that I have a great mindset most of the time, but. in this first part of this new year, I've been just reflecting on my mindset and where certain things might have served me before, but they aren't anymore.

[00:02:22] I know I'm in a, I'm in a really big leap year for, for myself, my growth and my business, and so I'm just, I'm just having that feeling right, that it's like, okay, I'm like next level. I've upgraded and so just kind of what are some things that I've just. What are some mantras, affirmations, or just things that I've been telling myself that maybe just they've served me before but they just aren't anymore.

[00:02:44] You know, I'm really narrowing narrowing in on what I wanna focus on in my business and in my life, and just, you know, things are good, right? But you know, what is bringing me joy and happiness in this season, and how can I just continue to amplify those? again, of course, having the right strategy is important.

[00:03:03] I've got plenty of those strategies. I know all the strategies to get into the best health of my life. I know what I need to do in order to grow my business. I know what I need to do in order to prioritize rest and fun in this season, and just, you know, just doing more things that I love just for the fun of it.

[00:03:21] I've got those strategies. All the strategies in the world will only get you so, will only get you part of the way there. And if you think that you're a failure or that something won't ever work or you can't count on yourself to handle a certain situation or, or maybe you're just stuck in a K O s spiral and none of that strategy, it's gonna work.

[00:03:41] I know. A chaos strategy or a chaos spiral. I definitely can stay in a lot, right? Because I can have so many ideas in my head. There's just so many things going on. I'm being pulled in a million different directions and I can just kind of stay in this chaos spiral. And I know that strategy will be part of how I can get out of that, but it's mostly gonna be.

[00:04:06] mindset because the strategy might work for a little while, but it's not gonna work fully or as well as it could or sustainably if you don't also pair it with the right mindset. You know, I actually did a corporate training, um, on Tuesday of this week on resilience and strategic leadership, um, um, for an organization, and we talked all day about mostly.

[00:04:33] A growth mindset In Carol Dweck's book, one of the, one of the VPs had talked about Carol Dweck's, um, work in that book. And many of the people in the room had also read that book as well. So we talked a lot about that. Again, as in relation to resilience and strategy. And this particular organization is going through a lot of change.

[00:04:52] You know, who else , you know, who isn't going through a lot of change and in particular this industry as a whole. That they're in, that if they wanna stay relevant, they need to be out in front of the innovation. Them and everyone else, but very this, this industry very specifically. It's really interesting because it is an old industry.

[00:05:15] It's an industry that's been all around a long time. The company itself had been around, has been around for over a hundred years and the problem is that when you have organizations that are, that are really mature or have been around a really long time, . Sometimes you get people who have been at that organization for a long time and they've just really got stuck in their ways.

[00:05:35] Like, this worked for us for so long, why do we need a change? And the problem is just specifically at this organization, not everyone is on board with this idea of innovating in this way, including some of their customers. And they recognize that they need to shift their mindsets first in order to then execute on the strategy, which is again, why they brought me in to do this, to do this day of.

[00:06:00] So this also just kind of got me thinking about my own mindset shifts and upgrades that, that I need to make again in a year that I know is gonna be a really big one that I'm really excited about, but I wanna make sure that I'm, I'm positioning myself. in the best way so that I don't burn myself out, that I don't hate it and wanna quit, or I, um, you know, get myself, um, physically or mentally in a really, in a really tough spot.

[00:06:24] Cuz I can definitely let my, you know, healthy habits go to the wayside. My mental health can go to the wayside when, in this, when I'm in a season of major upgrade like I am this year. I just wanted to share with you today the three mindset upgrades that I am personally making this year, and maybe you can, um, see some of yourself in this too.

[00:06:48] So first, the very first upgrade that I'm making is going from this idea of easy to simple. So for a really long time I had had this mantra or this thing, I would tell myself or ask myself, how can I make this easy? How can I make this easy? And. . And there's been other times in life where I'm just like, why is this so hard?

[00:07:12] This doesn't have to be so hard. You know, why is this so complicated? You know? And, and I think this idea of shifting from easy to simple is a really important shift because I think that we are kind of in two camps sometimes. There's certain times where we are trying to avoid, avoid the hard, avoid the uncomfortableness that comes.

