Are you limiting your growth because of self doubt? Create more progress with a growth mindset!

Have you ever been held hostage by your own standards of what it means to be a good _____ (fill in the blank)?

Sara Carruth created a definition for a “good mom.” She even had the career and education to back up that definition in her mind. Then she became a parent and quickly learned that she’d put her definition of motherhood in a box--one that was doing her no favors.

How can we move beyond our fixed mindsets?

Sara shares her experiences of dealing with major self-doubt, and how her ability to gradually remove the “should” boxes keeping her trapped started with a simple mantra:

“Keep growing!”

About a few other things...

If you are ready to re-prioritize and re-potentialize, leaving behind those martyr moments, join the 5-Day "I Am On The List Challenge" happening at the end of September. Join a group of women working together on action and accountability through doable ways. If your to-do list is a mile long, and you're never on it, it's time for that to change. This challenge will get you started the right way!

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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SHOW NOTES
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Songs Credit: Pleasant Pictures Music Club

TRANSCRIPT

Monica: Welcome to About progress, Sara. It's so wonderful to have you on the show.

Sara: Thank you, Monica. I'm so excited to be here.

Monica: We're here to talk about a lot of things. But first I, I kinda like to do this with our Progressors in the community who are on the podcast let's start off by hearing a little bit of your own progress story of sorts.

Sara: Sure. So I'm a mom and I'm a teacher. And so I think I, I kind of am naturally interested in just learning and growing because of, because of my profession, right. I'm, I'm working to help kids do that. And so I love to learn and, and I think it's been an interesting journey to realize the ways that I'm limiting my own growth, you know?

 I used to teach kindergarten and then I decided to start my own preschool. And recently I closed that preschool with COVID complications and kind of feel like I want to grow in some different directions now. So it's just, it's interesting how life just kind of takes you different ways. I think when you're open to that growth and open to new possibilities about yourself.

Monica: That's the perfect setup to our conversation. We're talking about mindset, but not in the just "decide and do something" kind of mindset, which you know, can, can be helpful. But I think this is a more helpful way to frame mindset, because not only is it science- backed, but it's also a little bit more doable and it's something that can be cultivated and learned.

We're going to be talking about fixed mindset versus the growth mindset. And let's just have you set this up, what is the fixed mindset and what is the growth mindset.

Sara: When I think about a fixed mindset, sometimes I think about like, I put myself in boxes almost, right. Like I think about myself a certain way, or I have this belief that might be kind of limiting, or I'm not really open to thinking about it in a new way.

And, and I think it's so easy, like as a mom and a teacher, I can look at a baby learning to walk and think like, yeah, they're just growing, they're learning. Right. Or I can look at a student who's struggling behaviorally or academically and think, Oh, they're just learning. They're going to keep growing.

 They're going to get it. Right. But sometimes it's so hard to look at myself that way and think, Oh yeah, I'm just learning. I'm going to keep growing. It's going to be fine. Right. Cause I think. Whether it's just these expectations I have for myself, or sometimes it's perfectionism and this fear of not wanting to look dumb or not wanting to fail.

I just kind of keep myself in this box. Like, this is who I am, and it doesn't always feel possible to change or to find the, the courage to keep going or even sometimes, honestly, I think it's just that I'm tired. Just the emotional exhaustion of being an adult and a parent is like, I'm just too tired to put the effort into like really trying to grow in a certain direction or to be open to change.

I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Cause sometimes it feels safer to just stay in certain boxes, right. To just say, this is who I am and I'm not, I'm not going to try to even change, you know?

Monica: Yeah. I definitely am cuing in to just that belief that change isn't possible. I think we've all experienced that at least once, if not like it been an ongoing thread and how we view our own capacity to grow and to change. I remember feeling that way a lot. And I still do in some ways, the belief that change isn't possible.

Well, then what's the reverse to that because we don't want to be Pollyanna and believe lies. So what's the reverse of the fixed mindset.

Sara: I like this image of how you can be boxed into certain things is because it's just, I think finding the courage to open the box and be, be more open to this idea that we can keep learning. We can keep growing.

