[Transcript starts at 1:17]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. So today we are talking about how to develop a process-oriented mindset. So right off the bat, why, why do you even want this? Now, I'm not here to put words in your mouth. I'm actually doing this episode because a friend asked me.
But in my opinion, switching from a an outcome-oriented mindset to a process-oriented mindset allows for increased happiness. I think there's less anxiety cuz there's more things you can actually control. There's a greater likelihood of reaching those goals if you do set, you know, objective goals. There's a greater likelihood of you figuring out what you actually want, and from there, actually getting it. So we're gonna dive on into that in this episode.
Uh, I am doing this episode, like I said, a few minutes ago, a few seconds ago, uh, in response to a question that a good friend of mine asked. And, uh, we were going back and forth and just, you know, she is 100% putting in all the work and doing the things, uh, but she, and I'm gonna read this verbatim, so if you're watching the video, you see me looking down at the screen. Uh, she said, I'd like to shift to a process orientation because that's all I really have control over, but like, how do I do that? So I was like, you know what, you know, we went back and forth and I was like, let me make this an episode. Let me share my response with all of you and hopefully it will be helpful.
So I think that there are five steps as it relates to developing a process oriented mindset, or I should say I created, developed, outlined five steps just to make this a little bit more like tangible and tactical for any of you that are thinking ,yeah, I do wanna switch to more of this process-oriented mindset. And when I was thinking about the title of this episode, I, one, I'm not good with like SEO and click baity stuff. I even asked ChatGPT, I didn't like the I, the responses to the outcome, the um, the outcomes, the answers that it spit back at me, and I was like, no.
So I, I strategically and specifically titled this, developing a process-oriented mindset as opposed to like becoming a process-oriented person or anything like, mainly because this is something that is trainable. This is something that is also up to you, right? I wanna, I do want to leave that out, put that out there.
I am not using this episode to tell you that you should become someone else, but rather just to offer some solutions and understanding that mindset is something that is malleable. Mindset is something that you can work on. Mindset, I think is something that we have choice and agency regarding, and so I just wanna share that.
So I think that there are five steps, or I have outlined five steps as it relates to developing a process-oriented mindset, and we're gonna break those down in this episode. Those five steps are, number one, understanding that it is a skill that can be learned, right? Having a process-oriented mindset is a skill.
Like so many things in life, yes, there are inherited or inherent traits and some people are better at it than others, but it is a skill that can be learned and can be improved. Number two, discernment is paramount. Number three, ownership is imperative. You will, you all know I'm all about that radical ownership. Uh, and we're gonna get into that. Number four, celebration and gratitude are game changers and we're really gonna focus on the celebration part of this.
One of the cool things about having a podcast folks is that it allows you the opportunity, the space, the real estate, to really like flesh out your ideas. And as I was sitting with this, we kind of like always talk about gratitude and things like that.
And I was like, is that actually what I wanna be talking about? Is that actually what I do? And where like I put celebration and gratitude are game changers as point number four but, I'm gonna lean very heavily, heavily on the celebration aspect of this and I'm really excited to get into that point. And then step number five is diversification solves droughts.
I was trying to go for the like alliteration there, but also it's raining so much here. I live in SoCal and currently like the beach is literally like washing away. And I know we need the rain cuz we are perpetually in a drought. I know, I understand. But that's why drought was in, you know, top of mind there. So, five steps, and we are going to break them all down in this episode.
So right into the episode, number one, this is a very short part here, understanding that becoming a process-oriented, or excuse me, developing a process-oriented mindset is a skill that can be learned. You have to believe this, and you have to accept this. If you're, you know, I, I left the business of convincing a long time ago.
You folks that listen to this podcast, you've been listening for a bit, you know. I left that business a long time ago. So if you think you can't do it, if you think it can't be learned, then you're right. And I'm not here to convince you otherwise, but if you're like, Hey, no, I do wanna make some changes, I would, do wanna adopt this, this other mindset. Cool. Then you must first believe and accept that developing, that sounded weird, that developing a process oriented mindset is a skill that can be learned.
