What Is Mindset? Does Mindset Work? How I Apply Mindset As A Mom Of Three

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

What’s happening, my friends? So happy to be here with you today. How are you? I hope you’re doing well. I have been having so much fun. We have so many new members in this community, whether it’s in the Membership, in the new free training, listening to the podcast over on Instagram at mom.on purpose. It’s just been a lot of fun connecting individually with all of you. I’ve been doing a lot more of that, so just a little shout out to you if I’ve been talking with you.

I really appreciate it and I’m so glad that you are here. Today’s podcast is called What Is Mindset? Does Mindset Work? And then How I Apply Mindset as a Mom of Three. Now, based on this title, you might be thinking that this is an introductory podcast. Maybe you’re gonna listen anyways, but you’re thinking, okay, I probably already know that mindset is is real. I believe it probably if you are a listener of this podcast, but that is not the case my friends, this is not going to be an introductory level podcast. This is going to be a very advanced level podcast in terms of thought work, mindset work, and, kinda getting into the weeds of, of what mindset is from like a very precise level. So why am I doing this? Well, I listen to a lot of business content because I run and own and operate a business, and I heard a very successful businessman say, mindset doesn’t work.

And one of the things that he said was, no one can tell him what exactly mindset is. And just for context, this man is very intelligent and he talks about how he used to be really into kind of the woo in personal development and he’s not into it at all anymore. And he kind of credits that to taking a lot of action and how the action that he changed really made all of the difference in his life in in his business. And when he just focused on mindset, it never worked for him. And because I respect this person so much and I get a lot of value from his, his business teachings, it really kind of stopped me in my tracks because usually you hear the opposite from business people, or at least I do. It’s yes, mindset works and it’s great. And so from hearing this, I was digging a lot deeper into my own thoughts and beliefs and mindsets and, you know, asking myself important questions that I wanted to share with you and get into the weeds a little bit with respect to mindset.

I think this is really helpful if you are skeptical at all, if this works, some of you won’t care and won’t like this. And in general, that’s, I I put myself in that category. Like for me, if I try something and it works, I’m like, heck yes, let’s keep going. I don’t need to read research and data and science behind why it works. I’m like, cool, this makes my life easier and better. I’m in, right? So there’s just lots of different types of listeners, so this may be one that you love, um, or it may be one that gets a little bit too far into the weeds for you. But either way, it was something that was on my heart to share with you because I’ve been thinking about it. And I think it is important, particularly for those of you listening who question what mindset is question, you know, whether it’s important and how to use it to change your life.

Because I do agree with a lot of what this person was saying, that if you just sit in a room and think thoughts and do nothing different, nothing changes. I remember when I was in law school thinking like there were so many parts of my life that I wanted to change, and at that time I was an avid podcast listener and pretty much nothing about my life was being changed in the way that I wanted it to. Even though I read tons of books and I listened to tons of personal development podcasts, nothing in my life changed. It really wasn’t until I understood what brain management is and I understood how the how of applying these tools that my life really did change. And so there is a how, and I’m sure if he was listening to this, he would argue that that’s actually what makes the difference.

It’s the actions. It’s kinda like, is it the chicken or the egg here? So I, again, I don’t think that that matters so much as it matters that we talk about that words that I use here, like mindset, thoughts, brain management beliefs. A lot of times I use those words interchangeably. I don’t mind that at all personally. I’ll continue to do that. But for purposes of this episode, I think it’ll be really important if we just start off defining what each of those words mean and then like seeing how they can be utilized in a way to make a big difference in your life. Okay, so with that background, I, I think of a hierarchy when it comes to a thought, a belief, and a mindset. So I think of mindset as the broadest, like the umbrella term and underneath mindset a little bit narrower is beliefs and the most narrow is thoughts. So a thought is just a sentence in your head. It is a single specific idea that arises in your mind. And I’m just gonna leave it at that one thought.

A belief is a collection of thoughts, and you repeat the same thoughts so often that you believe them and they become your beliefs. So, for example, let’s say you have the thought, I didn’t get everything done today, and then maybe you have the belief I’m not good at managing my time. That belief stems from recurring thoughts that you probably think are facts. So you have these sentences in your head individually that are individual thoughts. You summarize them and believe them by continuing to think them so much that they become a belief system that you have. And even broader than that is the mindset that you have in your overall approach to that area of your life. So in the previous example, if the thought is, I didn’t get everything done today, your belief is I’m not good at managing my time, which includes that thought and probably a number of other thoughts.

