Hey, friends, and welcome back to building a life you love.

This is your host, Kristen.

Today we're going to talk about what might be holding you back and what can we do about it.

So that's what we're going to dive into today, but the crux of it will be around our mindset and motivation and how do we jumpstart both of those?

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And I want to share with you what the author of the book Limitless said.

Jim Kwik.

He says motivation is a set of emotions, painful and pleasurable, that act as the fuel for our actions.

You can learn to unlimit and expand your mindset, your motivation and your methods to create a limitless life.

When you do what others won't, you can live how others can't.

But he basically explains that we can't start with how to.

Sorry.

We can't start with how to change something in our lives or sorry.

Or the methods.

We have to start looking at our motivation and our mindset.

And so that's what we're going to dig into today.

We're just going to, you know, know this is going to be a mini episode.

So we're just going to get a taste of this idea and some things to ask ourselves.

Okay.

And so dim quick talks about this, but so do other people.

There's a whole book about a growth mindset from a professor and I can't think of her name right now.

But basically the first thing we need to do is we need to understand that our mindset shapes everything about us.

So if we believe something like we can't do something or there's no, there's no other path forward, we're stuck in the job or the career, in we're not a Somebody that's fit.

Like, in other words, if we have beliefs like that, we're limiting ourselves because we're gonna.

We're gonna act based on our beliefs.

So if we think, oh, well, I can't run three miles, or I.

I don't see any possibility of a different job or a different path, then we're going to act based on that belief, right on that mindset.

And so what we want to do is we want to go from a fixed mindset thinking that we're limited by the world around us.

We're limited by either our past or we're limited by the circumstances around us.

We want to shift from that to a growth mindset, meaning that we understand and know that we can change, we can evolve, we can keep learning.

And if being honest, the only way to move forward is to have a mindset that tells us that we should always be the student, we should always be learning.

And I say that because the world is changing very quickly.

Look at how much AI is now tied into so many processes and tools online.

I mean, almost every online tool I use for even doing this podcast, they have now tied in AI elements to them.

So we're going to have to adapt, we're going to have to adjust, and we're going to have to keep learning new skills.

So we have to shift to a growth mindset.

We have to shift from seeing that there's possibility for our future, that just because we were something in the past or identified as something doesn't mean that that defines our future.

We want to understand that we just want to move towards something we don't have to.

For instance, let's say that in the past, you've just struggled to even take walks daily, right?

Or do any sort of fitness that we don't want to, then keep telling ourselves, like, oh, I'm.

I can't do that.

I'm not fit.

What we want to say is, you know, I'm a work in progress.

I am making strides to become more fit.

Or I've started walking even for 10 minutes a day, and I just want to increase that.

But when we set a goal like that, we're shifting our language as we start refining who we're becoming in the future, not what we did or who we were in the past.

Okay?

So that's the first thing we have to really start understanding our mindset.

And if you want to read more about this, the book Limitless by Jim Quick is a great one.

Or the book, I will put it in the show notes.

But the book about the Growth Mindset, which is another really good book, and I have it somewhere in my office that's a great one.

Whether you're.

Whether it's for yourself or someone, maybe your children.

Growth Mindset is a great book because it really looks at how, when we're young, if things are too easy for us or we get celebrated by, like, how smart we are.

The problem is, is when things get harder to figure out, we get harder courses or harder things in life.

Sometimes we.

We get frustrated, we give up, because things came easy to us before.

But life's all about overcoming obstacles.

It's all about figuring out another way, problem solving.

And so if we have a growth mindset, we realize that the key to us, to all of us, is just finding a way forward and then finding a way to improve something.

Right?

And so that's super important.

All right.

The next thing is the two reasons why a lot of people don't make changes in their lives is either their mindset or they struggle to be motivated, right.

To take that action.

But what's interesting is motivation isn't just about wanting to do it, like feeling inspired to do it.

It's about creating habits and momentum.