Number two, and this is a bit of a bigger part of the episode, is that discernment is paramount. So as I was outlining this episode, I developed, I, I'm using that word so much, but came up with two concepts and I've labeled them fixed versus open outcome items, right? So when we're looking at discernment as it relates to all the things in our life, and we're gonna look to on all the goals we have, all the things that we want, all the things that we're working towards. I think it's imperative that we, or paramount, that we look to categorize these wants, these dreams, these goals, these outcomes as either fixed open outcome items. So fixed outcome items, they are zero sum. It's wholly dependent on your effort, and it's literally, did you achieve the thing or not? Did you do the thing or not? It's not impacted by external factors or, or external influences or anything like that. It's literally completing a task. That is a fixed outcome item.
On the flip side, which is a lot of things in our life, this is an open outcome item. These things are malleable and gray. These are things that we want, right? Outcomes, meaning this is are desire, hopes, wishes, goals, outcomes. It's malleable and gray. The best example I can give is happiness. It's malleable.
It's ever changing. It's influenced by external factors. It's not like a fixed endpoint, fixed destination that we're trying to get to. Winning, right? That's another example of an open outcome because it's influenced by the other team as well. Going viral. That is an open item, right? An open outcome item. Success on YouTube, because it's influenced by and impacted by other people, what their wants, desires, wishes, and such are.
Fixed outcome would be, did you make a video? Yes or no? Did you complete the task? Did you go for a walk today? That's it. So as it relates to open outcome tasks, right, or open outcome items, the process is typically the point, and this is what we're trying to lean into, right?
Becoming this process oriented person. So within this step, we're looking to discern, is what I want open or fixed in terms of the outcome. As it relates to out to open outcome items, the journey is what actually matters. So in this case, and we're gonna talk about kind of enjoyment here, finding ways to enjoy and appreciate the process is important.
We also have to understand that for these things, it takes as long as it takes. All right? Surrender. It takes as long as it takes.
Fixed outcomes, right? These are things that are, can you complete this task? Did, can you do this thing? Enjoying the process is not so important. I think this, that this is important to differentiate here because I think somewhere along the way people like, I don't know, it came to be like, enjoy everything and like have fun and like sometimes it's not fun when it comes to a fixed outcome, like completing a task, sometimes it's not that fun. And you have to depend on and rely on and default to discipline, not enjoyment. So in this case, marathon training, that's as an example. I didn't really find it that fun. It wasn't horrendous, like there was some enjoyment of it. And I looked to way, I looked to find ways to make each of those, you know, training, um, the training itself a little bit more enjoyable.
But some days it's like, I don't wanna do it. It's hot, right? I was train I ran the New York City Marathon, so you're training and it starts to get really hot. You run training during the summer cuz the marathon's in November and you're like, this isn't the most enjoyable thing. That's okay. That is okay. The outcome, the, it's a fixed outcome.
My goal is to run this marathon is be able to complete, you know, run 26.2 miles. Cool. In that case, I have to do certain steps. I have to do certain things, and they're not always going to be enjoyable.
We see the two combined, I'm sorry, I'm moved away from the mic there. We see the two combined fixed and open outcomes, uh, items in that fixed outcome items tend to make up open outcome items. I'm trying to speak a little slower for this because that's, I am introducing new terms, but when I was sitting here thinking about this episode, I'm like this, these terms are the best that I could come up with. So I know that we're introducing new terms, which means I wanna speak a little bit slower so you can actually like wrap your brain around this, right?
But as we see the two overlapping, fixed outcome items tend to make up open outcome items. So something like building an audience as it relates to online business, that is an open outcome, right? Open outcome item. I don't have full control over that. But the steps required to do that are fixed outcome items. Post. Write an email. All the things that I teach you about.
Right? These specific steps that you can check off a box. Did you do that? Did you post? Did you write an email? Did you respond to those DMs? Those are fixed outcome items. Did you complete the task? And those things, those steps, those items make up that open outcome item that we don't have as much control over this.
