Ep 69| Mindset: Change the Way You think to Step Into Your Potential

Kim Strobel 00:04 

Hello, my friends. And okay, I have to start out by telling you how have I been on dog rescue mission. I mean, this is not even related to today's topic, but I am someone who just throws up exactly what they're feeling. And most of you know, I've rescued 136 dogs in 20 years because in my county, we have a huge animal issue. And animal welfare is not considered a priority in any means that any means we don't have an animal control officer, we don't have any animal shelter. And so although my full time job is Strobel education, my second full time job is dog rescuing, which is exhausting me, I'm not gonna lie, it's exhausting me, people are reaching out all of the time telling me these very sad stories about dogs. And I can't ignore them. So I take action. And I'm good at it. And so just to kind of start us off on an upbeat kind of note today, if you saw in my recent monthly musings, which is my monthly newsletter that I send out once a month, where I tell you what's new in my life, I tell you my favorite products this month that I'm loving, I share with you my favorite quote my favorite books, it's kind of a really fun newsletter. And by the way, if you're not receiving it, you can either go to Kim Strobel comm and click on that you want the joy drops. 

Or you can go to Strobel education, COMM And sign up there for the joy drops, which is going to get you the monthly newsletter as well. And so in that newsletter, I was explaining about four dogs that have come into my sphere in the last three weeks. And one was a stray that was running the streets, cold at night freezing, no shelter, no food, fleas and worms. And I was able to catch him. And he's now living his very best life with one of the best dog owners. I know a friend of mine, Jason, and his name is Barry. And then the second one was a dog that had been left in a kennel basically outside in a cage for three years and had not been touched or given any attention. And so brim is now living her best life in a really good home. And then we had a few others. And so anyway, I just want to start off on a positive note. It's kind of like that starfish story, you know how the guy was walking along the ocean. And he kept picking up all the starfish the little boy did and throwing them back in the water. And he'd walked to the next one.

 And he picked it up and throw it in the water. And a guy came along and said, you know, you're never going to be able to save them all. It doesn't really matter. Why are you trying to help them? And he picked one up and he threw it in the water. And he said, made a difference in that one's life, didn't it? So high try I try to remember that. But I just wanted to go there a minute because I'm filling like all the dog stuff right now. And hey, who doesn't love a really good dog story. This episode, we are going to talk about mastering your mindset.

 That's a heavy word mindset. But your mindset, really many times is driven by your belief systems. And your belief systems are really what you think about your world, and how it shapes who you are, and what your experience of the world is. And so a mindset is really simply a set of beliefs that shape, how we show up in the world, how we think, how we feel, how we behave, how we act. And it's all very, very driven by our beliefs. Carol Dweck is a well known psychologist she teaches a lot about growth mindset, Mike we do. And she has this really powerful statement that says the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. And when she says that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. What she's saying is your belief system. Your belief system is deciding how you are living your life. And those belief systems were ingrained in you before the age of six, and they came from our caretakers, our parents, the people that we spent the most time with our teachers. And what we don't realize is that most of the beliefs that we're operating out of come from our six year old self. 

This is why sometimes they say that we are all our little, we're all going around the world, and acting as our little six year old traumatized selves, because we never figured out how to extract those old tapes. And those old tapes, those old beliefs keep sabotaging ourselves. Beliefs are so strong, that they can even cause physical changes in the body. There was a study done in Germany, where they took 10 men who all needed orthoscopic knee surgery. And all 10 went in and had this they were put under anesthesia. And all Tinh left the hospital with incisions on their knees, and Alton had been an Anesti put under anesthesia. So they were put under anesthesia. They all left limping on crutches, with incisions on their knees, because they all believed they had had the orthoscopic knee surgery. But when they returned six weeks later, all 10 reported that their knees were 95%. Better. And it was at that time that the study was explained to them, that five of them never even had the surgery. They just believed they had had the surgery. They believed it because they were put under anesthesia, they saw the marks on their knees. Three had a partial surgery, and two had the full surgery. 

This is how powerful our beliefs are. And they drive everything in our life. And they can even heal our body. Now I know that sounds a little woowoo II. But if you think about it, this is the placebo effect, right? The scientific placebo effect when they put people under studies, and some of them get the real pill and some of them don't. And the ones that don't that think they got it actually end up reporting that they're a lot better. And so there is some scientific evidence to this. Now, where do our beliefs come from? Well, they come from our thoughts. And if you remember, we have about 70,000 thoughts a day. But we're not aware of the majority of those thoughts. Because they're running in the background of our mind, they run on default. So you're not even probably aware of some of the beliefs that you're holding all the way back from your childhood. Now, the interesting thing about a belief is it's simply a repeated thought. It's a repeated thought over and over and over again until it becomes a belief. Now what's really interesting about thoughts is you are not your thoughts. And thoughts are not facts. Have you ever been sitting there and been aware of your thoughts you have, right you hear yourself having these thoughts in your head.

