There’s a reason why mindset is the most common piece of advice for creating the life you want.
Your mindset determines what is possible for you. It is the foundation for a joyful, full, and rewarding life. What better time to develop a belief system that serves you, empowers you, and lays the groundwork for the life you deserve than starting in your 20s?
My Mid-20s Mindset Transformation
My mid-20s were a period marked by emotional pain, pivotal changes, and incredible, life-altering experiences. It was a time of intense self-actualization, where I navigated through heartbreak, reevaluated my career, and reconnected with my true passions. These experiences challenged my beliefs and ultimately led to a profound mindset makeover, shaping the way I approach life today.
A Simple 3-Step Framework for a Mindset Makeover
Through this journey, I discovered a simple yet powerful 3-step framework that I continually use to shift the mindset and belief systems I’ve outgrown.
Step 1: Identify Your Current Mindset
- Start by being clear about your current mindset and belief system. This mindset is often rooted in a story you've been telling yourself, linked to a memory from your childhood or past experiences.
- Reflect on these memories to understand the mindset and belief system they created. For instance, you might recall a time when you felt inadequate or unloved, which shaped a limiting belief.
- By revisiting these moments, you can identify the core of your current mindset.
Step 2: Write a New Story
- Once you’ve pinpointed your current mindset, it's time to craft a new narrative. This new story should be rooted in truth, not just any random story.
- For me, this meant embracing my identity as a creative. Knowing I could create art, I began to believe I could create the life I wanted, too.
- I started telling myself, "You have everything you need to create the life you want." This new narrative was not just a hopeful wish but a statement of truth based on my experiences and capabilities.
Step 3: Align Your Actions
- After defining your new mindset, align your actions, decisions, time, energy, and behavior with this belief system. This alignment is crucial for bringing your new story to life.
- For me, this meant reconnecting with elements of my childhood that made me genuinely happy, like creative pursuits. It also meant making creativity a significant part of my daily life.
- I realized that to create the life I desired, I needed to free up space for new experiences, including romantic love, rest, and opportunities for growth. This realization led me to reconsider the role my career played in my life.
Mindset Shifts That Changed My Life
From Suppressing Emotions to Honoring Them
One day, while sitting in a coffee shop with a friend—let's call her Mary—we started catching up about life. Mary shared that it was the anniversary of her mother's passing. As tears rolled down her face, she expressed the deep pain and grief she felt.
Most people might respond with, "I'm sorry," and try to change the subject, but I sensed that wasn't what Mary needed. So, I asked if I could ask her a question about her feelings, assuring her that I didn’t want to add to her pain.
Mary's response was profound and eye-opening. She said, "No, I’m not afraid to feel." Her words showed me how cathartic and freeing it can be to honor your emotions. This moment taught me that embracing our feelings can create space for others to support us during our pain and grief, allowing for genuine healing.
My own journey in therapy has reinforced this lesson. Honoring my emotions isn't just about healing. It's the only way to truly live. As an artist, creative, Cancer, and human being, I've realized that suppressing my feelings is no longer an option. It’s an outdated belief that stifles and silences us, preventing us from experiencing the freedom and self-expression we all possess.
From Life is Filled with Hardship to Life is Filled with Lessons
When I started "Finding Your Voice" in 2016, I was writing to overcome shame. Writing felt both terrifying and liberating because, back then, I wrote with less inhibition. For my healing and growth as a writer, I know how important it is to return to that fearless state.
Pain often serves as a revelation, teaching us invaluable lessons about ourselves. The pain of unrequited love, for example, taught me the need to cultivate deeper love and connection with myself. I met someone I quickly developed feelings for, and our connection began casually. But then, without explanation, he decided we should just be friends.
Although I valued his friendship and respected his wishes, it was painful. We grew closer as friends, and when he entered a relationship, I outwardly supported him but felt crushed inside. It took a long time to move on, and I'm still healing from the experience.
Unrequited love taught me profound lessons. The longing I felt, rooted in childhood wounds, has been replaced with a daily commitment to meet my own need for love and affection. This experience also deepened my appreciation for truth—both mine and others'—no matter how painful it might be. It showed me that love and connection are always around me, within me, and continually coming to me.