And so in his book Limitless, Jim Kwik talks about a strategy called focus.

Follow one course until successful to keep us motivated by focusing on one thing at a time.

And lots of other people talk about similar ideas.

The book by James Clear called Atomic Habits, which lots of people have read that also talks about this idea that we have to do one small thing, right, and build on it.

In other words, it's like the microhabits, but you don't go from never running to decide you're going to run a marathon in a week.

In other words, what we want to do is we want to build up that momentum, build up a habit of just making time to go in, walk, or jog, right?

And over time, we will build on that habit.

And so it's the same sort of idea about having motivation.

We want to, you know, follow one course until successful, meaning that you don't want to start off with the huge goal like, I want to run a marathon.

You can know that's the goal, but you have to start off with the tiniest piece.

I want to run a marathon, but I'm not there yet.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start committing to, you know, every day or a couple times a week, walking or walk.

Jogging, Right.

And then from there, once you've started doing it consistently, you can Add on to that and build on that habit so that eventually that motivation gets bigger because you're being successful in what you started and you can build on that, right?

Which is the action you're taking.

Action.

The next thing is when we don't do different things, when we're not growing and learning, if we always do the same thing, in other words, we, our brains are wired to take the easiest, easiest path.

And so what we need to do is we need to change things up.

And so, for instance, you might have heard about this before, but driving home a new way, you know, working out a different way, sometimes we need a new challenge.

One because it actually helps wire our brain a little bit different.

It challenges our brain in a different way.

This helps us so that we're not always looking for comfort.

We're not always looking for the easiest path, because that is easy.

But it's not helping us grow.

It's not helping us build resilience.

And so those things are going to help us strengthen our mindset and have more motivation.

So that's super important.

And it's by shifting our mindset motivation that we can start changing our thoughts and our patterns, which will help us take more action.

And Jim Kwik says this, your mindset is your most powerful tool.

If you can change the way you think, you can change the way you live.

So I want to share a couple questions with you to get you thinking about, is there something holding you back and how can we kind of get dig into that?

But I will say he also says a lot of people know what to do but don't because of your mindset and motivation.

So we have to acknowledge that, that often it's not because you don't want to take action.

It's because you need to look at your mindset and then.

Or look at your motivation.

And so you need to ask yourself, where do you feel stuck?

Like you're not making progress, but you want to.

You know, it could be in your relationships.

It could be in your career, income, your health, energy, you know, or any other area.

And so one of the other thing that Jim talked about in an interview that I was listening to, he said, if you fight for limitations, you get to keep them.

And this is really going back to the idea of having a victim mentality.

And I've shared about this before.

There is a psychiatrist that's written a couple books.

She's in her 90s, and she was actually in the concentration camps in Germany.

But, you know, she talks about that.

We, we have to start asking Why?

I mean, stop asking why me?

And shift that thinking, right?

That, that mind, mindset or that belief to what's next.

So that's about this whole thing.

If we get stuck in identifying with our limit, our limitations, our trauma, our past performance, right?

Like maybe we.

You did something wrong in the past.

Maybe we're ashamed of something.

If we identify only by what we've done already, or being a victim or holding on to anger or hurt, maybe some of you, you know, have been left in your, you know, your spouse has left you, or you're in a relationship, it got broken up and you still are hurting from that.

Well, we can't hold on to the identity.

We have to let go of the limitations and start asking ourselves what's next?

Okay, so it gives an example.

If you keep saying the thing, it's not serving you.

So for instance, if somebody says, I don't have a great memory, it's just keeping us stuck there.

And if you're not ready to say the future thing, then what you can say is, I don't have a great memory yet, or I'm working on getting better at my memory.

So in other words, we have to start using different language to describe ourselves or who or what we want to be because it's, it's not going to help us.

Some other things that he talks about was that procrastination and self sabotage are both challenges.

Procrastination is a motivation issue and self sabotage is a mindset issue.

So if we're doing those things, we need to look at one of those two areas.

