12. 4 Mindset Loops Keeping You Stuck And How to Flip the Script (Ep 12)

In this episode of Confidence Unfiltered, I’m getting real about the invisible mindset loops that have been secretly sabotaging your growth. From perfectionism and people-pleasing to the imposter loop and fear-driven procrastination — these are the four most common thought patterns keeping you stuck.

I’ll break down exactly how they show up, why your brain clings to them (even when they’re miserable), and how you can start flipping the script.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in self-doubt or frustrated by your own mental roadblocks, this conversation is going to hit home. I’m sharing practical, no-BS mindset shifts and simple language hacks you can start using today to break through those old beliefs, reclaim your confidence, and finally live on your own terms.

👉 Hit play, take the challenge at the end, and tag @skymareesteele on Instagram to share what you’re finally giving yourself permission to do!

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Break free from the 'Nice Girl' rules, set strong boundaries, and reclaim your power to achieve meaningful results in 2025.

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Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of Confidence Unfiltered. I'm Sky Marie Steel, your host, and today we are talking about mindset. Now, let's be real. Mindset is either the reason that you are stuck or the reason that you get to grow. It's not fluff, it's not a buzz word. It's actually the lens in which we filter everything in our world, and here's the problem. Most of us, we've been carrying around beliefs that were never actually ours to begin with. These beliefs have been handed down by our parents systems teachers, trauma, culture, religion, so many things. And today we are actually going to get to the gritty truth about mindset. We're gonna look at how it works and how it acts as an invisible upper limit. Few actually growing in your life, and then we'll start to look at simple ways that if we just flip the script and change a few words, we could actually change everything. So let's get started. Mindset is your invisible limit in life. So what is it really? Well, it's not actually positive thinking. Our mindset is literally a mental framework. That has been created since the age of two when we formed language that decides how you interpret yourself the world and what is possible for you. Your mindset matters because your thoughts are wired for fear, unless we consciously choose differently. No strategy is gonna have you thinking positive every single day. You as a mammal will wired for danger and your thoughts do the same. And so here becomes the upper limit problem. And if you haven't read the book by Gay Hendricks, I strongly recommend it because here's the thing, every time you hit a new level, right, a level of growth stepping outside of the comfort zone, something new, I. Your mindset says, we haven't been here before. This is fucking dangerous. And all of the alarm bells go off in your mind. And what your mindset does is it acts as a mechanism to drag you back to what's familiar. It sabotages you, it helps you procrastinate. It helps you pick the fight. It helps you shrink if you are not mindful of the language that you're choosing. And it does this through something called limiting beliefs. Now, beliefs are literally thoughts that we have had on repeat that we now believe as absolute truth. These limiting beliefs, they aren't random. They are beliefs or thoughts that we have created and perceive as things that are going to protect us in our life. For example, in childhood. If you had the mom that was always upset and always withdraws, you may learn it's not safe to speak, or it's not safe to have big feelings, and so your mindset says, when a feeling shows up, shut it down, withdraw, play it safe. Or maybe you had the parent. Who was always when you come home and you had A, a, B, or an A and nothing was ever good enough. Right. So then you had this concept of like, oh, good, kids don't make mistakes, I've gotta get things perfect. And so you've created a mindset around that, or maybe you were a bit more bold and had an opinion and had voices, and what maybe your, um, your family or people around you taught you that you were too much. Or that you were not enough, and so you developed a mindset to keep you small. Or if you experienced trauma, you might've kept a mindset that has you stay invisible to keep you safe, or people pleaser. This is me, like my people pleasing mindset is if everyone else is okay, then I'll be okay. If I don't rock the boat, then I'll belong. If I'm perfect, then I'll be loved. If I do what everybody else wants, then I won't be abandoned. Now, as their child who has no power in their world, these beliefs served a purpose. But now as the adult, these beliefs are outdated. They are keeping you stuck and they are putting a ceiling and a cap on the things that you get to achieve in this lifetime. So what are the thought loops that keep us stuck and what do we need to kind of start being mindful to watch out for? Well, the brain loves familiar. Right. Even if everything that is familiar is fucking miserable, your brain will still choose that over freedom because it understands the miserable, it understands the chaos, it understands the trauma or the danger that is present in your world, and so your mind will create what it knows that it's familiar with because familiar equals safe. So we create limiting thought loops and we all have them. Yours might be different to mine, but guarantee you there is not one human on this planet that