There’s a reason you’re having that thought and like give yourself that grace too, that you’re not just mean to yourself or having these negative thoughts for no reason. So instead we can get curious and go like, where did that thought come from? Why am I thinking that? So really trying to zoom out and like make sense of the thought because if you don’t stop it in its tracks and say like, where the heck did you come from?

It’s just gonna run all over you. Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I’m your host, Dr. Kasey Jo. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we’re gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we’re going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply to your health, fitness, relationships business.

Marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it’s not all serious and sciency around here. We’re gonna have a ton of fun too, and I’m so excited to share all of this with you. Alright, let’s go ahead and get into the episode. Welcome back to Not another mindset show. Today we’re talking about me, we’re talking about myself and some of the things I made, the title of this episode, the Things I Say to myself in the Mirror.

The reality is I really have said a lot of these things to myself, looking at myself in the mirror. That is not a requirement of these questions, but. More. So these are questions that I ask myself and often I am asked when I’m like a guest on other podcasts or just in conversation with people and they say, well, you as a mindset expert, as someone who spends so much time in the behavior change in mindset and psychology space, how do you apply that stuff?

To yourself, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast before and just like things that I do as a mindset researcher and whatnot, but I wanted to make kind of just a, a quickie episode of specific questions that really do come up for me a lot when I am working through challenging things or I’m having negative thoughts come up because listen.

Just because I live and breathe mindset and psychology does not mean that I don’t sometimes struggle and sometimes run into my own fixed mindset, beliefs or self-limiting barriers, so to speak. So I wrote down some questions that I know come up in my own head a lot, and I think. What makes them really useful is that I actually am asking myself these questions.

It’s not just like a, oh yeah, I, I have to think about that negative thought I had this morning. At some point, maybe journal about it, and maybe you do, maybe you don’t. It’s, it’s really automatic for me and so I think that that’s an important disclaimer. Not really a disclaimer, but an important.

Conversation to have around all of this stuff is that it works because I’m doing it in the moment and it works because my brain has quite literally been wired this way, and it is in large part due to the fact that I spend so much time in this space and talking about this stuff. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be me.

You have to have a PhD in psychology and have all of this like research that you’ve done in mindset and behavior change and help people with that stuff all of the time in order to do this. It does, however, require more conscious like thought and critical thinking in the moment when you’re kind of going through it.

And that’s not easy and is not something that you should be just automatically capable of doing ’cause we’re really good. Just spiraling. So when these negative thoughts come up or you’re struggling with something, you just, it spirals and turns into all of these other thoughts and things and all of the reasons why you’re never gonna be successful and all this stuff, you kind of have to be like, no, we’re not going there.

Let’s think about this more critically. Let’s zoom out and think about why these thoughts are coming up and why this is happening and what caused this kind of bring yourself back down to earth to reality, to examine that thought, and that takes time and practice. So if for you right now you’re gonna listen to me, walk through all these questions and you’re like, yeah, those sound like great questions that I should be using in my life, but like.

And how do I do it? I’m, I’m not gonna do that. You know, you’re already probably gonna start thinking like, great, I’m glad that works for you, but who says it’s gonna work for me? And I promise you it will. This is not, these are not questions and things that I ponder about myself. That only works for me. It will work for you.

You do have to be intentional about doing it, and over time you can get to a place where I am, where when I have these challenging thoughts, negative experiences, that the first thing your brain does is go into these questions. So all that said, the first question I have here is. Where did that thought come from?

This is a literal in the mirror question I have had with myself before. So I’ll be brushing my teeth, doing my makeup, getting ready for the day, doing things where like you’re not on your phone, you’re not working, you’re not talking to someone else. And that is where those thoughts start to creep in, right?

So when you have a thought and you’re like, who am I to do that? Or What’s wrong with me? Or something maybe even more negative and demeaning like. You’re never gonna be good enough, you’re ugly, you’re whatever. It’s hard for me to even say these phrases out loud because they’re just so unproductive. And usually, if not all the time, not true.

