In today’s episode of Creating The Path, I’m talking about how to create a productive mindset because the thoughts we think affect the actions we take (or don't take).
We often get stuck thinking thoughts that prevent us from taking the actions that lead to the results we want.
So today, I'm going to offer you 3 questions you can ask yourself to determine if a thought is productive or not and to reframe thoughts that help create a productive mindset - which will help you move you forward.
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Topics discussed in this episode:
[01:04] Questioning your thoughts
[05:29] Productive thoughts that help you achieve your goals
[06:00] Making sure thoughts and feelings are aligned
[08:40] A practical example of how to create a productive mindset using these 3 questions
[13:23] Episode recap
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Noteworthy Quotes:
“The thoughts we think affect the actions we take or don't take.”
“A lot of the time, we can get stuck thinking thoughts that prevent us from taking the actions that would lead to the results we want.”
“If we repeat things often enough, it just it gets into our subconscious.”
“Our feelings impact the thoughts we have. So it's really important to make sure that both your thoughts and feelings are aligned.”
“Everything that we think and do, it should all be serving the purpose of creating a life that we love living.”
Summary of the Podcast:
Creating the Path is a podcast that challenges multi-passionate entrepreneurs to achieve their goals by working less and eliminating overwhelm, so they can create their own unique pathway to a life they love. My mission is to transform hustle culture and assist others to shift away from living life on auto-pilot to living intentionally and following your own path to a life you love instead.
Host Bio:
Heather Grace Hanson is a certified positive psychology-based coach and creator of the Intentional Energy Framework, a system that empowers you to create a life and business you love without burning out. Heather is obsessed with all things personal development, running and walking in the park, interior design, salsa dancing and most importantly, spending time with her pup, Barclay.
Episode Transcript:
Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm talking about how to create a productive mindset. The thoughts we think, affect the actions we take, or don't take, because a lot of the time we can get stuck thinking thoughts that prevent us from taking the actions that would lead to the results we want.
so today I'm going to offer you 3 questions you can ask yourself that will help you determine if a thought is productive, and it will help you create new, more productive thoughts.
So the first question you want to ask yourself is: Is this thought true? A lot of the time, the thoughts that hold us back are judgments we make against ourselves that aren't even true. So it's really important to question those thoughts that we think about ourselves.
So if you have a thought that you think frequently about yourself, ask yourself: Is this true? And if the answer is yes, ask yourself: Really? Is it really true? Because I have had to work really hard to dismantle some deeply entrenched thoughts that I eventually had to sort of grudgingly admit to myself or say to myself “Well okay, maybe it's possible that it isn't true”. And I just really had to admit that grudgingly because I was just really entrenched in that belief and almost didn't want to give it up.
I don't know if this applies to everyone, but I know that I'm not the only one who at times has gotten sort of a sick pleasure out of insulting themselves, and sometimes it can even turn into just a running joke, so we laugh about it, not realizing the damage it can do over time.
I don't know if this is the best example, but what is coming to my mind right now is something that I'm still working on. So you all know about my dog Barclay. Well, I talk to him all the time, and I have this running joke that I say to him.
So it never fails that when I put him on the couch, he always sits right where he knows that I always sit, and so when he does that I say to him, kind of in like a joking tone, “Barclay, move over and make room for mom's fat butt”. And it started out as just a joke and sort of like a comment just on the fact that I'm so much bigger than he is and he's a tiny little pup.
And so that's really where it started, just meant to sort of be commenting on the difference between our sizes, but I don't like the word fat. First of all I'm not fat, and I don't think anyone should ever be called fat. I don't think we should say it to ourselves and I don't think we should say it to other people. It's just not a good word, and it just doesn't make us feel good about ourselves, and even though I'm saying it in like a joking way, I know that the way thoughts work, is that if we repeat things often enough, it just gets into our subconscious.
And so that's just an example of how certain thoughts can become entrenched in our minds, and so I at a certain point had to recognize that, obviously this is not true and I don't want to be saying this to myself. So that is something that I am working on shifting. Sometimes I'll still catch myself accidentally saying it. Although at this point I think I'm usually able to catch it before it comes out of my mouth. So I think it, and then I catch myself and I'm able to say something different in the moment.