[00:07:36] Things being hard and it's just draining. It's exhausted. I mean, of course, over the last several years, I think everybody can agree that things have just felt really hard, like getting certain things done. Doing certain things. Even at one point, you know, just going and getting your groceries felt really hard, right?

[00:07:56] Just every, there was just always these barriers or just some extra thing that we had to think of and consider, you know, just even in our everyday lives for the last several years. And so, you know, so in a lot of cases we try to avoid the hard, but then there's other times where we try to make things harder than they need to be.

[00:08:16] Because we think that that'll make us more, I. . Huh? Does that resonate with anyone? Did I just maybe poke someone a little bit on that? That, you know, there's these people out there who believe that the busier that they are, the more complex they can make something, the more valuable that it'll be or make it make us look more important, or again, or that we just need to have it be hard in order to be viewed as valuable as smart.

[00:08:45] Whatever, you know, adjective you wanna use there. You know, I want y'all to kind of think about that for a minute. Like, are there times. , you say, you know, oh, I'm so busy right now. Oh, you know, I have this big project going on and it's this and it's that and it's other thing. And you know, we kind of feel, it makes us feel really good to say those things.

[00:09:04] I've personally, over the last couple of years, really tried to remove the word busy from my, um, from my vocabulary because I do think that we glorify busy too much. , particularly in the corporate and business world, that again, there's this idea that the busy we are, that it makes us look more important.

[00:09:23] And, and I totally get that, especially right now if we are in a period of time where lots of companies are doing layoffs, lots of people are feeling really insecure, that sometimes we kind of like have to puff ourselves up or make, make our work look really important in order to make sure we don. laid off, right?

[00:09:40] So I'm totally get that. That's the spiral. We definitely could go down, but I am trying to, again, shift from this idea of making things easy and not trying to avoid the hard, but shifting to this idea of making things simple. Like I look back on different areas or different times in my life and in my career, just when things were simple and.

[00:10:06] Simple isn't necessarily easier, right? Like I love, um, I love the Mark Twain quote that he said, I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one. Right? Like, I love that quote. And it's really been coming up for me a lot since I've started this podcast in particular. Because I know I can be long-winded.

[00:10:28] I know I can talk a lot. I know at the beginning of this podcast, I told everybody I'm committed to keeping this to 20 to 30 minutes. While I've not done a great job with that, have I? Um, . But what it, what happens is, you know, it's easy to dump a bunch of, you know, thoughts down on paper. It's easy personally for me just to kind of go on a rambling tirade and talk in circles, that's just natural for me.

[00:10:52] Cuz I'm an extrovert and I tend to, I tend to process my thoughts out loud. Um, you will, you all are hearing that right now. But so, so for me to like actually sit down and script out. Podcast episodes or LinkedIn posts or even programs that I'm, that I'm working through with my clients and trainings and, and speeches and stuff like that.

[00:11:16] it's, it's harder for me to actually be more succinct and I have to work at that, but I do recognize that being simple is more clear for people. People can follow along easier. They're going to retain the information that I share with them if I make the message simple and clear. So again, simple isn't necessarily easier, but I definitely believe.

[00:11:46] Over time, things become less wasteful, which waste. Like I cannot stand waste. So things become less wasteful, things are less complex, and they do get easier over time. And so then when things are simple, when things are clear, when you know what your values are, when, when you know what's important to you and you can boil things down, you can make decisions, decisions easier and faster.

[00:12:15] And again, just be super clear about what's important to you. So like, , I would love to get to a place where I have a simple streamlined closet. I don't know if anyone can relate to this at all, but first of all, in our new house, our closet is really not that big. Our closet, the closet space here is, is not, is not that big.

[00:12:41] Which is, which is okay cuz that means we probably just should not have as much crap. . Um, my, but again, our, our closet space, we just don't have that much. So like, I've got all these clothes just like shoved into my closet and everything. Yeah. It's all, all organized by dresses aren't all organized by type, you know, tops are organized by type and then everything's organized by color.