In this way, right, as we, we look at how the two overlap, we see the benefit of discipline. There is, it is important to be able to, yes, rather, I shouldn't say it's important. It's nice if you can enjoy every, you know, step of the way if the fixed outcome items bring you joy, but at the same time, at some, at some points, we have to simply rely on and depend on fall back on default to discipline and getting the thing done.
Discernment, which is point number two here, right, discernment is paramount, discernment is helpful because it's gonna help us identify what is what. What is an open outcome item? What is a fixed outcome item, and when should we look to just simply default to discipline, right? If this is, if we can identify this, this is a fixed outcome, this is a specific task, we just have to get it done, then in those cases, yeah, we're gonna look to just default to, to discipline.
Uh, we are gonna try and figure out a way to enjoy it, but it's not paramount that we enjoy or not imperative that we enjoy it. It's nice, it's a bonus, it's a benefit. Discernment, discerning whether it's fixed or open in terms of the outcome, allows for expectation management. How long is it gonna take?
Well, if it's an open outcome item, it's gonna take as long as it. It takes as long as it takes. And then from here it does give us a little bit of control with things like I have a little bit of a control, you know, issues. I think it's a positive thing, but discerning, whether it's a fixed or open outcome item will allow us to identify the things that we actually can control.
We can control fixed outcome island, just do the task. Maybe we don't enjoy it. I know I keep bringing it up cause I think that's really important. We're not gonna enjoy every single part of the job you have. We're not gonna enjoy every single part of, of everything, right? But it is important that we discern whether or identify whether this is fixed, this is open outcome, okay?
We can control fixed outcomes cuz it's just dependent on our effort. Did we do the thing or not?
All right, point number three. Right, so number one so far was understanding that developing a process-oriented mindset is a skill that can be learned. Number two was discerned as paramount. Number three is ownership is imperative. And this is a pretty, you know, short portion of this.
Any desired outcome, whether it is a fixed or open outcome item needs to be your own, otherwise you will stop. This is something that I talk about ad nauseum, and I'm going to link again, thank you Courtney, my girl, Laura Jean. She @dieticianvalues on Instagram, but her whole shtick is about personal values and identifying personal values and identifying your whys, and what, what is underpinning and underlying the things that you do and why you do them.
The things that you do, your actions, they have to be based in your own wants, needs, desires, hopes, dreams, values, otherwise you're going to stop. So I look to try and I don't, I wouldn't say productize this, but it's not right. I look to try and organize this into a little bit of a list. You know, how can you know if it's actually yours?
Because this is something that really kind of stretches my brain because so many things I just kind of do them, I wanna say naturally or intuitively. And it's just, you know, the nature nurture component is there. So I think I had this predisposition to, to do certain things in a certain way, and then the way that my mom raised me and the support that I, that I received it, you know, it perpetuated those things.
But how do you know if a goal, a dream, an action, a want, all these things are your own? I think we have three steps here. Number one, ask yourself, why do I want this thing? Number two, ask yourself, what would happen if I didn't get this thing or achieve this thing, and why would that happen? And then number three, this is a big one, I think maybe it's probably the hardest trust your gut. The example that kept coming to mind when I was putting this episode together was people pleasing. I have a lot of those people in my ecosystem and in my life, and I was like, Don't forget, number one, you are people. You are people. So if you're people pleasing, make sure you're pleasing yourself as well.
But as it relates to folks that are like self, uh, appointed, self named, self-identified people pleasers, we understand that if you're a people pleaser, you wanna do this thing because it makes other people happy and you making them happy does something for you. It provides you with a sense of self-worth, provides you with a sense of happiness.
Okay? I think the important part here is identifying that. Then number two, asking yourself if you're okay with that, which is which if you are, okay. I'm not here to judge anything. I just want people to ask questions. Take a moment to really reflect. And then number three, or the third part of this, look to change things up when you stop being happy with that, with that outcome.
All right, so again, for the people pleasers, understanding that whenever any of us do something, it's cuz we get something out of it. You gotta ask yourself, am I okay with what I'm getting out of this? Am I okay with why I'm doing this? And when it stops being okay, look to change it up.