I learned that multiple emotions can coexist. I realized that I didn't need to villainize someone to appreciate their role in my life, even if it wasn’t what I had hoped for. I could hold gratitude for their truth while simultaneously honoring my own emotions and pain.
This understanding has taught me that God wants only what aligns with me, and that what aligns will come with ease and for my highest good.
From Fear of Expiration to Recognizing Lasting Value: Relationships, Places, and Experiences
Growing up in the Virgin Islands, I witnessed a lot of scarcity—a common experience in the Caribbean, influenced by the legacy of colonialism, slavery, caste systems, and unstable infrastructure. This scarcity mindset had a subconscious influence on my outlook, making me cling to relationships, places, and experiences even when they had outlived their purpose in my life.
In my mid-20s, I faced a pivotal question: Why couldn’t I believe that I had more to look forward to than I had already experienced? I realized I had bought into a lie. Rachel Rodgers and her Hello Seven coaching community made it clear to me: "Every story about scarcity is a lie."
My struggle to let go of what no longer served me was rooted in the belief that letting go meant devaluing certain people, places, and experiences. But I’ve come to learn that the opposite is true. Leaving the Virgin Islands nine years ago didn't diminish the value of my time there. The experiences, lessons, and pride of being a born-and-bred Virgin Islander remain invaluable. Yet every time I return, I'm reminded that I've outgrown my time there.
This realization applies to relationships and experiences as well. An expiration date on relationships, places, and experiences do not take away from the value they held.
From Money is Hard to Make to Money is Not Hard to Make
Our beliefs about money often start forming before we even begin earning our own. These beliefs are reflected in our parents' attitudes and the environments we grew up in. As adults, our earning potential is limited by how much money we think we can make and, more importantly, how much we believe we are worthy of and deserve.
For me, limiting beliefs about money can also be traced back to the scarcity I witnessed growing up in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I was raised by a single mother who worked four jobs. As a result, I lived frugally, adopting a "closed fist" approach to money. While being cautious with money isn't inherently bad, it stemmed from a deeper belief that money was hard to make and had to be tightly controlled.
One day, I was scrolling on Instagram and tuned into a live by Tiffany Aliche, the Budgetnista. She shared that contrary to what popular culture tells us, “money is not hard to make.”
I’d add that money in fact is not hard to make when you know and understand how to leverage skills to expand your earning potential. Skills, as I define in my book *Displaced to Realigned*, are abilities that enable you to advance the objectives and activities of an organization, project, or experience. We all excel at something, even if we're not fully aware of it. I knew that money being hard to make was not a true story for me, because I had so many skills that I began to think of that could serve as creative ways for me to earn money. If you have at least one skill you excel at, then money being hard to make is not a true story for you. If you have the ability to learn a new skill, then money being hard to make is not a true story for you. Skills can be learned, practiced, and mastered.
By adopting the new story that "money is not hard to make," using my signature 3-step framework, I began to rewire my brain, creating new synapses that made me more alert to opportunities. On a molecular and subconscious level, I was now able to identify paths to earn more money. You simply cannot see all the avenues to financial success if you keep telling and convincing yourself that it's hard to achieve.
As you reflect on your own journey, here's something important I want you to remember: your previous, prior, and even harmful mindset was not your fault. The beliefs and mindsets we've adopted often come from our environment, experiences, and the people around us. It’s essential to acknowledge that those beliefs may have served you in the past in some way, even if they no longer serve you now.
My mindset makeover began with identifying my current mindset, revisiting memories that had shaped my beliefs, and uncovering the doctored stories that I was telling myself. Once I pinpointed those limiting beliefs, I moved on to writing a new story—one rooted in truth. As co-creators of our paths, one story that remains true for all of us is that “we have everything we need to create the life we want.”
Finally, I focused on aligning my actions with this new belief system. This alignment has allowed me to increase my income, live more in alignment with my purpose, extend more grace and tenderness to myself and others, and achieve big goals like publishing my first book.
The journey is ongoing, but it's one that continues to open doors that old mindsets and the old mind trash could never fathom. Regardless of where you are at and what you have been through, you can always write a new story and makeover your mindset, just like I did.
Being from the Caribbean, the scarcity belief is one that I too have noticed. I also loved the fact that you talked about money mindset. That’s a lesson that took me years to learn. Thanks so much for your article!