I mean the science of neuroplasticity in our brains, right, like tells us, even as an adult, it's possible for you to be making new shifts in even the way that you think about yourself and even the way that you think about your life. And I think for me, like the most glaring example of kind of shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is really just around motherhood. Before I became a mom, I was already starting my career as a teacher and I had my master's degree in early childhood education. So I had tons of ideas about what makes a good mom and what's healthy parenting.

And so I thought, Oh man, I'm going to be this kind of mom, right? Like I already know all of this stuff about it. I was kind of putting myself in a box in terms of motherhood, because it was like, I'm either this kind of mom or I'm a failure.

I'm an awful mom. And when I actually started having kids and realizing that like, oh, they're so humbling. And it was so much harder than I thought. I think education is awesome really, but there's this analogy you can learn all you want about lifting weights, right?

You can learn all these strategies you can read about it, but the only way to strengthen your muscles and to actually lift the weights is to do the work is to lift the weight. It's like, you're not going to get strong unless you're actually doing it. And that growth only comes each session at a time.

I think I couldn't see motherhood that way for a long time. I couldn't see it as this muscle that I also needed to build and experience emotionally and mentally. And so I just had such a fixed mindset around it. And because of that, I carried around so much shame. Like I just always felt like, like I was failing as a mom.

 I had to allow myself to be a human mother, right. Like that I'm growing along with my kids. Even after I started learning about growth mindset and being able to say, okay, I'm growing, it's okay. I can make mistakes. I think I still tried to practice it as a perfectionist.

 I got in this cycle of, oh, if I just read one more parenting book, or if I just go to one more parenting workshop, then I'm going to get there as if that was like, some level of motherhood or some like landing place, right?

So what really changed was saying was coming to this realization that. You know what? Motherhood is always going to be challenging for me, I'm always going to make mistakes.

 I'm not going to wake up one day and say, Oh, now I'm a good mom. That's never going to happen. Right. Because it's always going to be changing and evolving. I was missing the skill of self-compassion to tolerate the messiness of the growth. Right. But to tolerate that, it's not just this linear jump to suddenly being perfect. I needed, I needed this skill of self-compassion to say this is hard and it's okay that it's hard. It's good to have a goal and want to try to improve as a mother, but I need to stop expecting that one day I'm going to make it to this whatever perfect level. So self-compassion is really what gave me the permission to grow.

Monica: So, if we were to set the scene a little bit for people to just help them reframe this, I would say based off of our conversation, and also this is a work done by Carol Dweck, who was an incredible researcher in this field.

But in our own words, I feel like the fixed mindset is where you cannot see change as being possible outside of a certain box or a certain way, a certain time limit.

Whereas the growth mindset is more about possibility. It's being willing to see that change is possible and that it can be done in many different ways. And also, like you said, accepting that part of the process is resistance, is hardship . And when you accept that, it changes a lot of things.

Right? I think it allows you to have the compassion that you talked about.

Sara: Oh for sure. Well, I think there's a difference between growth that's driven by like perfectionism or needing it to be a certain way and growth that instead is growth from this place of curiosity or intention. There's a difference in that kind of growth, like the growth that's based more out of our values, right.

Instead of just thinking. I'm only good if I grow this way, it's just being more open to I'm going to grow because I'm a human and that's what we're meant to do. I don't want to stay the same forever. Right. I want to keep learning and, and, and improving, but I want it to be coming from a place that's intentional. That's coming from my values, not just letting perfectionism and shame.

Monica: The shoulds.

Yeah, that's, that's a huge, that's huge for fixed mindset is the shoulds, what things should look like. And you know, this is always bringing things back to me to identity, knowing who you are, what you value, what matters to you that is the compass as you work through the mess that is progress. That is growth.

Any thoughts on that?

Sara: I relate so much to this idea that that fixed mindset totally affects your identity because I think when I'm stuck in those cycles of "this is who I am," then I'm putting all of my worth outside of myself, right? Like I'm letting my accomplishments dictate how I feel about myself or I'm letting how other people react to me dictate how I feel about myself.