doesn't have a thought loop. Some really basic ones that most people have might be the perfection loop, right? Anytime you hear yourself say, I'm not ready yet, that is because you may have an underlying perfection loop. I can't do the thing until I'm a hundred percent certain that I'm gonna get it. Perfect. I'm gonna get it right. It's gonna work out. You see how that goes? Then there's the safety loop. I'll do it after the next training. Right? Or I'll go to the gym, um, next Monday. Right. Or I'll, I'll start that course next year. I'll have that hard conversation next week. Like, we're always putting something off. Because it doesn't feel safe. So we are pausing the thing. So we get to stay in the comfortable space. And then, like I said, me, the people pleasing loop. I don't wanna make anyone uncomfortable, therefore I won't have any thoughts, needs, opinions, beliefs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? I will do whatever you want and be whoever you want me to be. And then there's the imposter loop. And this one, it still shows up for me. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm, I'm not really a good psychologist, or I'm not really smart, or That person's better than me. Right? Or, who am I to even think that I can do this? Right? That mindset that we create has us either stuck in a perfection loop, a safety loop, a people pleasing loop, an imposter loop, and all these loops are, is. Things or default or conditioning that you have learned. So your brain can keep you safe, keep you in the comfort zone. But as I said, this mindset, it's keeping a ceiling on what you can achieve. You know, most of your stuckness isn't about your ability like you are way fucking more capable than you give yourself credit for. Right. These beliefs are stories that you've told yourself to be true, but in actual fact, they're not truths. So how do we flip the script? Because let's be honest, like your default, your conditioning, it's here to stay. But what we wanna do is make that that voice that is you, that part of you that has conscious control. We wanna get you to choose the second thought. The first thought, it's gonna be the default. It's gonna show up. But from that moment, you get to choose. You get to go, oh, I've noticed the default showing up. How do I wanna think about this? What do I wanna choose right now? Or if we get stuck in the default, our language is pre-programmed for us. So you don't need a mindset makeover. You literally just need to be more mindful. Of some of the words that you choose on a daily basis. So what does this look like? Well, we actually all use phrases or words that are unhelpful. The biggest thing that we do is we use labeled words. I'm stupid. I'm an idiot. I'm fat. I'm ugly. I'm a failure. I'm pathetic. I'm a bitch. I'm a loser. I'm not good enough. I'm an anxious person. I'm depressed person. I'm horrible. Like we use labeled words that then shape our identity. There is a difference between labeling what actually happened. When I walked in front of those people and I had a conversation, I actually said something that I didn't wanna say. Versus, I'm such a fucking idiot. No one's ever gonna like me. There is a difference in the sentence. One shows a behavior that we did, which might be part of who we are, but it's not all of who we are. Labeled words have us own our behavior as our identity. Our mindset becomes a belief in that moment. It's not, okay, did something stupid that what didn't feel so good. It's, I am stupid. So I want you to take some time and really like spend 15, 20 minutes a day paying attention to your language. The loops. What is the themes that show up? And if there's some labeled words, I literally want you to go, Ooh, stop. What is actually true? Oops. Stop. What is the behavior associated with what's going on? The next thing that I want you to stop doing, and this is so important and it can be hard, but justifying. And Overexplaining, so many of us are in the mindset of saying something, Hey, I'm not coming to your party. And instead of having it be a full stop, taking ownership of your choice and allowing that to be okay, we then feel the need to make other people, okay, yeah, but it's not because I don't like you, it's just because I'm busy. And then Bob was going out and then the cat vomited and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You are only justifying to make yourself feel better. But what really happens in the justifying and the overexplaining is you are watering down your truth. You are not respecting your opinion. You are actually watering down your mindset. There is no strength in over justifying and overexplaining. The other thing within the over justifying and overexplaining is we practice full stops. So we give our opinion, we give our answer, and then we practice a full stop versus the over justifying. Now what can come up is really fucking uncomfortable feelings. And I want you to be big breath and just notice it there. We don't need to get our mindset in line with how we feel, right? If I put a full stop, then I'll feel guilty. Cool. But you're only feeling guilty because you're not buying into the thought. So the body is bringing in the feeling to try and bring you back into the comfort zone. And the minute we start to notice, oh, my body's just really uncomfortable with what I'm doing. It's not actually that I'm doing anything wrong, then we have the power to work on the change. The other thing I want you to start doing is saying what you actually fucking mean, not what you think others need to hear. And even if the practice starts with writing it down, sharing it with somebody who you feel