And in general you have a fixed mindset about time management believing that you can’t get better at managing your time and often feeling, you know, overwhelmed and avoid trying new strategies. I like thinking about it this way in terms of the hierarchy and how thoughts are the most singular and then a number of thoughts make a belief. You continue to think those thoughts so much you believe them. And mindset being the broadest perspective because it makes it so much more concrete. My approach to motherhood and to marriage and to time management and balance and life and setting and achieving goals to everything really stems from looking at your thoughts and looking at your beliefs and your mindsets first and then taking action. And this is why it’s important because if it feels like mindset is vague, if it feels like mindset doesn’t work, if it feels like mindset isn’t going to help you change your life, then it’s really just entertainment, which is fine if you want it to be entertainment, but that is not my intention at all with any of the content that I produce.

Really, this podcast is just an introduction to those of you who want to continue working with me. It’s how marketing works in this year. We get the privilege of producing free stuff. And then, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s like going to Costco. You go to Costco and you try out the free samples and then you buy something, okay? You’re not gonna buy everything that you try a free sample of, but generally speaking, you don’t just go there for the free samples, you end up buying things. That is what marketing is, right? It’s free samples. And so that’s what a podcast is. And I say that because it’s so important to me as part of my mission that it’s clear that these tools are really applicable and specific and they work, right? I would not promote them and talk about them if they didn’t work. And the, the longer I coach and the, you know, more clients I coach, I’ve coached thousands of clients and I continue to take trainings and get certified and do my own personal development and continuing education so that I always overdeliver to my clients.

The more that I’m doing all of that, the more important it is for me to make sure my clients are getting results. I always tell members inside the Mom On Purpose Membership that I’m constantly thinking about how I can make the tools and the classes and the courses easier for them to apply to get the results that they want. Okay, so with that, I want to invite you to just start to think about your thoughts and your beliefs and your mindsets personally, if we’re being very specific and detailed about it. I like looking at thoughts because you can get the most leverage when you see a thought is just a thought and it’s not a fact. We think the thoughts that we think on default are facts. Like, it’s a beautiful day. I wasn’t a great mom today. My husband’s being really annoying. Whatever our brain is summarizing, we think those are facts, but those are not facts.

Those are just thoughts. And I like to use the analogy of having like, a filing cabinet and that’s where the belief comes into play. So you have this belief that, I don’t know, my husband’s always stressed out. It’s a belief you have about your husband and you are collecting evidence and you are putting it in this file cabinet so that you can pull it out and say, see, you know, look at all these 20 instances that are proof that my husband is always stressed out. And I’m sure all of those are true. Your brain is so smart, all of our brains are very intelligent and smart and they’re always looking for what to pay attention to. And your brain does not discriminate. It’s like Google. If you type into Google, why is my husband so stressed? It’s gonna tell you if you type into Google, why is my husband so happy?

It’s gonna tell you the questions that you ask your brain, the directions that you give to your brain, what you tell your brain to focus on is what it will focus on. And then that becomes a belief and you collect all that evidence for it. And why I love doing this work is because in a very real way, you can take a look at individual specific thoughts and question those thoughts and change them for your sake. This is for your sake, not so that you can just sit around in a room practicing new thoughts, thinking that your life’s going to change without you taking any action. That’s what I want to correct here in this podcast. It’s not that, you know, mindset alone creates results. I mean, yes and no. I hesitate to say that it is mindset alone, but it only works that way if you actually change your feelings and your actions.

And that’s why I love to think about the time when I was in law school listening to personal development. I had other people’s thoughts in my mind. I was reading personal development books, I was listening to personal development podcasts, but nothing in my life was different. It was like a nice little dopamine hit, which of course is better than my other dopamine hits of choice, right? Watching the Real Housewives or something. Certainly there’s like an upside to just choosing that as what you’re listening to, of course. But the results, I’m talking about changing your life. I’m talking about you stop yelling at your kids and you become a calm person. I’m talking about you felt anger or frustration for the last decade, and now it’s not one of your top emotions at all. I’m talking about you lost weight permanently and you never gained it back again.

I’m talking about, you know, you wanted to create x, y, z in your life and you actually went out and did it. That happens by changing your thoughts. First, you can change your actions first, but in order for it to be permanent change, your mindset has to follow. If it doesn’t follow, then you will “go back to kind of your old ways”. So weight loss is like the example I always use. ’cause we all understand it. It’s so easy. It’s like if you, you take your brain with you. So if you don’t change your mindset, you will shift back to the old actions because you didn’t change your identity. That’s why I love doing future self work and identity work so much because you make this shift where it’s internal and your actions will be different if your actions are the same, if your results are the same, then you haven’t changed your mindset.