 Like I mentioned at the beginning, I've been running my own preschool for the last six years and it's, it's been a really great thing.

I've loved it. And, but at the same time, I kind of was given this opportunity to decide like, do you want to keep going with it or do you not? And I felt this pull to grow a different direction. And that terrified me because because that has been my identity, right. Like, I have built this identity around, well, I'm the preschool teacher and this is what I do.

But like I'm doing all of these things around this identity and it's like, what happens if I choose not to do this anymore? Like, am I, am I still me? Like, and I get tough. Like I had to really dig deep a little bit because, and realized like the preschool was giving me a lot of validation and I was internalizing that to mean, I'm worth something because I'm doing this and had to kind of come to a place of, well, I feel like I want to keep growing and maybe explore some other possible things about myself and other ways that I could contribute to the world or to pursue my own desires and passions. And I had to separate my sense of worth from this thing that I've built.

And say, well, I built it and that it was awesome, but I was I'm the builder, right? The thing, isn't my worrh. I'm the one that has worth, right. Like I'm still who I am, whether I do this preschool or not. And I think that's part of growing is being able to, for me, in my journey, it's being able to, to grow into myself so that I know who I am.

Right. And then all these external things that sometimes give me validation or sometimes help me feel good about myself. They're not necessarily who I am.

Yeah. They're not inherently bad. Like validation or outcomes are not like, we don't want to be like, no, don't get anything good. No, like no good outcomes.

Like don't try to get better have achievements. It's not that it's more, we've talked about this a lot on the, on the podcast, perfectionism is a misplacement of identity. And I'm seeing that in how you're describing the contrast between fixed and growth mindsets.

So the fixed mindset to me feels like your identity is wrapped up in the outcome and what the growth mindset, your identity drives the work. You said, "I am the builder. I love that. I had to write that down. But also part of that is have you seen the Mandalorian? Yes. You know, when they always say like, this is the way.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm kind of feeling like how freeing is it to know this is the way like, this is what things are supposed to look like. It's supposed to be hard and messy "and not straightforward, but I am the builder and I can be in charge of what I am willing to do and how I'm willing to view my own placement and this path that I'm on.

Oh yeah, totally. I think. And I think, Oh, that's just like the heart of it for me really, because I think growth mindset has helped me to shift from chasing this life of perfection and, and all that to creating a life with intention. That it's just, it's been such a huge shift for me. And like you said, and just in all areas of my life, it's just made such a big difference.

Monica: I think there's a lot of women who are listening right now, who are thinking, I want that. I want to feel like I'm creating my life, not just chasing it. What can I do? How can I even start this path going on this "the way" I guess, and leaning into this new way of viewing myself and also just what's possible for me.

Yeah. What advice do you have for them?

Sara: Oh, you know, so something I ended up doing was a couple years ago after I I'd spent some time learning about growth mindset. And decided that I wanted to value my growth more than I wanted to do this thing of like chasing perfection. Right. I wanted to be, be creating a life that felt meaningful to me and growth feels meaningful to me.

So I decided at the beginning of a new year that I wasn't going to make any resolutions, I was just going to focus on growth. So kind of similar to your, like do something list. Like I just made a list of ways that maybe I could grow in my life. Right. Like I could just pursue growing for the sake of growing.

It wasn't necessarily about reaching certain goals or certain outcomes. And so I wrote on this piece of paper, "Keep Growing" growing in big words, and then I just kind of wrote down some areas that I thought maybe, or just even little things I could do just to feel like I was growing and challenging myself.

And kind of three different categories emerged for me in that process that now I, I practice intentionally, like I really think about it. And so the three ways that I like to think about growth and that I think it's doable for anybody to think about it this way are to grow deep, to grow slow and to grow wild.

And I, I love nature. I'm kind of a mountain girl. And so I love thinking about these things first in terms of nature and how things grow in nature and then how I can apply that to myself. The first one grow deep felt really important because it goes back to this idea of identity that we've been talking about.