[00:13:01] So we we're, we're making do with what we have, but I would love to have, Like, what do they call them? What are those small wardrobes? Um, capsule wardrobes. Yeah. I would love just, I'd love to be able to walk into my closet and have like my 30 things or 10 things or whatever it is, whatever that number is, and just be like, all of these things, I love them and they just all fit me.

[00:13:29] And then I don't have to spend as much brain power figuring out what I'm going to wear today. But I would just love overall to have a closet. Organized in this way and just have lesser items, more high quality items that aren't gonna wear out so fast. And just once again, it's less brain power. So figuring out how to make something more simple is definitely not.

[00:13:55] easy, especially at the beginning. So if you think about like a project or a process you have at work, like what processes that like totally. You're like, oh my God, this is so many steps. They're probably easy steps, right? They're probably not all that difficult, like physically difficult. It's probably like, oh, I got a route.

[00:14:15] I gotta create this report. I gotta put it in the system and it has to route these different ways and it has to get these, um, approvals or whatever, or you know, just you, there's lots. Automations or there's lots of, you know, again, just things out there and software's out there today that can make a lot of our processes very simple or very easy.

[00:14:36] But that doesn't mean that they're simple and it doesn't mean that they're the most effective or efficient. And if we can put the work upfront to say, okay, let's take this from easy to simple. Where could you actually save time? Save waste, save just your sanity. Because this particular process requires 15 different people to sign off on It really, is it really necessary that this thing gets, gets 15 people to sign off on it?

[00:15:08] Or again, like a project? What kind of a project are you working on that you know, there's just maybe are there, are there too many steps? Is the project plan itself too complicated? I remember learning. , how to even just make a project plan for the first time in my career, early in my career, and I'm just like, wow, this is a lot of slides.

[00:15:28] Wow, these are a lot of decks. Like, yes, definitely. Let's make sure we're planning and we're doing the right work upfront. For sure. Like I said, the most complicated, or the thing that takes me the longest in this whole podcast thing is actually. , it's not editing. A lot of people told me, oh my gosh Nicole, you need to outsource the recording and editing of your podcast cuz that's just so much.

[00:15:51] And I'm like, actually it's not. Um, for me, I got certain pieces of software and surf certain things going on, and I created a workflow and a process that was really simple. What is the most complicated part of, or the part that takes the longest is. me sitting down and, and outlining the episode because I know that if I spend more time upfront really getting the episode outlined, well then I know that it'll be more simple for me and it'll go fa.

[00:16:23] The editing part, the production part of it, will actually be a lot more simple. It'll actually go faster. So where in your life or in your work, or in your business, can you shift your thinking from, oh, this has to be easy to, it has to be simple because again, it's hard upfront. It might be a lot of time upfront to make things simple, but then over time it will become easy.

[00:16:48] So the next mindset upgrade I'm making this year is I'm going from this idea of I have the time to do all the things I wanna do, and I'm shifting that to I am not behind. So, For my entire life, I have always felt like I was behind on everything. I always felt like it took me a million times longer to do everything than everyone else.

[00:17:15] It took me longer to write an email. It took me longer to get through college. It took me longer just, it just takes me longer to do everything is this belief that I have about myself. But at the same time, I wanna do a lot of things cuz I'm interested in a lot of things. , I'm always having ideas that I wanna execute on and just different things that I wanna do.

[00:17:35] And I started a little, um, a couple years ago, um, particularly in my business, I started this mantra where I, where I would say, or this affirmation just that would say, I have all the time to do all the things I wanna do. I have all the time to do all the things I wanna do. And, you know, that's served me well up until now and.

[00:17:57] You know, maybe that I can still use that mantra or that affirmation at certain times, but I really wanna upgrade to this idea of I'm not behind. because this idea of I have the time to do everything I wanna do is automatically telling my brain that I'm already behind and behind. For who? Who? Who says that I'm behind?

[00:18:20] No one. No one. Absolutely zero. People have said that I'm behind because once again, we are all running on our own track. We're all running our own race. I met a woman, um, the other week at a networking event, and she does a lot of similar work that I do, and she's another coach and all of that, but she's also still in her corporate job.

[00:18:43] Well, I haven't been in my corporate job in like three years, and so I've been full-time in my business for like three years and she's like, oh, wow. Yeah, you're so far ahead of me. You know, you're doing so much more than I am. I'm so behind, and I. Well, no, you're exactly where you need to be. And she also has a podcast and she's two years into her podcast.