So thoughts will pop up and I’ll look at myself in the mirror or I’ll be driving, or again, it usually comes up when you’re like doing something else. And when I have those thoughts that come up, I ask myself, where did that come from? Like how did that just appear out of what seems like nowhere? Because it really typically isn’t nowhere.

There’s a reason you’re having that thought and like give yourself that grace too, that you’re not just mean to yourself or having these negative thoughts for no reason. So instead we can get curious and go like, where did that thought come from? Why am I thinking that? Was there a situation that happened?

Did someone say something? Is it like a perfect storm of events in my life right now that is making me feel that way and think this way? So really trying to zoom out and like make sense of the thought because if you don’t stop it in its tracks and say like, where the heck did you come from? It’s just gonna run all over you.

Next question, what am I making this situation mean? There’s been honestly a variety of very interesting. Events in my life recently, some that I, I, I know I share a lot on the podcast, but things that I like truly can’t share, um, for the privacy of other people and, and all of that. But just like interesting events, like things that have made me feel weird and uncomfortable, and.

Anyway, I will leave it at that. Things that like, hello, welcome to the Human Experience. This is always going to happen and see, my brain is doing it literally in real time where I’m saying that I feel weird and uncomfortable in these situations and my brain immediately goes to, but welcome to the Human Experience, Casey.

This stuff is going to happen. So kind of normalizing the experience for myself already. You guys literally just watched me do mindset work on myself in the moment. So. What am I making the situation mean? So if I have like some more significant feelings come up or thoughts that are attached to a certain situation, again, these like uncomfortable, weird, whatever, my thought is, what am I making this mean?

Because if it was just the situation, which it is, by the way, and then you decide. How it makes you feel, what you’re making it mean. You have the power to decide, and we are doing this all day long all of the time. We are meaning making machines for better or for worse. So in those moments where you’re feeling icky, you’re feeling weird, you’re feeling uncomfortable, you’re having some like self-doubt come up, maybe.

What am I making the situation mean? What are you making the situation mean? Because you are assigning the meaning. So in my case. I am making the situation mean that it is uncomfortable, that it is weird, that it is like not fair to me. That is like, I’m not being considered or whatever, right? Like, I’m just like coming up random examples here.

So, and I’m making it mean that because why again, and that kind of ties into the first question of like, where did this thought come from? So why am I making it mean that when it could theoretically mean all of these other things? And that’s like another part of the conversation too, is. If I’m making it mean this, what else could it mean?

Since I’m making it mean that, what are the other paths of meaning making that could be taken here? How are the other, what are the other ways that this could unfold and what could that mean if it unfolded that way? And what could it mean if it unfolded the other way? And just like running through that again, it kind of grounds you and helps you see it for what it is and see it for how you are deciding that it is.

Okay, next question. Is it the situation or is it you? Or in this case, if I’m talking to myself in the mirror, is this the situation that’s making you feel this way? Or is it you that’s making you feel this way? So again, kind of like ties into the other questions that I’ve already said here, but with this one, we’re really trying to extrapolate.

Would this situation make anyone feel this way? Or is it me and my past experiences and maybe some of my own scars that I have, or ways that I’ve felt in the past from other people that are now making me feel this way in this certain situation? Or is this situation just in and of itself going to make anyone feel this way and.

In either case it can be helpful to like see it. What, for what it is, you know, along so much of this is just like, what is the actual reality of this situation? What is going on here? Um, so I will spend some time thinking like, especially if, if you feel like you wanna react to something, this can be really helpful.

Where you can decide is the reaction coming from something else. About me and my, I’ve been here on this planet for 32 years. 32 years of experiences. Is there something that I’ve experienced in the past that is now causing me to react this way now? Um, and one thing I will say too, I’m using the word react.