And I felt like. I needed to grow deeper into who I really was and to learn, to really learn who I was. Right. So learn what I valued. If I was going to be able to withstand and tolerate some of the challenges that come with growing some of the failures and come, I didn't want to just be tossed about every time something, you know, fell apart or whatever, which is what usually happens.

So with growing deep, I just, I feel like it's this idea that when like a tree is really strong in the wind, like it has really deep roots and oftentimes trees, the girl will spend so much more time, and other plants too, growing their roots first, before they're able to sprout up and bless them in other ways.

Right. And so I just, I took first some time to just give myself permission to grow deep. So prior, like that meant. A lot of that meant like prioritizing my mental health, like recognizing like, okay. You know, I've honestly struggled with anxiety my whole life. And I am going to start facing that a little bit more and maybe learning strategies to help me to work through that in more healthy ways or I also really dug deep into learning more about mindfulness and self-compassion. That makes such a huge difference because I don't have to get swept away by this huge ocean of shame.

Every single time I make a mistake or I. I come across some sort of failure instead I can intentionally choose to keep returning back to myself again and again, to ground myself and in this love and acceptance. And really just choose to keep growing when something is a setback or when, when something's hard.

And so that made a huge difference for me. But the other thing I did with growing deep was just think about what do I love to do, right? Like, what are my desires? What am I curious about? What, what feels exciting and engaging to me? And I started pursuing some of those things, even if it was just in really small ways.

But that led me to do, like, I started oil painting last year. And I have discovered that, you know, I don't have to be the best painter, but I actually love the process of it. Right. Like I just get in the zone and I love mixing the colors and, and being curious about what's going to happen.

I also started taking some classes about creating picture books. Cause that's something I'm really interested in as an educator is how can I use this knowledge I have and put it into a really great picture book to teach concepts. And I don't know if anything will come of it, but it feels like I'm honoring myself in that way. Right? Like I'm digging deeper and helping my roots to grow deeper in who I am and allowing myself to keep growing. However, it goes.

Monica: You've learned this, I learned this, and so many in our community have learned this. Some of us have learned alongside each other, but some of us haven't and we're just coming together seeing like, Oh no, that's really is what matters is how you do this. You have to start with the roots of who you are, knowing who you are, what matters to you and exploring that and giving yourself permission.

And I especially love that you talked about, you know, once you have that anchor. That is what frees you up to be curious, which I'm sure leads us to this next form of growth that you talked about growing slowly, which is something I'm equal parts, a big fan of, and I hate,

Sara: Oh yeah. It's it can be so hard sometimes. I, so growing slow is probably my hardest one, for sure. It's so hard for me to be patient with myself. And I, I think I'm used to some areas of my life where it's like, things came easily to me. I used to do a lot of music and that was something that just came so easily to me.

So I'd get tons of praise for it. And I didn't have to practice, like, I'd go to my piano lessons, not having practice. And my teacher would be like, you did so great, like reinforce this idea that like, Oh, well this is just easy for me. And so it should be easy. And then when I got farther along, and music got more challenging and I had to work at it, it was a little bit harder, right.

To let myself grow more slowly and to put more effort into it because I had kind of thought. You know, I built this identity that I was just a natural or whatever. It's harder to be patient with when things are challenging. And life gave me a really funny opportunity to really practice this right after I decided I was going to say yes to growing opportunities.

So I've lived in Utah, most of my life, and I love being in the mountains. I go hiking. I even enjoy snowshoeing, but I've never learned to ski. And my husband got really into skiing a few years ago and he kept saying, you got to come do it with me, Sara.

Like, you'll love it. Like it's, it's being in the mountains. And so he convinced me this one time to go. So I'd only been skiing one other time. Like I tried it one other time and I didn't, I didn't wasn't good at it. So I, I didn't go again for a long time. So I, I said, okay, I'm going to keep growing. I'll try it. I'm going to go with you on this ski adventure. And so we're going along. And at first it was fine. Like, it was like snowshoeing. It was beautiful.