[00:19:03] I'm not even a year into my podcast. I think she has like 60 some episodes and I'm on what, this is what, episode eight. So it's like it's all relative. Right. So I also think that this, as women in particular, I think we have been told. Especially those who are millennials or who are like, like late Gen Xers, um, that they're like, we've been told that we can have it all right?

[00:19:34] It's been this whole thing that women can have it all. We can have a career, we can have a family. All of these things, we can have it all. And I think we've all been striving to have it all. just because we can have it all, that doesn't mean that we should or that we need to, right? Like there's so many things that like I just, I don't need to do or I don't need to achieve, even though people around me are achieving those things that you know, just because, again, just because we can have it all doesn't mean we should strive.

[00:20:12] Just totally beat ourselves up and run ourselves into the ground just to say that we have it all right. Frankly, I'm, I'm exhausted, y'all. I'm tired. , frankly, from chasing that, from chasing that, that rat race, right? So, . So, I don't know, like I, I can like totally say even just right now, like I've been feeling like I was getting behind with my podcast episodes because I, one of the reasons why I waited five years to even get started with this was because I couldn't trust myself and I was afraid that I was gonna get behind and that I wasn't gonna be able to keep up with a weekly.

[00:20:53] With a weekly series that, you know, I would start it and I would start off really great and then I would fall off because I'm not, I'm somebody who's not consistent. These are, again, limiting beliefs I have about, about myself that I'm currently working on with my home coach and my therapist, you know, working on it.

[00:21:10] Um, but you know, I, a couple weeks ago I was like really upset cause I was like, oh, I have got. Yeah, I have podcast episodes banked up. I tend, again, the, the simple process that I tried to create for myself was to, um, batch record episodes and then schedule them to come out, you know, one a week. And so if.

[00:21:33] Life gets crazy. Maybe I'm not feeling well. Maybe I wanna take a vacation or I just wanna take a break that I, that there are podcast episodes that are continuing to come out and I'm always not feeling this pressure to be like, oh shoot, Tuesday's coming. Tuesday's coming. I need to get this podcast out.

[00:21:47] And um, and again, I was started to feel like quote unquote behind cuz I had this idea that I was going to be. two months ahead of time. I was gonna be a a month ahead of when podcasts were gonna get released. And everybody around me is telling you, Nicole, that's quite ambitious, especially right at the beginning, and especially with you doing it by yourself.

[00:22:08] Like, I don't have a team, I don't have a production team here. You know, helping me with that. And again, I kept saying that. I was feeling behind, feeling behind. And then just one day I decided, you know what? I'm not. Maybe two months is, is, is a little ambitious to be, you know, to have, have my, my podcast ready to go.

[00:22:30] So I've just decided, you know what? I'm gonna be as head ahead as I am going to be, and you all aren't gonna know. Well you are now because I've just told you. But like you all won't know how many podcast episodes I have in the hopper ready to roll, right? You know, all you all care about is that you get your great podcast episode every Tuesday.

[00:22:49] That's all you care about. So I've just decided I'm not behind. I am right where I need to. , wherever that is, is the right place for me in that moment. So, uh, again, I've gone to, I have the time to do it all, to I am not behind.

[00:23:07] And the final mindset upgrade that I am making this year is that I'm going from, I am not ready. to just do it already, . So I go back and forth with this. I, with this whole thing of diving in without asking questions, , you know, my husband's constantly like, you need to ask more questions about this opportunity.

[00:23:32] Is it the right thing for you to do? Or again, I just get a big idea about something and I just wanna dive in with two feet. Cuz that's just how I am. I get really excited about stuff. But then on the other side, I also can. Stall. I can procrastinate, I can try to do, I try to go overboard with my planning because I just don't think I'm ready.

[00:23:54] And so that's when like my self-doubt creeps in and I'm just like, I just don't think I'm ready. And I see this a lot with my clients. My gosh. I had, um, I had a client, um, not too long ago. She, um, she was trying to get like a director or VP position or like head of engineering at like a startup, at a startup company.

