Annie Croner:
Welcome to The Whole Assistant Podcast, where assistants come to embrace their badassery and discover how to show up more strategically for their careers, their executives, and most importantly, themselves. I'm your coach, Annie Croner. Join us as we dive into the skills, strategies and mindset that will help you unleash your full potential. Let's go. Welcome back to the Whole Assistant Podcast. Today we are talking all about mindset. This is the first in a two part series on mindset. Mindset is a big buzzword these days and there are a lot of people talking about it, but nobody actually shares how to manage your mind.
Annie Croner:
How does this look? What do we do to actually take control of our thoughts, to manage our mind, to steer the boat in the right direction? And so today I'm going to be sharing a really cool concept with you. But before I go there, I do want to share about why we should give a crap about mindset, especially as executive assistants, especially as strategic business partners. There is so much benefit to managing your mind and I think the primary benefit is that it really does help you level up your self concept. Whenever we take control of how we're choosing to think about ourselves and we intentionally onboard thoughts that will help serve and support us, that can not only propel our career forward, it can help us become more strategic in our roles. And it can help you use your voice when you need to use your voice. It can help you set those strategic boundaries when you need to set those boundaries. And we can set those boundaries in our roles. And we can also set those boundaries with our roles.
Annie Croner:
This will also help you become the bridge between your executive and the rest of the organization. It will help you be the calm in the storm. There's just so many amazing benefits to showing up intentionally and to doing this work around mindset. So there are a few benefits for you guys and I feel like mindset is super important. And I spoke at around Mindset at the last couple of conferences I spoke at and I just had so many people come up to me and write me notes after on LinkedIn and tell me that what I said had a big impact. So I thought I'd share a couple of the concepts that I shared during those conferences with you guys today. The first concept that I'm gonna share with you during today's episode is the three levels of self awareness. Now, I did not come up with these three levels of self awareness, but I did study them in my coach training and I do use them with clients a lot.
Annie Croner:
The first level of self awareness is the Introduction. So the example I like to give when it comes to the self awareness piece is yelling at my kids. I've got two young boys, they are rambunctious, they are full of life and energy, and sometimes it's a challenge. And I also don't want to show up in a way that makes me less than my best for them. So I really have been working on not yelling at them as much. And the really, the first kind of key thing to be aware of is that we need to be introduced to a problem. So say I grew up in an environment, I did not grow up in this environment, by the way, but say I grew up in an environment where there was lots of yelling. I may not even be aware that yelling is a problem or an issue.
Annie Croner:
And as I begin to raise my boys and that sort of thing, I may decide that I don't want to yell at my kids. And that is the first level of self awareness. Introduction to an issue, introduction to a problem, introduction to a goal, something along those lines. We are aware of something that we would like to change. And that is the first level of self awareness. Okay, nothing has changed yet. But even bringing some awareness to how you want to show up for your kids, how you want to show up in life, how you want to show up for your role, that sort of thing is the first step in self awareness. The second step is observation.
Annie Croner:
So sometimes when I get triggered and my boys are in the back and they're pounding on each other and I'm trying to get them to stop, I will notice my brain. I'll be like, okay, I'm feeling triggered right now. And the train is on its tracks, right? Like it's not going anywhere. The train is on its tracks. The action is going to happen. I end up raising my voice to my boys. I don't like it, but I'm observing it almost as a third party observer. That is the second level of self awareness is observation.
Annie Croner:
We're observing ourselves almost from an outside perspective and how we're showing up for a situation. And it's like we, we can have self control, but we're kind of triggered. We're already in that heightened space. And so the train is on the tracks and we end up yelling at our kids. We end up gossiping with our colleagues and co workers. We know it's probably not the best thing to do, but the train is on its tracks. And so that is the second level of self awareness. So we've introduction observation.