And I like one of the things that Greg McEwen in effortless talks about.

He talks about when we feel overwhelmed by a project or trying to do something, then we want to name the first obvious step.

The reason is so many of us see this big project and we don't break it down into real small steps.

So what happens is we never take action.

So he gives a.

He tells a story that a productivity expert shared about April, April Perry.

But basically there's a woman she's working with who has a room that's filled with books.

Books everywhere, piles of books, boxes of books, books on top of furniture.

It's literally books everywhere.

And the woman knew the solution to getting her books out of the living room was to buy bookshelves.

But she's just not doing it right.

It seems like she's procrastinating or she's self sabotaging because the books keep sitting there month after month kind of a thing.

And so as they walk through, you know, like, what needs to happen for.

For you to move these books, right?

Get them off of all your services, and they kind of walk through it all.

And so as they do, you know, the obvious first thing was like, oh, well, if I order bookshelves, I could put the books away.

But then when you break that step down, she didn't know what size bookshelves to order, so she actually said, no, I can't order bookshelves because I don't know what size I would need to measure the room, right?

Measure what size bookshelves.

And so then the productivity expert asks her, well, can you go right now and measure your walls?

And he says, no, because I can't find a tape measure.

So the challenge started with the smallest thing, but.

But now they identify her first step in the project of getting her books out of the room and off the floor and out of piles, which is, I need to find, borrow, or buy a tape measure so that I can take that first fraction in getting bookshelves.

So, see, this is what happens to so many of us is we start feeling so overwhelmed by the project or the thing, maybe the work we want to do on ourselves, maybe it's a work on our marriage, and we think, like, we need to fix the whole thing or how do we get from here to finishing the project?

But often it starts with identifying what is the one thing we can do right now.

What's that one small, tiny first step we can take?

Because the more tiny first steps we take, it will start building action and momentum.

And when we do that, our mindset starts shifting and our motivation shifts because we start seeing progress, which gives us that little hit of dopamine in our brain, right?

It's like I see now.

But in his book, he also says, but more often than not, a step as tiny as buying tape measure provides the momentum we need to take the next step and then the next step after that.

Isn't that so good?

But I think what we need to do is reframe.

First of all, what's stopping us from making progress, right?

Maybe it's in our health.

Maybe we really want to start lifting weights, but we just.

It just keeps not happening.

So we need to get.

We need to figure out what's behind that.

Like, is it something stopping us because we don't have a place to lift weights, we don't want to go to a gym either to pay the money or just.

We don't feel comfortable in that environment?

Is it because we don't have weights or Is it because we don't have a designated area?

In other words, we have to start getting behind?

Like, what is really stopping us?

Is it that we don't know how to lift weights?

Like you don't even know what to do with them.

So we need to start asking ourselves more questions when we're stuck or when we feel like there's something blocking our progress in some area of our lives.

And then one other thing he talks about in his book, this is an effortless.

He says the magic of microbursts.

Microburst is a meteorological surge that causes powerful winds and storms for a brief but intense period, often just 10 to 15 minutes.

And.

But when he's talking about microburst in our own life, he says microburst in April, Perry's vernacular is a 10 minute surge of focused activity that can have an immediate effect on our essential project.

It's the little burst of motivation and energy we get from taking that first obvious action.

And from there, your energy and your confidence only builds with every subsequent action.

And so I just want to give an example of this.

He says, essential project, remove the clutter from the garage.

The first obvious action for some people might be find the broom, sweep out the shed and move the bikes.

I'm sorry, that first obvious action is find the broom.

The micro burst is sweep out the shed and move the bikes into the shed.

So it's really small, but then it gives us really quick hit.

Right?

And then one last thing in his book that I want to share today, he talks about the power of two and a half seconds.

And he says recently neuroscientists, psychologists have found that the now we experience last only 2.5 seconds.

He goes on to say about that 2 1/2 seconds is enough time to shift our focus, to put the phone down, to close the browser, to take a deep breath.

