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When we feel behind in our lives, I think that this is the most vulnerable space to be, because it is the space where we feel the most inclined to take shortcuts and get to where other people are as fast as possible. Instead of honoring the journey that we're on honoring the path.
Sometimes we are on the precipice of our breakthrough, but through looking left and right, we won't be able to see that
Welcome to the Make Up Your Mind podcast. I'm your host Jahleane Dolne, and I'm here to help you make up your mind - literally and figuratively. I'm a motivational speaker, content creator, subconscious mindset coach, and the founder of The Postgrad Playbook- the only coaching platform and resource center for post-grads and 20 somethings to release mindset blocks and take action towards their chosen career , no matter how, quote unquote, unconventional that might look.
As an expert recognized by Afrotech, LinkedIn news,, and more, I help you identify what you actually want, release what's keeping you [00:01:00] stuck, and have a game plan to take action with clarity, confidence, conviction, and ease. Here we cover all things, paving your own way and how that looks personally and professionally. Get ready to finally make up your mind.
Let's get started.
Hello. And welcome back to another episode of Make Up Your Mind. And happy Wednesday. Um, this Wednesday, we're talking about all things, closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, which I know it can seem like it is maybe months or years or potentially even decades but that doesn't have to be the case.
So for today's episode, I'm going to talk a lot about how you can close the gap between where you are and where you want to be through tangible tactical steps. I've been there. I know it's the most frustrating thing, especially if you're looking left and right and seeing other people be able to move and accelerate at a pace with their careers or in other [00:02:00] aspects of their lives that you might not see your life moving at the same pace.
It's difficult. Earlier this week, I saw a video online. I'll link it. If I find it. But it was a girl basically saying that, you know, that we have so many different times zones. In New York we're in Eastern time. LA is three hours earlier.
And in the UK, it's five hours ahead. Everywhere is still on time, just because it might be morning in the UK sooner, or it might still be evening in LA. That doesn't mean that New York is not on time.
New York is on its own time. Just like you are on your own time.
If you're someone who listens to Make Up Your Mind often, and you're involved with The Postgrad Playbook community. I think that this message might be especially applicable because more likely than not, you are someone who decided to pivot you're someone who decided that the traditional route just isn't for me.
And I'm going to do something that's a little bit more unconventional. And it's required you to start from [00:03:00] scratch.
That added on top of the other pressures of being in your twenties and maybe seeing some of your friends get married. Others start businesses. Others, you know, have kids everyone's reaching milestones at completely different times. So it's so easy to look left and right.
And not in your own lane as some sort of benchmark to what success is relative to the people in your environment and surrounding you.
One of the reasons why I think that your post-grad years and also your 20-something years are so difficult is because there is no true benchmark for what success looks like.
You can have ideas of success, but when we were in school, there was a grading system. You either got an A, B, C, D, or F. You had a set path for success, you just had to get your degree and follow the rigid system that was laid out for you. And that's all you had to do, but when you get to the adult world, things start to get a little bit different, you know, that you should be making money, taking [00:04:00] care of yourself, going to the gym,
building a career, um, keeping in touch with family and friends.
There's a lot that's going on. And it's hard to really measure what success looks like in that way. Especially when you're paving your own way and you look at where you are right now. In relation to where everyone is around you and looking at where you want to be. It could be a serious eye-opener and it can be the most damaging thing to your self perception if you let it be and kill your confidence. It's so essential to know how to close the gap to not only get to your goals faster, but also be confident in who you are and where you are at currently in your journey.
If you feel like you're behind in life, because you had to make some sort of extreme pivot, I'm going to offer a mindset shift or a mental reframe that you can take.
But I think was especially helpful for me, especially as I decided to pivot away from my sales career. And the reframe is this. You can spend so much time building a career that you [00:05:00] don't want, but at the same time, the career that you do want and your soul was longing for.
And, you know, it's going to take a little bit of time that will never, ever, ever leave your psyche. You will always feel pulled and inclined to make some kind of progress towards this pivot and explore the, what if.
I mentioned this in I think the very first episode I did about identifying your purpose and it's a staple of this podcast and the whole Postgrad Playbook, whether you want to monetize a side hustle or turn it into your full-time gig or just pivot into something new. I think that that episode is something that everyone should listen to.