A lot of my reactions are internal. I don’t e externally react. Until I have sifted through the internal reaction, and people are different in this regard. You know, external processors versus internal processors, and I do think so many people. Just don’t have access to that internal processing because we’re so used to like, I feel this way and I need to put it out into the external world and talk to people and tell them about it and make my feelings known and make sure that I am heard.

Which makes a lot of sense. But can you imagine what the world would be like if more people felt some sort of way. Were feeling like they wanted to react to something in some kind of way or experiencing something in the moment, and instead of immediately trying to get it out of them, they sat with it for a second and thought, where did this come from?

What am I making this mean? Is this a me thing or is it a situation thing? Like, can you imagine what the world would be like? Okay, next question I ask myself in the mirror. How accurate is this thought? What is the reality? So these, as you can tell, all kind of build off each other, but they’ll work in different situations and circumstances and some of these questions are gonna land for you and you’re gonna like wanna go write ’em down, which I do encourage you that you do.

By the way, don’t just listen to this podcast and then expect these questions to come up for you when you’re looking at yourself in the mirror. Which they might, I don’t know, maybe it’s like gonna stick with you. Um, but. How accurate is this thought? What is the reality? And this is where we can actually bring in a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy and use it on ourselves in the way that we ask ourselves, okay, what evidence do I have for this thought?

What evidence do I have against this thought? Now, based on the evidence for and the evidence against, what is the most accurate depiction of this thought? Again, kinda just bringing you back down to planet Earth and thinking like. What evidence do I have to support this even? And there probably is some evidence, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking of it in the first place.

So this isn’t a, an exercise or questions for the sake of proving your thoughts wrong. It’s making you realize why you’re having those thoughts, but also what makes those thoughts not true so that you can, again, come to a more clear depiction of what is real, and that immediately will likely make you feel better too.

Okay, next question. What’s the worst case scenario? I love this one because we really love to jump to conclusions that if this program launch doesn’t go well, if I end up single for the rest of my life, you know, we love to jump to like, what’s the worst possible case here? We’re thinking of these things from.

A really negative light and just seeing the outcome as being a bad thing, right? So when I say what’s the worst case scenario, I’m asking you to like really, really figure out what that is. So program launch, let’s say it fails to whatever degree, whatever metric we’re using to call failure, that’s the worst case scenario.

Okay, but did you die? You know, like that’s goes into my head, but. So, and this kind of loops back into some of those other questions. What are you making that mean then? Because if that’s the worst case scenario that it fails, then now you have more information to do it differently next time. And maybe that means the messaging needs to change, or your offer needs to change, or you didn’t have the right launch strategy.

So the worst case scenario is. You either do it again a different way or you do something different. That’s actually the worst case scenario. The wor the worst case scenario is coming up in your head. The fake one is, if this program launch fails, what does that mean about me? That means that I’m not capable.

I can’t do this. I’m not cut out for this. That’s. Not true. So what’s the real worst case scenario or, you know, talking about being single for the rest of my life? Um, what’s the worst case scenario if I actually don’t find someone who is a great match for me? Worst case scenario, my life is fucking awesome.

And to be honest, every year that I get older, it just keeps getting better, whether or not I have a romantic partner to share it with. So worst case scenario, yeah, maybe I do end up single forever. Will that actually be the worst thing that ever happens to me? But here’s the thing. The, the likely case in, I’m doing the thing again where I am mindset coaching myself as I’m saying these things because I don’t actually believe that that’s true.

I don’t believe that I will end up single forever. Maybe I’ll find my person when I’m 40. I’m currently 32. Uh, is, if that’s the worst case scenario, like, cool, I get to be single for another eight years and live my life on my own terms. No kids, no commitments. You wanna go to Mexico next week? Sure. I’m there.

Like, okay. Doesn’t sound very worst case scenario, like, so, but again, me mindset coaching me myself in the moment is like, I, I don’t actually believe that I will be. Alone forever. Here’s doing it again. I’m not actually ever alone. I am constantly always surrounded by amazing people that love me and support me so.