Yeah. You know? Yes. Therapy, all those things. I just want you to understand that, give a, take a moment, reflect, ask yourself, why am I doing this? Am I okay with why I'm doing this? Am I okay with what I'm getting out? And then trust your gut. When your gut is like, I don't like this anymore. This isn't sustainable. I don't wanna do this. Then we look to change things up.
Point number four, as it relates to developing a process-oriented mindset is, I think this is the biggest one, folks. So like, get a little pen and paper, something like that, celebration and gratitude are game changers. And maybe I should have just labeled this one celebration is a game changer, but I put gratitude in there cuz people I think do, uh, have, um, familiarity with it and it, it helps them, and, you know, they have, they have gratitude practices and so like, I wanted to tie it in so the people understand it. Same, same here but I truly believe celebrating things and being thankful thank, being thankful for things, and being grateful for things. It's a skill I, yes, like other things, some people have more p predisposition towards it.
It's easier for them than it is for other people, but it is a skill and I do believe that the more we practice it, the better we get at it, right? Better meaning the more that we actually like believe the celebrating and believe the gratitude, and we really feel it and embody it and we can see more things around us to be, to celebrate and to be thankful for, and to be grateful for.
What I wanna highlight in this point is taking the time to actually celebrate your accomplishments. In this case, yes, we're leaning more on those comp, leaning more on that completion of those fixed tasks. Did you do the thing? And then yes, we can tie in expressing gratitude for the things that make you happy.
I think that when I was sitting with this, I don't have like a gratitude practice. I just kind of am like, I'm happy. I'm gonna say these things. When I'm sitting with this and I'm kind of outlining this episode, I was like, what do I actually do? And for me it is celebrating things, but it doesn't necessarily need to be this huge outward celebration of things.
This huge public facing celebration of things. It could be clapping for yourself, one single clap maybe. It could just allowing yourself to be happy about that thing that you did and be like, yeah, that was cool that I did that. It could be as simple as smiling after you complete it, or when you think about it and like, wow, I'm happy about that.
I'm proud of that thing. Just taking a moment to simply enjoy what you did and be proud of it. It doesn't have to be this big, huge, huge ordeal, which maybe, hopefully for some of you is like a sigh, you can breathe a sigh of relief cuz it doesn't need to be this big thing. Cause I know it's difficult. But I don't think that there is enough of this celebration or celebrating of accomplishments of tasks. Cause it is accomplishing and accomplishments. We kind of think of it as completing a task and then we move on to the next thing. But, taking a moment just to be happy about this thing and be like, wow, like yes. I was a little bit more public facing, recent example with the ChatGPT video I did.
I'm like, this is dope. I love it and I worked really hard and I'm gonna celebrate it publicly. But I do believe that that starts with celebrating it privately and, and celebrating other things privately and being like, taking moments to be proud of things and just being okay and being comfortable, being proud of things.
I think in terms of an action item here, what we can do, actually, I wanna back it up one, one second. Cause I think this is important. The gratitude portion for me comes in the form of expressing gratitude for things that make me happy. It's not just expressing gratitude for everything. Like, you could do that and that's a perfectly fine skill.
Um, but sometimes I, I don't, I don't know that I don't do that, so that's why I was like, I'm not gonna put that on the list. For me, and you see, if you follow me on Instagram, like I'm talking about the trees and the weather, it's been so rainy here. I know it's the second time of bringing this up, this episode, but like the rain kills me, which is why when it is sunny, I'm gonna celebrate it and I'm gonna express gratitude about, you know, the fact that I live here.
And this morning I was this walking around my, um, apartment outlining these episodes and I was like, I'm so grateful that. I work from home. It makes me happy to work from home. And the way that my brain works and how I outline things and how I get things done, it's helpful for me able to walk around and it's helpful for me to be able to like, do a task, put it down, go to something else, come back to it.
I couldn't do that in the last job that I had as a, you know, as a physical therapist or like, even when I was teaching for Rock Tape. I loved it, but like I had to do this other things. Those were more fixed tasks, fist fixed outcome items. This allows me, like, there's a lot of just freedom and flexibility and it's something that makes me happy and I will express gratitude for those things. So the way I do it, I'm expecting gratitude for things that make me happy.