But anyways, what I mentioned in that episode was a study by Bronnie Ware who was an end of life, palliative care nurse, and basically at the very end of her patients' lives, she would survey them and over time, she collected all these different responses and got the top five regrets of the dying.
And the number one regret of the dying was not living a [00:06:00] life that was true to them authentically, but instead living a life that others expected of them.
When we feel behind in our lives, I think that this is the most vulnerable space to be, because it is the space where we feel the most inclined to take shortcuts and get to where other people are as fast as possible. Instead of honoring the journey that we're on honoring the path.
Sometimes we are on the precipice of our breakthrough, but through looking left and right, we won't be able to see that we're only going to be so concerned with what other people are doing.
If you're a creator that might look like trying to get to a certain follower count as soon as possible.
In other areas and might look like trying to get a certain kind of job that will validate you and your positioning. Sometimes it might look like hitting a certain income level, whatever is when you're looking to close the gap between where you are currently and where you want to be. Make sure that it's something that's not influenced by external factors.
I'm going to even offer another layer to [00:07:00] this. There's no such thing as being behind. If you're setting your own benchmarks. If we're going to go ahead and look at this in a wide view, the only thing that matters is really what you believe about yourself and your circumstances internally, because if you don't factor the external, it doesn't exist to you.
Right. You can just make those other benchmarks not exist in your world if you really don't want to.
But the reality is if you feel like you are in some ways behind, from what you ideally would like the end result to be, you have to have some sort of game plan to getting there.
What do the steps look like? And if you've been implementing the steps of your game plan for quite some time, and you're not seeing anything work, it's time to switch things up.
It's time to dissect the whole plan apart and figure out exactly what's been working and what hasn't been working and act accordingly.
Maybe if you're a creator, you need to post more. Maybe if you're trying to pivot into a new industry, you need to go to more networking events, whatever it is, figure out the right course correction, and then [00:08:00] set SMART goals to go along with that so that you'll reach that end result faster. You're closing the gap faster. So SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based goals. That way you're tracking your progress every single day and actually know where your efforts are leading to.
I talked a little bit about this in the 9 underrated tips for your career pivot episode that you should go ahead and take a listen to you. Cause I think that it intertwines with this one very nicely.
The biggest reasons why it's so important to get smart goals, is so you're not getting caught up in the vaugeness trap of your goals to close the gap.
Your mind doesn't do well with vaugeness. If you listen to past episodes, do you know, I talk a lot about your subconscious mind, which is running the whole part of the show and your decision-making and your programming. It runs about 95% of your brain, and it is the driving factor behind why we do so many things that we do and why we don't do a lot of the things that we say we want [00:09:00] to, because of the fears, the beliefs and who we truly are at our core and the limiting beliefs watched in our subconscious mind. And one thing about our subconscious mind is that it takes things very literally, and it will never make you a liar. So for example, say you have a goal and you say in your end results, to close the gap between where you are currently and where you want to be, your goal is to be richer. You might walk down the street, see $20 on the floor, and to your subconscious mind, I'll be like, well, I'm $20 richer.
There we go. I reached my goal. And that's it. But that's not what you actually want. You want to be richer by X amount of money. You want it to be so, so, so specific, you can almost see it in your mind's eye and you're signaling to every part of your being that is exactly the goal that we were working towards X amount of money.
So how much money do you want in your bank account? How many clients do you want to bring in? What specific kind of job do you want get so specific so that you will subconsciously look for clues to get there at every single turn, [00:10:00] even if you don't consciously know it. The reason why is because we have our reticular activating system within our brain. And it basically is our brains version of confirmation bias.
You've probably experienced this so many times in the past. Say, for example, you're going out to buy a new car and your friend recommends a Jeep, specifically a red Jeep. And so all of a sudden, every time you open your phone and you see an ad for a red Jeep, when you go online, you see red Jeeps in, um, people's posts. Maybe when you're driving down the street, you see a lot of red Jeeps.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that there are red Jeeps everywhere. And it's not like those Jeeps, weren't there to begin with. You just, weren't looking out for them subconsciously on all levels, you didn't have your eyes peeled for them. But now since having a red Jeep is at the forefront of your mind, your reticular activating system is highlighting that for you.
It's a confirmation bias, right? It's reinforcing that in your everyday presence.