So just be aware of those things that you might be saying that maybe you're even just saying them as a joke, or maybe they've become just so already deeply ingrained in your mind that you might have a hard time letting go of them. Just kind of try to pay attention to what those thoughts might be that actually aren't true, but we just keep saying them over and over again, so at a certain point we have just come to believe that they're true.
So the second question that you want to ask yourself is: Will this thought help me achieve my goals? Just because a thought is true. So even if you have a thought and you have identified that yes, this is true, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to help you achieve your goals. So a productive thought would both be true and help you achieve your goals.
And I'll get into an example in just a minute, but the third question that you want to ask yourself is: Does this thought help me feel the way I want to feel? Our feelings impact the thoughts we have, so it's really important to make sure that both your thoughts and feelings are aligned.
And really I just think this part about the feelings, I think it's so important because I think we often overlook it. But I really think that it's the most important part or one of the most important parts in creating a life that we love because everything that we think and do, it should all be serving the purpose of creating a life that we love living and obviously we're not going to love our life if we're not feeling in ways that we don't like to feel. So I think that's really a foundational part and it's often overlooked.
So this third question I think is really important to think about. Now like I said, you can take a thought that you frequently think and then ask these questions about it. And if you answer no to any of the questions, you would probably want to reframe that thought until you can answer yes to all 3 questions. And depending on what the thought is, you might just need to tweak the statement or the thought a little bit. Or you might need to just completely abandon it and come up with a new thought. It really depends. But let's go through an example.
So let's let's imagine someone who has just recently graduated from a coaching certification program, and let's say they found some clients initially, maybe they got some referrals from friends, but now they're kind of putting themselves out there in marketing and they are having trouble signing on new clients.
At that point they might get discouraged and have the thought “no one wants to work with me”. Well if we take that thought and ask the 3 questions: is it true? Well in this case, if they've worked with some clients initially, it's not true obviously because some people did want to work with them. Or even if they haven't worked with any clients yet, it's really impossible to know if literally no one on the planet wants to work with them because not everyone knows about them yet. So it's possible, and likely, that they just haven't found the people yet that will want to work with them. So it's really, in this case, impossible to know if that statement is true, and obviously it's likely not true.
And the second question: will this thought help them achieve their goal? Well, the answer there is probably no, because if you're thinking that no one wants to work with you, you're obviously not going to put much effort into finding new clients because you're just going to think “well, what's the point? No one wants to work with me”.
And the third question: will this thought help them feel the way they want to feel? Probably no. Right? Because thinking that no one wants to work with you is not going to make you feel very good right?
So there are a lot of ways that you could reframe this thought to be productive but one way could be to say something like “I haven't been able to find new clients in a while, so maybe I need to change my marketing strategy”.
Now this thought has more truth to it, and it also removes the judgment that they were making about themselves in the original thought.
And will this help them achieve their goal? I mean we don't know for sure, but it's more likely because by saying I haven't been able to find new clients in a while, maybe I need to change my marketing strategy, it gives them a way to move forward and take action to finding new clients because they can change something about their marketing and see if that works.
and this this new thought will also probably help them at least feel more like the way that they want to feel. They might still not be as happy or feeling like they will feel once they have new clients, but it's more likely to make them feel more hopeful and less despondent or whatever emotion might have been coming up with the thought “No one wants to work with me”.
So again, I don't know if this was the best example, but I hope this kind of helps you see how to sort of work with these questions to sort of dismantle these thoughts that aren't useful, not true and making you feel ways that you don't want to feel.
And I hope this also helps you see how you can reframe them and come up with statements that, even if we don't know yet if they're true because it's sort of making a prediction into the future, at least it's a thought that is moving you forward and not making you judge yourself so badly and not making you feel bad about yourself right?
So let's recap. For a productive mindset, you want to start believing thoughts that you can answer yes to all 3 of these questions about: Is this thought true? Will this thought help me achieve my goals? And does this thought help me feel the way I want to feel?
And when you can answer yes to all of those questions, then you've got a good productive thought that can help you move forward.
And I think that's a wrap for this week. I hope this helps you and I will see you next Tuesday.