The same brain creates the same actions and the same results. You have to think different and feel different. That’s how you know if it’s working. If you’re feeling differently and you are acting differently, you will create a different result. For example, when I was, I don’t know, in my late twenties, early thirties, and I didn’t know about this work and how to apply it, I was definitely more of like a yeller quick to frustration. I would not have described myself as grounded or calm at all. And now I am the calm parent. I am the one who doesn’t yell. I am so present and connected with my kids. And that did not happen by chance. That happened because I changed my identity, I changed my thoughts, and I changed my beliefs about who I am. And that led to very real practical change, staying calm during temper tantrums, allowing my kids to kind of not listen, break the rules, be “defiant”, whatever it is.

And I keep my cool. Now, it doesn’t mean that I’m permissive. I am strong, I’m a sturdy leader. I hold boundaries, but I do not lose my cool, and I don’t like jeopardize the relationship. There’s not this shame-based parenting where I’m thinking they’re bad and they’re in trouble. And I disconnect in the relationship. And that is mindset. That is huge, my friend, yes, mindset works, but when we talk about it in that way, and really what this businessman, this person was, was saying, and he, he even said it explicitly, he said, you know, when I used to believe that it was like I was waiting for it to “happen”. And he was talking about how it promotes the victim mentality. And I absolutely agree that if you are sitting around like waiting for something to happen, you are not doing it right.

Like something is wrong. Like it’s not gonna happen to you. You are going to make it happen, but not from force and you know, negativity. I mean you can, but you know, that’s not very fun right? Whatever it is. Whatever shift you wanna make, if you can get into the mindset of I want to create this life in this way because that’s who I wanna be, what do I need to do to create it? Let’s go. That’s empowered thinking. That’s the opposite of the victim mentality. The victim mentality is like, this is happening to me. Whether that’s a bad thing or whether you’re just sitting around thinking, you know, these good things will just happen to me. I don’t have to do anything. I can always tell with coaching when a client is kind of in this state, and sometimes it comes up around the law of attraction, which I’m a fan of.

I’m a fan of anything that works truly. But where I think people get hung up with law of attraction is like, it sounds so lovely and sexy to not do anything and to just be happy and abundant and then watch your life magically become amazing. And that’s just a simplified version that is not reality. And what I mean by that is, even when you are positive and happy, you’re gonna have challenges. And I’m all for positivity and, and feeling happy. Like that’s a fun time. But it’s not that those emotions are necessary 100% of the time. And when you are feeling them, it’s not like, okay, all of a sudden you lose weight and I don’t know, you make more money and you don’t yell at your kids or whatever it is. It’s, it’s just not relevant, okay? So I want to encourage you to get good at feeling happy and positive just because that makes life more fun because your brain is wired for negativity and you know your life is going by every day.

And if you don’t work on that, then you will kind of goal chase thinking that happiness is over there and that never comes and you just spend a lot of time dissatisfied with your life. So that’s not fun. But then on the other hand, what I’m not saying is, okay, let’s work on emotions and get into this high vibe state where you’re happy and you’re not doing any of the work you want to do to achieve your goals. They’re just separate. So I want you to feel how you wanna feel on a regular daily basis. Most of the clients who I work with, they wanna feel calm, they wanna feel connected, they do wanna feel happy, they want to feel empowered, they want to feel confident, right? Those are just a handful of them. They’re probably tons of them, and they’re, they’re individual, they’re specific to you.

So whatever you wanna feel, you absolutely can create thoughts to feel that way. Thoughts create feelings, whatever you think creates how you feel. What’s awesome about thought work is that you have the power to change your thoughts. And I didn’t know that before and it’s so awesome because now I do it as a practice and it does work. Now, when it comes to setting and achieving big goals, let’s go with weight loss or a career change or money or business or something like that. Those big outcome-based goals, that is going to take some negative emotion. There is probably going to be some disappointment and some frustration along the way. But if overall you are energized and motivated by, I call it like the goal fuel that you want fueling you, that’s just going to make it more likely that you continue for the long haul.

Like if you feel motivated, that’s gonna be helpful. You don’t have to feel motivated, but do pay attention to your goal fuel. But what gets you the goal is taking the right actions. And you know this because there have been things that you have achieved in your life that you have been miserable doing, but you did achieve it. Like think back to college. If there was a class that you didn’t really like, you still did the work, you got the good grade and it had nothing to do with your happiness. So yes, actions create outcomes always, and also thoughts create feelings. So when you’re working on your feelings, work on your feelings just because you want to work on how you want to feel as part of your everyday life, whether that’s in motherhood, in your career, in your life, I’m all for it. And also, when you’re working on a specific goal, we gotta look at the actions and we gotta look at what’s working and what’s not working.