[00:24:16] And, you know, we were working together, you know, throughout this period of time and during, and during that time she. , um, she got promoted at her current company, which is really common that my clients, a lot of times they're like, well, I want this promotion. I want to get to the next level. I want an upgrade, and it might be at my company or it might not be at my company.

[00:24:35] And so we kind of work both paths at the same time. We just kind of keep our options open and that's what we were doing. Um, this client, um, she, we, we were working. Upgrading her executive presence and her communication and um, her strategic thinking and those kinds of things. And she got her promotion, she got to director level and she was really excited.

[00:24:55] In the, literally in the same week she got that director promotion, she got an offer for a director title at another startup company like that she, that she wanted. And it was much bigger scope, much bigger, more, much bigger responsibility, even though it was the same title. Cuz as we all know, Are total crap in companies cuz you can just call people whatever.

[00:25:20] She, um, it was so funny because she got the offer and she like kind of went into panic mode almost. She was like, oh, I don't think that I can take this job. Maybe I should stay at my current company and learn how to be a director. Cause I've not done it before. I was like, we have been working for months on trying to get you this director position and it's here now.

[00:25:41] It's exactly what you want, and now, and it just, all of a sudden she just panicked. She was just like, oh my gosh, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. I'm not ready. and um, and so I think that's really common, that like we're striving for something, we're working towards something and then all of a sudden it gets here and you're like, oh shoot, crap.

[00:25:58] Am I really ready for this? And honestly, you're not gonna know if you're ready for something until you just do the damn thing, right? You have to just actually get out there and do the thing for you to. , you know, okay, where are the gaps? You know, what are, what are some learnings that I'm missing sometimes?

[00:26:18] I mean, there's some, obviously there's planning, you know, in any project, in any, any situation you're in, there's a level of planning that goes into it and just a level of, you know, trying to anticipate issues and things like that. But so much of that you can't figure out until you actually are in the middle of the thing.

[00:26:39] Right? So action creates clarity, which creates confidence. And I've said this, I don't know how many times already, I've already said this in, in this podcast or to my clients, action creates clarity, which creates confidence. You know, I should probably put that on a mug or a shirt or something. I could do, I could start an upgraded career podcast merchandise website.

[00:27:06] Okay. . I'm not even gonna edit this out because Nicole, please see 0.1 and 0.2 about simplicity and not having to do it all just because you can. Um, I'm so glad you all are listening to this right now. Um, cuz this is where I am. This is where I am right now. It's just you, you don't have to do everything.

[00:27:29] You do not have to strive for everything. And I might be ready to start and upgrade a career podcast me. Line. But um, I don't need to do that. Right? I don't need to do that. But, um, you. You deciding that you are not ready for something is just gonna continue to keep you in that spot. You saying, I'm not ready.

[00:27:52] I'm not ready. We'll keep you stalled and stuck if you just do the thing. Or at least you don't have to go all in, you can just dip your toe in. You can just, you know, try some things and you'll see. Okay, that wasn't so scary. Let me try a little bit more. Okay, that wasn't so bad. Let me try a little bit.

[00:28:13] Okay, maybe that didn't work out so well. Let me back up and adjust. But again, just doing the thing, if you are in a space of you're not sure what you need to do next or you're not sure if you're ready for something, sometimes you just have to go out and try it to see if you're ready or not. So that's kind of where I am too.

[00:28:34] I'm trying to get myself out of this, um, out of this weird thing that I get into where. . Yes. I go all in. And then I like panic once I get close to it, and then I'm like, Ooh, I'm not actually ready. So I'm going from, I'm not ready to just do it already. So my friends, thank you so much for listening. This is where I'm at right now, , um, and you can do this too.

[00:28:58] So I want you to, to sit down and think what are some old mindsets that you. That you need to maybe take a look at or what are some of those mantras or affirmations you used to say, and maybe they're just not working for you anymore. And that's okay because you're continuing to upgrade and you're continuing to grow.

[00:29:15] And we need to upgrade our mindsets and our mantras and our affirmations at the same time. So that is it for today. Thank you for listening to basically a live journaling session with myself, and I will see you back here in the next episode. And remember, your career deserves an upgrade.