Annie Croner:
And the last one is interruption. It's interrupting that Patterned way of being. That pattern that we've developed over time, that pattern we've been raised in, that pattern we have unintentionally develops, and it's stopping it in its tracks. So my boys are hanging out on my couch. They get frustrated with one another. They start hitting and screaming and yelling. I want to help, but I also notice myself beginning to be a little activated. So I step away for a minute, I step away and I take a breath and I decide intentionally how I want to re engage with my boys.
Annie Croner:
That is interruption. Okay, so a few things to note. We kind of oscillate back and forth between these three until we have mastered the skill of observation and interruption. And perfection is not the goal here. Improvement, progression, evolution is the goal here. Okay, so self, compassion and patience are key to success when it comes to interrupting cycles, Especially those cycles that we have onboarded as kids, especially those beliefs that we have that we may not be aware of, especially those things that were unintentionally brought into our lives or put upon us at an early age that we may be unaware of. We just want to show up with self compassion and patience. And I think oftentimes what we do instead is we self flagellate and we beat ourselves up.
Annie Croner:
And we do that because we genuinely don't want to show up in a certain way or we've made a mistake, or we don't like how we feel after we've done the thing that we're trying to change or improve on. But honestly, the only way we're gonna change is if we show up with compassion for ourselves. Because when we self flagellate, what we do is we spiral. And it takes more time to actually pull the lesson from what happened and to actually decide on purpose how we're gonna show up differently next time. That recovery takes just a lot more time and energy than we give it credit for. So I would highly encourage you to show up with compassion and grace for yourself. We are all human. None of us are perfect.
Annie Croner:
I try to remind myself of that with my boy sometimes. And I have gotten to the point now where whenever I feel activated, I generally do step back. And occasionally I still get activated. Occasionally I make a mistake. But for the most part, I have mastered the skill of interrupting that cycle before it gets really bad. Okay, so something to be aware of for you and compassion is the key. And just showing up with curiosity and having a curious mindset is also a great way to kind of uncover what's actually going on for yourself. If we can be curious Instead of condemning with us and with others, that is the best way to get at the root of what is going on.
Annie Croner:
And it does soften our take and it does soften us to other people and to ourselves as well. So that compassion piece is going to be huge when it comes to the three levels of self awareness. And your homework between now and our next podcast episode is to really pay attention. Pay attention to cycle skills that you may want to improve on. Pay attention to the self concept that you may want to onboard. For me this year I've really been working on my money mindset. So whenever I notice something come up in my brain around scarcity or I'll be having a conversation with a friend and I will make note of how expensive something is, even though I don't think it's expensive, but I think my friend will think it's expensive. So then I share that with them.
Annie Croner:
It's just something good for me to be aware of. Right? Like I wonder what's going on there and I will go home and do some journaling about it. I will reflect more. But that observation role has been really, really helpful at kind of dismantling the money mindset that I was brought into this world with. My dad is an entrepreneur and he was raised in poverty and so his take on things was always, I'm going to work hard and hustle and all that. And I love that about my dad so much. But there are certain aspects of that that I want to release and let go of so that I can live a more abundant life. And so much of this we were raised in, we were brought up in, we know nothing different.
Annie Croner:
So to actually challenge some of those underlying beliefs can be super challenging and also super rewarding. So I would encourage you to look at something that you want to improve on. Look at your self concept around that thing, ask yourself what needs to change around that self concept and and leverage the three levels of self awareness in order to bring awareness, in order to interrupt those thought cycles and those patterned ways of thinking that we're just unintentionally onboarded through life. Okay guys, that is what I have for you guys today. I hope you found it helpful. Be intentional, be whole, and I will see you next week for part two of this mindset series. Hey, before you go, don't forget to grab my free strategic planning session guide. This stealthy playbook will help you and your executive find clarity on their priorities so you can make a greater impact.
Annie Croner:
Go to wholeassistant.com/guide or click the link in the show notes to snag your copy. And if you're loving the podcast, please subscribe, leave a review and share with another assistant ready to level up. Thanks for listening, and until next time, keep embracing your badassery.