And as part of that, right, you’re a human being working on this goal, it’s important to pay attention to your overall wellbeing, which does include your thoughts and your feelings. So it’s all of it, depending on the client and depending on the outcome that they’re wanting to change, influences where I start with respects to thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. So for example, I’m coaching a lot of clients lately, a lot of private clients as well on weight loss. And I pretty much, I don’t wanna say always, but very often I start with actions because all of the mindset stuff is gonna come up over time as we get going. Like we don’t need to sit there and think our way to perfection, which of course isn’t even possible. But think our way to positivity without doing of any of the actions. My just personal philosophy for helping my clients lose weight is let’s get started with the actions and then let’s see what comes up for you.

And those will be coaching opportunities as we, you know, help you lose weight. So that’s the approach that I like to take for weight loss. That’s very different than the approach I take for, let’s say, helping a client stop yelling at her kids. What I’m gonna do there is isolate specific instances of the last time that that client yelled. Take a look at what they were thinking and feeling right before they yelled. And then out of the moment the action work to do is to create new better feeling thoughts. So for example, if a client says, I yelled at my kids last night, my boys were fighting and you know, they’re driving me crazy. And I’ll say, okay, so your thought is my kids shouldn’t be fighting at bedtime. And that thought feels frustrating because what you’re looking at is your kids fighting at bedtime.

So out of the moment, I’m gonna have that person journal about their kids fighting at bedtime and how they wanna think. Instead, they might wanna think, oh, of course my kids are gonna fight at bedtime. I expect that and I expect myself to hold boundaries, to stay calm, to be connected, and to help move things along in our nighttime routine. And in a very real way, changing those thoughts leads to feeling calm and connection and confidence to, you know, hold those boundaries. And then the actions that that mom takes are completely different. And I have done this work in my own life, my friends with yelling, with marriage, with weight loss, with kinda shifting from being in that type A go, go, go doer energy all the time to just feeling calm and connected for no reason at all for delighting in my life. And that is why I love, love, love these tools.

It really has taken me from the victim mentality to feeling empowered. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle, it’s just that it’s not so hard when I do struggle now, it’s not so up and down, it’s not so overwhelming, it’s not such a big deal. It’s like, oh yeah, okay, this is a challenge. How are we gonna solve it? And I know that I have these tools, I’m like a skilled contractor, carpenter, both, I don’t know, the analogy is not gonna work here, but you get the idea. I have all these tools and I know how to use them before life was happening. And it felt so dramatic because I didn’t have these tools. So yes, mindset works, but I think we have to define work. And work to me means that something in your life is better or different. If you are applying mindset correctly, then something in your life will be better or different.

It might just be that you’re navigating a terrible diagnosis and you feel at peace connected to yourself and you have alleviated the, you know, nighttime worrying and anxiety that used to flood you. That’s a huge shift. Or it might be that you use these tools to stop yelling at your kids or lose weight or increase connection in your marriage. You don’t feel like roommates with your husband anymore. And it didn’t require marriage therapy or anything like that. You did the work on what you can control, which is your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions. So I love doing mindset work, but I also love taking action. I love both. And I think depending on the change that you want to make, it depends where you want to start. So what I mean by that is, you know, if you’re going to start with changing your top emotions, you’re gonna start with your thoughts and feelings.

If you are going to start with being able to process your feelings when you’re frustrated at night, it’s gonna start with the thoughts and the feelings work as well. If you are applying for new jobs, if you are wanting to lose weight, wanting to make more money in your business, just wanting to do more of those outcome tangible changes, it’s probably gonna start with more action. At least that’s the approach that I take. Again, as I mentioned earlier, if you notice yourself waiting, thinking that something’s going to just happen because you’re thinking positively, that is a sign that you are doing it incorrectly. You are not using the tools to your benefit. I am very much about, you know, being proactive and empowered and also, you know, not forcing anything. But I think the force comes with the energy behind what you’re doing. Like I work hard and I know how to rest and relax.