The tangible, tactical portion of this in terms of celebrations and celebrating things. One, I said just give yourself time to be happy and, and create space. For you to be happy about the things that you've done.
And two, might be easier for some of you, especially my people pleasers, celebrate other people's accomplishments. And I think a lot of you do this inherently. And the reason I'm saying this is just so that you put that good juju out into the world, right? I truly believe Sara Sudds was one of the first, was the first person to tell me this, uh, she said, we attract what we are, not what we want. And I truly believe you put that stuff out into the, into the ecosystem. I almost said the atmosphere, that's not right. You put that stuff out into the ether, let's say that, it comes back around. The flip side of that is believe other people when they celebrate you. One more time, believe other people when they celebrate you.
Okay, point number five here in terms of how to develop a process oriented mindset is diversification solves droughts. So with switching to this process-oriented mindset, um, there's gonna be a fixed, excuse me, a fixed, there's gonna be a shift towards fixed outcome items, right? So as we develop, as we lean into the process of things, we're identifying fixed outcome items, which means we're identifying the steps in order to achieve the, the bigger thing, typically the open outcome item. To this end or to that end, like I said earlier, sometimes you're just leaning on discipline then, right? Cause it's not always enjoyable to a accomplish, achieve, to do these fixed outcome items. Ideally, yes, there's some enjoyment, but not always.
So the secret here is something I discussed in episode 297 and was first introduced to me by my friend Holly, and that is diversification of your joy portfolio, or another way to say it, diversification of your joy streams like revenue streams. When one thing is pure work and pure discipline, like, we're getting these fixed outcome items, I'm just gonna go and I have gotta run five miles today.
And it's not, maybe it's not the most fun. Maybe you're not like a runner inherently, but you wanna do this thing. Okay, cool. Well then today you gotta go run five miles. So you can look to make it as enjoyable as possible. And you're like, cool, I'm gonna run at a time that I like, or I'm gonna, you know, run in a place that I like.
Or maybe you're like, Hey, I have to train hills because the, the marathon I wanna run has hills. And I'm like, there's nothing to enjoy about it. There's nothing at all. Okay, cool. You're de depending on pure discipline. In that case, we look to find joy in something else. We diversify those joy streams, those those that joy portfolio, so that when I can't get joy out of this thing that I gotta do, I can get it from somewhere else. So that's episode 297 if you wanna check that out. Um, Courtney, thank you. We'll link that again.
So an example of all of these five things that I want to, these five steps that I want to outline, that I've outlined for you, um, is my knee injury and how I've come back from that.
So actually last episode, episode 441 I went and outlined, uh, discussed the injury and the stuff that I was doing for the rehab process, but I wanna show how I used, I am inherently a process oriented person, but I wanna show how these five steps play into that.
So, number one, uh, we already know which, which is I, which is to accept and believe that becoming a process or, or having a process oriented mindset or developing one is, is possible. That it's a skill. We already know that process orientation is my disposition or having a process orientation, uh, is my disposition. So yes, I do believe that it's a skill. I do believe it's possible to get better at it. Check that one off.
Number two, discernment. This is discerning whether this is open, open outcome items or fixed outcome items.
So I acceted my knee getting better as an open outcome item. And I think this is actually very, very important that I viewed it as this and that we in as a whole view healing as an open outcome item because it's dependent yes, upon your actions, but a lot of other things happen. Life happens. You get sick, maybe you have kids, you gotta take care of them so you can't just focus on this thing. I actually had to travel two days after I got injured, so I couldn't just like stay at home and rehab my, my leg. Um, the holiday comes and your family is around. The weather changes. The weather's bad. You can't go do certain things. You can't go outside. Just healing time varies.
So it is an open outcome item as it relates, it's gonna take as long as it takes. But I then pulled out the fixed outcome items, largely things like rehab, and then I leaned on discipline to do them. Cause they're not always the most fun, but I gotta do, I want this outcome, I want this ultimate thing. Cool. I'm gonna get this, I'm gonna get these things done.