safe with, but really starting to go what is, or even starting within yourself, what is it that, I mean, what is my actual opinion here? What is it that I actually want to believe in? Not what I've been taught I have to believe in because we wanna start separating beliefs that have been conditioned. Beliefs that we've been told we have to believe in versus what we, in our heart, in our soul, in our gut, whatever that is for you, the things that we actually know to be true, we wanna start taking ownership of that stuff. The other thing with our language, I want you to think about shifting the word but and replacing it with the word end. And it's such a small change, but it is so powerful, the word, but dismisses anything that comes before us and it stops us from doing whatever comes after it. So I was gonna come to your party, but I'm anxious. I was gonna go for that job interview, but I got scared. I was gonna learn to drive, but I chickened out. Right? Versus the word end. I'm gonna learn to drive and I'm scared. I'm gonna say no to coming to your party, and I'm a bit anxious about how you're gonna receive that. I'm gonna go and have that difficult conversation with that person, and I'm gonna feel guilty like we are just owning whatever shows up with permission to still do the thing. So end is a permission word that allows both to coexist. The other thing that I really need you to fuck off is the shoulds. Anytime you hear the word should, that is coming from old beliefs, conditioning default, others' expectations, society's expectations. It's not actually your staff. And so anytime you hear the word should, I literally want you to stop and I want you to say to myself, okay, I hear that I should. And equally here, how we put 'em all together. And equally, what do I wanna choose? Because instead of, should we wanna focus on choice? Because choice is empowering choice means that you're getting in touch with yourself with your actual beliefs, not the condition beliefs. So should nope, stop check in. What do I wanna choose? And if you are the person who has always, always been so focused on everybody else, when it comes to making a choice, your default may end up being, I don't fucking know. Like it might be so overwhelming. It might be foreign experience. And here's the thing, choose anyway because the only way we are going to know whether the choice is something that yep. Works for me or no doesn't, is by doing it. And you get to auto correct, one choice isn't final in life. You get to choose again and again and again. Right? And the other thing I want you to stop saying is try, right? Like if you right now put something in front of you, like a piece of paper or a pen and tried to pick it up, right? Not picking it up, not leaving it there, but tried to pick it up. You actually fucking can't try and do anything. We either do something or we don't. And the minute we say that we, we are gonna try, we're again watering down the commitment. Trying literally means I'm gonna give it a go. And if it doesn't work out, I don't actually have to feel bad because I was only trying versus I will do it, I will give it a go. I will commit to this thing, or I'm actually not. Because here's the thing that we get to learn through owning a choice and committing to something that even if it fails, even if it doesn't work out, even if you come fucking last in something, it doesn't actually matter. It is all learning, and you as the human are big enough to be with whatever shows up to cope, and you will get to choose again. So I want you to start just over the next week, noticing your language, noticing the conditioning, even on a piece of paper. Put a line down the middle, my conditioned responses, how I wanna show up in my language and practice flipping the script because I promise you, short term, this will do fuck all long term. If you commit to shifting your language, you will notice a difference. Psychology mindset, personal development. It's like physical development. It, you have to play the long game. You can't expect to say end and put full stops for one day and things change. It's like going to the gym and lifting two kilos and going back the next day and expecting that you can lift 20. It won't happen. But if you commit, if you practice it, if you put in the damn work, I guarantee you that over time you will notice a difference. You will notice a difference in how you feel. You will notice a difference in how you show up for yourself. You will notice a difference in the choices that you make as they become more in line with what you wanna do with this one life that you have. Now, here's my final thought. Your mindset isn't fixed. Your default is, but your mindset isn't. Your mindset gets to be flexible. You don't need to destroy your past beliefs. You just learn to outgrow them. Mindset work is grief and freedom all at once. Grieving who you thought you were, who you thought you had to, had to be like This sense of not feeling enough, like we're allowed to grieve that. And equally though, it gets to be freeing in choosing and knowing that you are in control of who you are as your future self. Now, I want you to. Give, like commit to one thing from this podcast today that you are going to walk away and practice. Maybe it's the full stops. Maybe it's the stopping the over justifying. Maybe it's using the word end One thing, commit to one thing and let me know at Sky. Marie still on Instagram. What did you get from this podcast today and what is your one thing that you are going to choose? All right, everybody. Can't wait to hear how you've gone with the mindset, and I will talk to you again in the next episode.