I can’t even give you a worst case scenario. So that’s like an interesting perspective for maybe you guys to take and maybe someone needed to hear this, and this is why I’m processing all of this, like on the podcast live here, is that a lot of times we jump to a scenario that maybe we don’t even believe in in the first place.

So if I wanna jump to the worst case scenario of like, I’m single forever, but like I don’t actually believe that, so why would I even allow myself to go there? It’s not productive to stay there. Instead, it’s productive to think about how great my life is now and the evidence that supports how great my life has continued to get over time, and that that’s only gonna continue to happen.

And if my life keeps getting better and then I find someone who wants to make it even better, like, good luck, man. Good luck, but would love to share that with someone. But right now, I’m, I’m great. This turned into an entirely different conversation than I wanted it to go. Okay. So the other thing too, with the worst case scenario conversation with yourself is that a lot of times the worst case scenario is just getting back to where you were at the beginning.

So let’s say you start the business or you. Enter into a relationship and you’re scared that you’re opening up your heart and they’re going to crush it. You start the business and it fails and it’s really hard and it doesn’t take off the way that you wanted it to. Worst case scenario, you go back to being the person you were before you started the business.

You go back to being the person that you were before you entered into that relationship and you continue on. Worst case scenario is literally where you are right now before you make the decision to start the business, before you make the decision to enter into that relationship, you’re literally just going back to where you already were.

So in fact, my friend, you are living your worst case scenario right now in a lot of cases. Okay, next question. Am I not cut out for this? Should I quit? Or is this just a challenge? It may seem like I got all my shit together and I’m super confident and I know exactly the direction and where I’m going and all of the things.

But things like this do still come up for me. Where should I even be still having this offer in my business? Do I, am I even cut out for this? Do people even want this? That does come up for me still. So then I have to ask myself, well, do you wanna quit? Do you not wanna do that thing anymore? Or is it just feeling challenging right now?

And that’s okay. And it can just literally be that this is just a challenge, but it’s also, this is an important question because I think a lot of times in our lives we are doing things that maybe don’t feel aligned or were uncertain about, or don’t feel good to us anymore when they used to in the past.

So this is an important question ’cause the answer might be actually. I should quote unquote quit, but not for the reasons because I don’t feel cut out for it, but maybe I’ve just like outgrown this thing or it doesn’t align with me anymore. That actually like rings. Very true for, and I’ve discussed this before in the podcast, but with the decision to no longer have a one-on-one health and fitness coaching offer in my business, I pretty much entirely sunsetted.

Whole ass other company, which was KJO coaching. So I no longer have a coaching staff. I no longer have the ability to offer you one-on-one health and fitness coaching through my business. And there was a lot of this conversation in my head of, do I, am I just not good at this anymore? ’cause it, it, things did get challenging.

However, the reason they got challenging is because I was pulled in so many different directions. So it got to the point where it’s like, okay, well maybe I should quit. I mean, I did quit. I quit. I did, but it wasn’t coming from a place of like, I’m not good at this anymore. I’m not cut out for having a health and fitness coaching business.

It was no, my priorities have shifted and I feel more aligned and more focused when I’m on the health mindset coaching certification side of things. I’m mentoring coaches compared to the one-on-one coaching offer and running the coaching business. So, yeah, should you quit? Are you not cut out for it? Are you not aligned with it anymore?

Or is it just challenging right now and that is part of the game. Okay. In general, a lot of this, and actually what I was just talking about too, brings me to the conversation around like, what is intuition and like, oh, this isn’t for me, versus what is like a fear or call it like little T trauma response because if.

You’re not clear on that and you’re thinking this is an intuitive no, but the reality is you’re actually just still learning. You’re still getting good at this thing, and you’re being presented with challenges and difficulties right now, and it actually has nothing to do with your abilities and your success in that area, and that it’s actually not your intuition saying No, you’re just not that good at it yet.