The same thing is [00:11:00] true when you set these kinds of goals. So when you know how many clients you want to bring in how much money you want to bring in what career you want to pivot to, and like what kind of opportunities you want,
you're going to subconsciously look out for clues that will help you get to that goal faster. Therefore, helping you close the gap, which is why it's so important to have a clear cut plan.
The second part of this is just full on embodying that person and that version of you that is at the end. What is a version of you that has officially closed the gap and has all the things that you wish you had right now, and living in the circumstances in the environment that you're wanting for the current version of yourself right now. If you've ever heard of fake it till you make it or act as if this is exactly along the lines of that.
Show up as a version of yourself that already has it. Think about what they do in the morning. What does their day look like? What do they wear? Who do they hang out with? Where do they go? Think about how you can incorporate that into your life now, and [00:12:00] that will help you close the gap faster because you're already really embodying it.
Atomic habits is an amazing book that I've read. And if you haven't read it, I 100% recommend that you do, but basically there's a concept that James Clear shares in the book called forming identity based habits.
And identity based habits are different from outcome-based habits where you're just concerned with an outcome. Right. It's exactly like how it sounds. So let's say for example, you are someone who wants to start running a lot. Instead of saying, I'm going to run five miles every single day, you change your identity to be like, I'm a runner.
And so now, because you identify as a runner, you naturally start running five miles every single day. So it's almost like a top-down approach. It starts with your mindset and then your actions follow. That way, it starts to help a lot more with consistency. So when I talked about the smart goals earlier, this is a second layer adding on to that.
Another thing that I will say is that it's so important to appreciate currently where you are in the [00:13:00] process and the evolution in getting to the end of the journey, because the best part is happening right now.
I specifically remember when I was an athlete, I ran track for a very long time and we would be obviously training a ton and a ton and a ton only to compete for less than a minute at a time. We would be working tirelessly throughout the whole season, just to get to the finish line of that very last race and hit the finals and get first place or whatever. But when I look back on that time, it's not getting to the finish line that I remember.
It's the times that I was in practice and I was in the thick of the journey and enjoying it anyway, even though I wasn't where I wanted to be. So of course, yes, we're trying to close the gap, but being present now and having gratitude for the current moment now will make it go by even faster because you're living in the best part right now.
Even if it doesn't feel that way. I always joke that one day I'll write a book about all the things that happened on my way to building, um, [00:14:00] you know, everything that I'm building right now. And every time a detour shows up, it's like, oh, well this is just amazing for the plot and just adds to the story.
I know it doesn't feel good in the moment, but it adds to the overall big picture. And you're probably learning a lot of really key life lessons that will lead into who you need to be at that end. And my very last tip is to write down your achievements. It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and the everyday grind, and also getting caught in your own mind of just not being where you want to be, that you forget how far you've come and you forget exactly how much you've accomplished, which is probably a lot. You know, if we are looking left and right,
and we're comparing ourselves to others, no one has exactly the same resume as us. And no one has the, exactly the same credentials. So you have your own unique skill set and you have your own unique experiences and it's worth reminding yourself of them, whether you are framing all of your words and putting them right next to your [00:15:00] desk
so you can see and have that be a reminder, or just writing them in a little jar so you can pick them out. I saw a really good idea that you can write good things in sticky notes and place them in the jar as the year goes on and then at the end of the year, go back and see how many good things happen this year that you might've forgotten about.
That's something you can do, whatever it is, do not forget all the achievements that you have done in the plight to getting to where you want to go. Cause if you aren't happy now, you aren't going to be happy when you get there.
So that's really all I have for you all today in this Wednesday's episode.
Obviously, this is much easier said than done, but, you know, I believe in you and things are in things and circumstances are just going to fly by and it's just important to enjoy the moment while you currently have it.
So, anyways, I'm going to leave you at that. Make sure to go ahead and if you're on YouTube, subscribe, if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, Click the plus so you can follow the show and leave me a review on Apple Podcasts while you're at [00:16:00] it. I would love for you to share this podcast with someone else who you might think would benefit from it because that helps the show grow.
And of course, my mission is to get this information in the hands of the people who need it most. So go ahead and do that for me. I would be very appreciative. And I will see you next Wednesday. As always. So thank you so much again, and I'm rooting for you bye