It's enough time to open a book, take out a blank sheet of paper, lace up our raining shoes, or open up the junk drawer and fish out our tape measure.

Right?

But we can also use those 2.5 seconds to get caught in nonsense non essential activities like scrolling, liking something, writing a quick tweet or things like that.

So we do have to be careful because if we just say, all right, I'm for just a second, I'm going to like take one action.

It's going to move us in the right direction.

If the action is towards something we want to do or change in our lives.

And I don't have it in front of me.

But Mel Robbins wrote Several books, but one of them is called the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 habit.

And the whole idea of it is you can shift your mindset by saying.

By saying that, like, if you don't feel like putting on your running shoes, you.

You basically kind of do that countdown and then do it right?

Like you're basically giving yourself like a ready, set go.

But they find that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Right.

There's some psychology behind it that that works.

So whatever it takes to shift your thinking and kind of stop you from whatever you were thinking about, to shift into taking that one quick action towards what you want to have forward progress or change in.

Okay, so here's two questions you can ask yourself.

If.

If I weren't afraid of failing, what would I start doing today to move closer to the life that I want to create?

So, you know, pick a category.

Health, money, you know, whatever it might be.

And ask yourself that question in that context.

You know, is it that you really want to lose weight?

You know, maybe you want to commit to moving, you know, 10,000 steps a day?

Well, what is it that's keeping you from that?

I mean, you might not be afraid of failing, but something may be keeping you from that.

Is it that you're so busy your day is booked full, and so then you need to ask yourself, what can you do differently?

Is there something you can do differently?

To start taking one tiny action in that area.

Okay.

The next is, what belief or story about myself is holding me back from taking action towards my goal and how can I rewrite it?

I think that's better said.

What believer story about myself is holding me back from taking action towards an villain, a specific goal.

Right.

I mean, if it's too broad about, oh, I just want to make more money or I want a better life, it might be too broad.

And so write in a specific goal.

Right.

Maybe you want this to have a career change in the next 12 months, you know, so write something more specific to that, not so vague.

Okay.

To wrap this up, what we want to do is if we're finding that we're stuck or locked in a place in our life, we don't feel like we're making progress, or maybe we just feel defeated or whatever it might be, we need to realize that the reason maybe we're not able to move forward, we're not able to get past that roadblock or take action is because we need to work on our mindset or our motivation.

And some of the books I mentioned that are worth checking out, if you haven't already are effortless by Greg McKeown, Atomic Habits by James Clear, and Limitless by Jim Quick.

So those are all three great books to really help you step into doing the things you want to do, to make the changes in your life you want to make in whatever area they're in.

And then I do also want to let you know that on my website@kristenfitch.com There is a create a life you love free workbook that you can download.

But it, it's basically it walks you through tons of lists that let you really understand what it is you want in the different areas of your life.

So your health, you know, what is it?

What are your health goals?

What are your personal or your goals around your career?

What is it that you want to shift in your mindset?

And so it just has all these things and even has like, what, what do you want to do right?

Like, what are your dreams for the next 10 years?

So it has a ton of stuff.

It even has like, how can you shift the way you see your body?

And things like that.

But it's, it's a really powerful.

It basically is full of lists, reflections and journal pages and gratitude pages to help you step into the future you've always wanted.

So if that's of interest to you, head over to KristinFitch.com go to my freebies page and it's the second section of downloads.

You can grab that and just start becoming more confident and clear and exactly who you are and what you want and what is important to you.

So go grab that.

And you'll also be signed up to be part of my community by joining my newsletter as well.

And thanks again for listening in.

And if you enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you'd subscribe and leave us a review and rating on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

And you can check out freebies and resources we have for you@kristenfitch.com and if you have ideas for the show or guests that you'd like to recommend, I'd love to hear from you.

So DM me on Instagram hristenfitch or you can email me from the website.

Thanks so much.

Until next time, have a great week.