So, gosh, that’s such a hard question. Is it an intuitive sense telling you you shouldn’t do this thing, or you should give up on this thing, you should go another direction, you should pivot, you should whatever. You should end the relationship, whatever. Or is that just fear of failure coming up that’s telling you, no, no, no, let’s not do this anymore because there’s a chance you could fail and that’s gonna be embarrassing and that’s gonna feel shitty.

What are you going to make that mean about yourself? If that happens, it’s a lot easier to just not do it than to try and potentially fail. But obviously in order to be successful, you also have to try. So if you decide not to try, sure, you avoid failure, but you also definitely avoid success. So I don’t really have an answer.

I don’t have an answer to any of these questions for you, but just something to continue to think about. I did. Make an episode the very beginning of the podcast. Episode five is about that teasing a part of intuition versus like a fear or trauma response. So if this is like hitting you right now and you want more of this conversation, you wanna dive into it deeper, I will link that episode in the show notes for you to check out.

I’m gonna run through the questions one more time. Just quick fire. Where did that thought come from? What are you making the situation mean? Is it the situation or is it you? How accurate is this thought? What is the reality? What is the worst case scenario? And is it where you are right now where you could come back to?

Are you not cut out for this? Should you quit? Or is this just a challenge? Those are questions I’m often asking myself. Staring at myself in the mirror and going girl. Where did this thought come from? Um, but that is, it is truly the case and the mindset work never stops my friends. So if you’re looking for an end point, you’re not gonna find one.

Um, but I really hope that this episode was helpful if you choose to use some of these questions or throw ’em on a sticky note on your, on your mirror. So the next time that you’re thinking these things, you ask yourself that like, please let me know in, in general, anything from the podcast, it literally gives me.

Life to hear that the podcast is helpful for you. That is the reason I’m sitting in this chair doing it, is to create things that are helpful for you. So if you have any feedback for me, if you wanna share anything with me, like please don’t hold back. Please don’t hold back. If you listen to a podcast episode and you’re like, damn, that was good.

That really made me think differently, like, I want to know, if you wouldn’t mind taking a second to reach out to me on Instagram or wherever and let me know because that. Really fuels me to want to continue to do this. And if you really love me, really love me, then you’ll leave a five star review. And here’s the thing, I’m not just asking for the five star review.

I’m not asking for you to rate the show and leave your amazing comments about me, but I’m also giving back every single month. We choose a random winner who has left a review to get one of my DIY products for free. For free. And we’re doing this every single month and it is hard to get people to write reviews, okay?

So there is not a ton of them in there, which means your chances are really high. So one thing though, when you write that review, we don’t, we can’t see who you are and know how to contact you to get that free. Product. So in order to do that, you do need to screenshot your review and submit it to our review form, which is linked in every single episode.

Of the podcast. So if you wouldn’t mind doing that, I would appreciate it so much. But either way, I would just love to hear from you in general. So, alright, my friends, I’m gonna wrap it up there. Thank you so much for being here and for listening. It seriously means the world, and I’ll see you next time.

And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Not Another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. You get notified of the next one because if you’re anything like me, if the episodes aren’t popping up for you automatically, you’ll keep forgetting to come back to the show even if you really, really enjoyed it.

So go ahead and hit that subscribe button and make it super easy for you. And of course, if you wanna see more episodes just like this one, I’d love. For you to let me know by leaving a review. I know, I know it’s super annoying to do, but the few seconds that it takes means the world to me and also ensures that I can keep providing free education and value to you And just to sweeten the deal, I am going to be picking a random reviewer every single month to receive a free workshop or product from me if you’re looking for more free resources.

Or just wanna connect, hang out, chat a little bit. Come find me on Instagram. I’m Coach Kasey, Jo over there. That is where I hang out the most in the land of social media. Alright, my friends, that is all I have for you this time. I so appreciate you being here and love to see you prioritizing your growth.

I’ll see you next time.