It was great. Then the higher we got, like my anxiety is just like building and building. Cause I'm like, I don't know how to get down. I don't know how to get down. And our trail met up with a ski resort. So suddenly now there's all these other people zooming down the mountain past me. And that was like, all I could take.

Right. I literally had a panic attack on the mountain Hanukkah. Like I am sobbing, not able to breathe. And I'm like yelling furiously at my husband. Like, "why did you make me do this? I can't do this. And all these people, they know, they know I'm a fraud that I'm not a skier. And they're going to see how stupid I look trying to get down this mountain."

And I was just so, like, I couldn't tolerate the discomfort of that, knowing that I didn't know what I was doing. And I hated this idea that. The other people could know that I didn't know what I was doing. I was so stuck and thankfully I'm married to like a super kind and patient person who just, he literally talked me down the mountain.

Right. Like he just stayed calm and he talked me down, but. When we were in the car afterwards, my mind is like spinning in all of these fixed mindset ways. Like I will never ski again. I'm so terrible. That was awful. I'm the worst skier. I'm never going to like it. And my husband turns to me and he's like, you know, maybe you would like taking ski lessons.

I was like at first I was like, no way, like that was horrible. I mean, I am never putting myself through that again, but then that silly little mantra just like came back to me, keep growing. So maybe this is an opportunity for you to just grow. You don't have to be a great skier. You don't even have to like it. But maybe give yourself a chance to try it.

So I did, I signed up for some ski lessons. I psyched myself up beforehand saying, you know what? This is a growing slow thing, right? Like you can't expect yourself to go to the top of the mountain and just suddenly know how to ski, like you need to learn and you need to let yourself be a learner.

And that means you're probably gonna not be great at it at first. And that was hard for me to shift into that. But honestly, it was way easier when there was an instructor and I was around other people who were learning instead of feeling like I was surrounded by all of these expert skiers. And it was a totally different experience, honestly, by the end I was having fun.

And you know, what. I fell down a ton. It was messy. I was not good at it, but it gave me enough confidence to try it a few more times. Like I went skiing with my kids after that who were much braver than me and I even was able to make it down the mountain once or twice without having a total panic attack.

Right. Like by myself and you know what? I don't love skiing. I still don't love it. But I know that I can do it. And I know that I can go participate with my family and have fun ski day and I can enjoy it. Enjoy being with them. And I'm not a good skier and it's fine. But. That wasn't the point, the point was that I'm going to at least give myself the chance to try and to tolerate the messiness and the discomfort of it.

And I was able to do way more than I thought I was in the end.

Monica: That's the other weird magic with this? I mean, it's two fold somehow when you allow yourself to be a messy learner, not only do you. Somehow gain more confidence, even when you don't get the outcome that you wish you had, you have more confidence.

It's weird. And the other thing is, as you still end up growing more than you would have, if you had just stayed stuck in the fixed mindset.

Sara: Yeah, absolutely.

Monica: You lived that out. So we're going to re read a few of these. Go deep, go slow. Next, we have grow wild. What does that mean?

Sara: So this is probably my favorite one and I think it's because I just, I love wild flowers. They just take my breath away sometimes,

well, they're just so tenacious, right. And resilient. We were hiking to the summit of Mount Timpanogos last summer, my husband and I. And so we're along this part before the summit where it's just kind of cliffs everywhere. The wind's blowing, it's cold up there. Kind of scary. It is. It's a little scary.

And suddenly we, every once in a while, we just see these patches of wild flowers, clinging to the cliff. Yeah. And I don't know, there's just something kind of inspiring to me about that, this idea that I can grow wild. Maybe there are ways that feel uncertain or that feel like totally impossible, but that if I'm open to this kind of growth, that the kind of helps to push me outside of my comfort zone.

I skiing was like that a little bit too. Right. But just even this idea that maybe there are ways that I can grow that I'm not even aware of. Right. If, if I let myself really be open to possibility that I can find ways to bloom and thrive and grow in really unexpected circumstances or in really unexpected ways.