 Therefore you have to ask yourself, Who is the person behind the thought, who is aware of the thought, This is why you are not your thoughts. And again, a belief is simply a repeated thought and many times, it's on default. And these beliefs greatly affect our mindsets, because our beliefs become the actions that we do or do not take in life. And our actions become our habits. And our habits become our reality. You know, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a man is what he thinks about all day long, which basically means whatever you're focusing on the most is what you are becoming. And then author Earl Nightingale said, we become what we think. And so we have to take control of our thoughts. Because if we don't, that cycle just continues over and over and over again. And I believe that mindset work is very internal Most of the time, we are trying to change ourselves through our conscious mind. And our conscious mind is our thinking mind. It's our logical rational mind, it's the mind that says do this, take care of that.

 Now it's time to do this. And our rational mind is where most of us spend our time. And the reason we don't get the results that we're looking for in our life, is because we count on our rational, logical mind that says, work harder, do this do that, we count on that to get us results. But that is not how it works. It is not until you do the deep dive on yourself, you have to go within, you have to see the shadow darker parts of yourself, you have to become aware of the subconscious beliefs that you're holding, that are preventing you from getting to where you want to go. And so if we want to get our the outside parts of our life better, we have to do the deep work of going within you I always call it shifting the eternal blueprint. And I think this is one of the reasons why I have a lot of success when people are in my coaching programs, whether it be my 90 Day coaching program, or virtual coaching sessions with businesses or schools that I'm working with, or even a happy Academy, the reason we get the results is because it's different than most programs, because what it does is it works on your internal blueprint, it works on your subconscious mind. And the subconscious mind is different than the logical mind.

 The subconscious mind is is like that dark room in your brain that many times gets ignored. But what we know is that if 5% of how you show up and navigate life comes from your logical mind, then 95% comes from your subconscious mind. And your sub conscious mind is your beliefs. And again, a belief is simply a repeated thought in your mind. So however you think creates how you feel, and how you feel creates your beliefs. And what I think is powerful, is that when we do the deep dive within ourselves, we can change our thought processes. Let me give you a funny little example of maybe a sub subconscious belief that was taught to us. How many times did you hear from your parents, if you go outside without a coat on, you're going to catch a cold. If you go outside without a coat on, you're going to catch a cold. Or some people have the belief that if you sit near a fan, you'll get a stiff neck. And if you have that belief, then your subconscious mind will see to it that you get a stiff neck. It's not actually the action of the fan that causes the stiff neck. It's your erroneous beliefs. The fan in itself is harmless. Same thing with going out with a jacket on if you think for sure, you're going to get sick. If you go out without a jacket on your subconscious mind will go to work to ensure that happens. I have to laugh you guys because I'm thinking about my husband. The poor man, if I was pregnant right now, I'm telling you, he'd have a baby growing in his belly right now to like, I don't know what it is because he's very non dramatic, and he's more of a quieter person. But if I start exhibiting any signs of sickness whatsoever, you can mark your bottom dollar that within a couple of hours, he will be exhibiting the exact same set of symptoms. And I'm telling you I think he totally brings on his own sickness because his subconscious mind does something tricky, where if I'm sick, he believes he's automatically caught it. And so what we know is that we have the ability to shift our subconscious mind. And our subconscious mind again is our beliefs. It's our past programming. It's our emotions, imagination, intuition, trauma and values. And when we work our way through those is when we really start to see results in our environment. Now I want to talk to you about the hierarchy of change.

 Most of the time again, when we want to change something in our life, we use our logical mind. And we start with, hey, what in my environment? Can I change? Right? Or what behaviors can I change. And so when we start with our environment, and our behaviors, those are conscious level thinking. And that means that we believe, if we can change our outer world, that we can change our outer outer world, by our actions. And that's the key to changing. But what we know that drives changes is when we work at the subconscious level, which is your beliefs, your identities, and your spirit. So what I want you to do is I want you to flip that if this is a pyramid, and the pyramid goes at the top environment and results, that's what you're looking for. That's what you're trying to attain. And below that is behavior. And below that is capabilities. And below that is your beliefs. And below that is your identity. And below that is spirit, what I want to tell you is we need to flip that, because the way that it actually works is it actually starts out with your spirit. 

There are six layers to thinking six layers to thinking. And so again, what I want you to think about is it starts with your spirituality, right? It's, it's about it's beyond you, right? It's like, what is it with this goal that is related to a bigger part of who you are? Some people kind of describe the spiritual level as like a wisdom level. It's a link to your identity. It's like how do you see yourself showing up in the world? And then the next layer of that is your identity. Right? Identity is, Who are you, and what's your sense of self. Again, we've got to think about this, if my goal is to become a healthy eater, I can't start with my environment, right? If I started with my environment, I would do things like put all the snacks on the top shelf or not buy them, fill up the fruit bowl, limit myself to whatever exercise three times a day, like I'm going to walk you through this in a minute. And not that those things aren't helpful. But if we never take on the identity of a person who makes healthy choices, we probably won't be able to succeed. 