And when I’m with my kids, I have my mom hat on and I’m the full-time at childcare primarily for them. And I’m so proud of that. And it’s only because I am using these tools. And again, I can like vividly remember, you know, being in law school and thinking, okay, after law school, this is it. Like I gotta figure out how to actually apply all of this stuff that I’m learning about in podcasts and books. Because listening was like, you know, again, it’s like getting the free samples in Costco. It’s like nice for sure, but it’s not the same thing as actually buying the product and taking it home and using it. And I really wanna encourage you to invest in yourself because it will change your life in the most profound ways, especially if you continue to do the work. It’s like as long as you have a human body, you need to move it and exercise. As long as you have a human brain, you need to manage it because your brain is wired for survival. It’s not wired for getting outside your comfort zone. It’s not wired for happiness. So managing your mind means taking a look at those thoughts, taking a look at those beliefs and those mindsets and changing them to serve you. Okay, I know that I weaved in my story, but I do wanna explicitly just take a little bit of time here to talk about how I apply mindset as you know, a coach, as a mom of three, as someone who values this work and has had the privilege of coaching thousands of clients and building this, this very, you know, successful multiple six figure coaching practice. As I already mentioned, I don’t yell, I’m pretty calm, I know how to hold boundaries. Tantrums don’t bother me. I feel very connected, grounded.

I got my like tools, armor on. I know what to do when I get in there. That has been such a gift. I know how to validate feelings and maintain connection while holding boundaries. So what I’m talking about right now is parenting. I rarely have mom guilt. Like occasionally it comes up, but it is so much less than if I didn’t have these tools. And that’s because I define my success as a mom based on things within my control. So if my kids are unhappy, if my kids are bored, if my kids, you know, aren’t performing at the way that is expected by me or society or their pediatrician or whatever, I support them and I decide, okay, you know, what kind of help do we wanna get them? Do they need, like what are our next steps? And that’s helpful, but I, I don’t then turn it around and beat myself up and thinking like I’m a bad mom because this is happening. And that’s only because of the way that I’ve intentionally defined success as a mom for myself. I really remind myself to not tie outcomes to my worth. And that’s that perfectionism as well as good girl syndrome, not falling into people pleasing and thinking that I’m good if I do things for other people. Firstborn type A, that good girl syndrome, that is, it’s a tough one. I don’t know if I’ll ever completely overcome it. I think naturally we all like to be approved of. And yet, I think for women and moms especially, it’s so important that we do that work to untie our goodness and our worth to other people’s approval and validating ourselves and approving of ourselves. And that’s work that I do. And it has given me this confidence that I just never had growing up. I would say it wasn’t just something I was naturally good at.

And so I’m really proud of that juggling, balancing business and motherhood. You know, it still is not lost on me. What a privilege and what a gift and just what a blessing it’s been to be able to have this business feel very mission-driven and help other moms with all of these tools and be able to have three boys in three years and have a beautiful family and marriage and home and all of that at once and not feel overwhelmed. I do not feel overwhelmed. Y’all know this, right? I talked about that enough, but I will not indulge in overwhelm. I use lots of tools for time management and calendaring. And it doesn’t mean being very purpose-driven, mission-driven, having my priorities doesn’t mean that, you know, it’s, it’s not hard. It, it is hard, right? But, but I’m okay with that. Like I’m okay with it being difficult and challenging and managing my mind around that because it’s part of my purpose.

So for example, would I love to, you know, go to the spa all day and get 10 hours of sleep every night? Yeah, that sounds lovely, but what do I want to do? I wanna prioritize being up with my kids at night if they get up. And that’s harder than sleeping 10 hours a night and going to the spa is harder, but that doesn’t bother me. It’s like going to the gym’s hard too, but that’s so good for my body. And I think it’s what makes a good life is living on purpose into the person who you want to be. Not because you’re better, not because you need to be fixed, not because this is right, just because you get a choice with respect to how you want to live your life. And it’s so awesome. It is such a privilege to do this work and to be alive.

And I’m so grateful for you for being here. I love it. I can’t imagine motherhood or my marriage or my life just being as good as it is or getting better, but for doing this work, so does mindset work? Yes, if you work it, it doesn’t work if you just sit there and do nothing. And work means that you feel how you wanna feel, you take action to create the results that you want. You are getting the outcomes that you want. And if you’re not there yet, that’s okay too. It took me years of doing this, but what’s the alternative? It’s like just escaping your life. You’re gonna need a lot of false pleasure to feel any sort of sense of even that false happiness that comes with the false pleasure. And so I think this is such a better approach to life that gets you the results that you want. So manage your mind, my friends. Pay attention to your thoughts, your beliefs, and your mindsets. Come on into the Membership. I will coach you for one month and you can see what it is all about, to see if this is right for you. And with that, I’ll talk with you next week, my friend. Take care.

Thank you for being here and listening. Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose Membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.