And, and that's a lot of what I'm thinking about right now, as I was talking to you about kind of moving out of this teaching career that I've built for the last 10 years. Right. And to think about the possibility of doing something different. Honestly, I don't have it all figured out right now. I'm kinda, it kinda feels like I'm stepping out into the wilderness of.

I don't know, there, there are definitely places that I'm interested to do and are interested to pursue and explore, but we're just going to kind of see where I end up.

Monica: And "this is the way," this is the way it's supposed to like, right. It's it's supposed to not be a clear path, which again is frustrating, but the more you accept that and you go deep and then you, and then you go grow slow and then you grow wild.

I think, just seeing encapsulated in a person in front of me, like on a screen here is just so beautiful because I see the spark and I see the strength in you and, and just how you've been able to cultivate that in yourself because of leaning in to this different way of looking at the world and yourself.

So I applaud you from over here and this was magnificent. I wish I came up with that framework of grow deep grow, slow, grow wild. That was incredible. Sara, I'm interested in what you're doing now though. Like what, what are, you know, different seasons are coming up a lot for that women in our community, circumstances are shifting constantly.

So what are you doing to anchor in, to develop yourself personally right now?

Sara: One of the biggest things I'm doing honestly, is trying to learn how to feel my emotions. I,

Monica: again, what is happening? I just, this is so eerie. We're like dealing with the same stuff. Okay. Friend, tell me how you're doing this because I'm getting forced into it and I'm not loving the process, but yes.

Sara: Yeah, it's just, it's hard work. Isn't it? I rhink just especially this last year and just all the changes as I've been trying to learn, to figure out ways to like help my kids gain healthier ways to work through their emotions and to figure things out.

It's like shining a mirror on myself and all the ways that I need to work on that. And so, and I feel like that's going to help me. It's a digging, it's a growing deep thing. Right? Like I feel like that's going to help me with really being able to spread out and grow wild and open the boxes that are.

Kind of keeping me stuck. And, and so a lot of it is, is that discomfort of sitting with the hard feelings and showing myself compassion, even in those hard moments and a definition I came across recently of compassion is to suffer with. And so it's kind of, it's kind of changed my mindset around my emotions and allowing myself to fill them, but also kind of to suffer with myself in them.

But to actually let myself grow through them, to let them move through me. It it's, they get bigger. Like I've been more emotional since doing that, but at the same time, Then I can kind of see this process of how they just, they move on. Right. They're just, they're just feelings. They're just a part of this experience and it's not easy by any means. Like I'm not perfect at it for sure.

I'm learning how to be human and I'm learning how to do this. , I'm going to learn and keep practicing too.

Monica: And I just can't wait to see, like how that helps you in the end grow even more than you would have if you had just stayed stuck in that box.

And I hope the same for myself since we're on a similar path here. So Sarah, I forgot to ask you this at the beginning. Do you have a public profile?

Sara: Yeah. So I've actually started an account this last year with all my shifting called @emotion.coach.mom. So it's kind of about this journey. I've just described like how I'm trying to learn, how to take care of my own emotions so that I can teach my kids to do the same.

Right. So that I can coach them through that process. And it's such a pattern for me to, to have this. This pattern of like wanting to teach my kids something or my students something and realizing that I really am the one that needs to learn it first,

Monica: That means right friend, because that's how I feel about this podcast in this community. You know, you can learn the most through it. Sara, this has been remarkable. I don't even know how to put into words how amazing this conversation has been for me and how beneficial it's been for me. And I know it will be for my whole community too. And I I'm just grateful for you. I'm grateful how you've lived this out and grateful how you're willing to teach others and to be in the process alongside us.

Thank you for being on the show.

Sara: Well, thank you, Monica. It's been such a pleasure. I've listened to you for many years now, so I appreciate you. And your you've just been a big cheerleader, I think, through your podcast, in my own journey. And I really, really appreciate it.

Monica: Thank you. Thank you.