So we have to take on the identity of the person we want to become. And after we do that, right, then we step into our belief because it becomes a belief that we hold about ourselves. It's our values. It's the reasons behind our behaviors. And what happens is our B, our beliefs and our values, they either reinforce our capabilities, or they undermine our capabilities. For example, if you believe that you're not good at drawing, that could undermine any attempt to learn to draw. If you don't believe you're a business person, you're never going to start your business. If you don't believe that you are, you can be athletic and fit and identify as an athletic and fit person, you probably aren't going to show up at the gym, because our beliefs affect our competency. Our competency is our skills, right? Who is the person that is operating at this level? And so I want you to think about this, this is going to be a really great example. You know how at the beginning of the year, everybody makes these big goals. So let's take the goal of it's January 1, and I'm going to lose 50 pounds. All right, and let's walk that through how most people do that. Most people start with their environment. They throw out the junk food, join a gym, join a weight loss program, subscribe to a meal plan and so on. And then they go into behavior They commit to eating healthy foods, and working out five days a week, not having carbs, no sugar, blah, blah, blah. And then what happens? What happens to all the people who made their New Year's resolutions? Who threw out the junk food, joined a drip gym, started a meal plan? And will, you know, committed to working out five days a week and not eating sugar? Guess what happens? By February 1 30 days later, the research shows that 95% of people have fallen off the bandwagon, and they can't stick to their habits or their goals. Why is this? It's because the hierarchy is actually backwards. And how most of us approach change in our lives doesn't work. And that's why with my coaching and my programs, we really do do things differently. 

Because if you are someone who wants to lose weight and get fit, but you don't take the time to really explore your beliefs about getting fit, your beliefs about eating healthy. And if getting fit is not the most important value to you, then what skill set tools or knowledge about fitness might you need to stay on track, because those would be your capabilities. And if getting fit is part of your bigger mission, it's part of your spirit and how you want to show up, then you become a fit person because you take on the identity of a fit person. And if we don't take on the identity of a fit person, then we're not going to be able to probably reach our goal. For me, in my business, I have really big goals. And I tell myself, what is the identity of the person who shows up every day in this office? And what does she do? And how does she act? And what does she believe about herself? And how is it linked to the spiritual worldview of how I want to impact others.

 And I take on, I try, I'm not perfect at it, I try to take on the identity of the person today that we'll be able to attain those goals. So let's now use the backwards hierarchy. And go back to our example of it's January 1, and my goal is to lose 50 pounds. So we start at the spiritual level, we do the deep internal work, right? We figure out is getting fit and eating healthy, really a big part of your mission in life. Do you feel like the more fit and healthy you are, the more energetic you'll feel that way you are really committed to the other priorities in your life. This is a value you hold. And then you go into the identity. I already am a fit person. I go to the gym, I make healthy food choices. I do my morning routines. This is who I am. I am a fit person. And I commit to showing up as a fit and healthy person. You take on the identity right now. You don't wait to lose 50 pounds before you go buy those pretty gym clothes. You buy those pretty gym clothes right now, because you are taking on the identity of a fit person. From there we go into your values and your beliefs. I believe that I am worthy of being fit and healthy. My body easily risk releases excess weight that is no longer needed for my protection. My metabolism is speeding up and getting fit and healthy is very important to me. And this is the belief you take on because you've taken on the identity of a fit person. Now, we're into your capabilities which are important even though they're logical. Up until now we've been talking about subconscious beliefs. Now with capabilities we're talking about logical the logical mind the conscious mind and capabilities mean I have educated myself and I know that I will need to exercise exercise five times a week for 30 minutes each time to feel my best.

 I also know that I'm going to need to learn to read labels and make good food choices. And finally, you get to the environment and the results, any additional environment changes that you do need to make, and you begin to get the results. And so what I want you to think about is, when we're thinking about our mindset, are we starting backwards? Are we starting with our environment, and our capabilities, rather than doing the very deep dyed it deep dive in ourselves, so that we can really get at those sub conscious beliefs, so that we can extract the subconscious beliefs, and implant new beliefs, which is possible. This is what we do in the happy Academy, we take you through the process of actually extracting those beliefs and inputting other beliefs that are the beliefs that take you forward in your life. By the way, just so you know, we have all kinds of people each year who join the happy Academy, we had 17,000 People in the happy Academy this past year, a lot of those people were schools and school districts who purchased the happy Academy for their entire faculty. And I got the privilege of walking their faculty through the happy Academy every single month for 10 months. And the results that the people are seeing are just, it's just so rewarding to see them take their direction, their life in a different direction. So if your school has a focus on employee well being, you're going to want to email me or have your administrator email me so that we can see if the happy Academy is a good fit for you for this next school year. We also allow individuals to join the happy Academy and you can go to my website under Programs and you can get on the happy Academy waitlist so that when we launch it, you'll be the first to know. Alright folks, here's to working on our internal blueprints, shifting our mindset and actually getting results.