Third step is taking ownership. And yes, I know that this, these outcome, these goals, it's what I want. I want my knee need to get better. I wanna get back to volleyball. Uh, that's just a given.
Number four, the most important one, I think: The celebration, all right, and the gratitude. I 100% celebrated. I also documented every accomplishment on the way, uh, shared it on social, and I was genuinely grateful to be able to do things cuz I like couldn't do them before and movement is such an integral part of, of me and my identity, things like that. Um, but this disposition and this practice of gratitude and this practice I have of celebrating things allowed me to focus on the things that I could do and was able to do as opposed to simply just focusing on the things that I couldn't do.
And I really do believe, yes, people have this disposition to look more at the negative. Okay. But it's something that can be trained to look more at these, at the positive side, to celebrate things, to be grateful for things. And that's what I did.
And then number five, super important here, uh, to wrap it up or to round this out, I'll wrap it up. We're not done yet. Which, which was, diversification of the joy portfolio. So I couldn't play volleyball, which is a huge hit to my joy portfolio. But I had diversified, and so I leaned into video recording. I leaned into this podcast. I leaned into going onto YouTube and editing, and I could pull happiness and joy from there.
And folks, I treated that as an open outcome item. Very meta. Very meta.
So let's, let's round this out. Let's wrap this up here. Where does work, cause I wanna make this like tangible, applicable to you, real time. Where does work fit into this?
Work fits in where you want it to fit in. Meaning, is it open outcome? Is it fixed outcome? It it fits in wherever you want it to be to fit in. But I think it's super important to not make work a fixed outcome item that has happiness as the final prize. Happiness, like I said earlier, is an open outcome item. It's not fixed. It's not a destination. You just get there and you do the, you do it.
I think that there's a time and a place, and for certain people work is 100% and may always be a fixed outcome item where they just go in, they check a box, and it is about completion because they're not looking to get to be, to be happy from it. Right? That's not their goal. That's not not the outcome that they're desiring.
They're desiring money and they're like, cool, I want to get a paycheck so I can go enjoy other things. Totally fine. Which is why oftentimes when people are first starting out, I really encourage, um, starting out with like side hustles. I'm like, cool, go get a job that just pays the bills. Let it be a fixed outcome item where you just have to go and check a box and do the thing and complete the task.
Um, I think for some the dream is to have their job, their work, and their passion all be the same thing. That's awesome. And I want that for you if that's, you know, if that's your, your desire, but then understand that in this case, because we're mixing work and happiness and this fulfillment, that's an open outcome item, which means that ultimately you're gonna have to find a way to become process-oriented or to develop, to develop that process-oriented mindset.
So to recap those five steps, number one under as number one, lemme back it up, those five steps as it relates to developing a process-oriented mindset: Number one, understand, believe, accept that it is a skill that can be learned.
Number two, discernment is paramount. We're looking at fixed versus open outcome items. Number three, taking ownership is imperative. Is this outcome that you're going after, that you care about, is it yours? Does it belong to? Number four, celebration and gratitude are game changers, and I'm leaning real heavily on the celebration side of things. Number five, diversification solves droughts. Diversify that joy portfolio, my friends.
All right, now we will wrap it up.
In conclusion, again, I'm not here to try and convince you to be someone else or to say that my way is better. As always, with all of the episodes I do take what serves you and please leave the rest.
I am largely, am 100% using this episode as a resource to provide a solution to a question that was posed or asked of me by a close friend. So hopefully, fingers crossed, if you need it, it helps you.
All right, that's all I got. I should do a little call to action this time. I haven't done one in a long time.
Call to action today is if you like this show, if it resonates, if you're picking up what I'm putting down, if you've listened this far, I really should do the call to action in the beginning. It's fine. It is what it is. Uh, but call to action is leave me a review. I would love to hear from you. I do love to hear from you, and it's, it's cool and helpful if other people can hear from you.
So if the spirit moves you, celebrate me. Leave a review. I promise I read every single one of them. All right, that is officially it. Until next time, friends Maestro out.
NEW! Watch this episode on YouTube!
MOTM #343: Start with Your Values with Laura Jean
MOTM #297: Diversify Your Joy Portfolio
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