The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

We unpack how mindset shapes decisions, actions, and results, and why it can push your life in a positive or negative direction. We share real examples from business pivots, perfectionist expectations, and confidence wobbles, then turn it all into small steps you can take today. 

• mindset as a daily practice rather than a finish line 
• why forced positivity and “perfect weeks” backfire 
• the chain from thoughts to decisions to actions to outcomes 
• common self talk traps that keep ideas stuck 
• questioning beliefs that have started to feel like facts 
• switching “I can’t” to “How could I?” to reopen options 
• asking for help and learning before you feel ready 
• confidence as something you build after you start 
• reframing failure as feedback and comparison as possibility 
• small actions that create new evidence and new beliefs 

Follow on socials @victoriaestrange

Email - victoria@victoriaestrange.com

Transcript

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Welcome And Why Mindset Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello everyone, it's Victoria here, and welcome back to another episode of Business Built with Strategy. So this week I'm going to be talking all about mindset and how it affects your life in a negative or a positive way. So, what does change your mindset mean? And you know, can it change your life? Can it change it in a negative way, or you know, can it change it in a positive way? Now, my experience on this is actually, of course, it can affect it both ways, negative and positive. Um, way back when I um well, when we were all in COVID, I pivoted my business like so many people, but at that time I felt like it was a loss. I felt like I've lost my business. Well, of course, now you know I look back and I'm like, well, I didn't actually lose it, you know. It was just that that was the circumstances that you know so many of us were in, and so I actually landed up in that time working on my mindset for a good 18 months because I just felt to be honest with you, I felt completely devastated that I'd worked so hard on this business and you know, it was starting to scale as well, and all of a sudden everything, you know, had obviously come to a stop. And then I realized after that 18 months, you know, and I had a much more what I would say is a I had a really healthy mindset. I then realized, oh, you can't just stop working on your mindset, it is something that you continually do, it's not something that comes to a stop, and you're like, Oh, I've got a healthy mindset now, you know, I'm I'm all good. It doesn't actually work like that.

Mindset Is Not Forced Positivity

SPEAKER_00 2:13

You know, mindset can sound like one of those phrases that gets thrown around without anyone explaining it, and it isn't about waking up every morning and telling yourself, oh, everything's amazing, oh it's brilliant. It definitely isn't that, and you know, I I've done that as well. Actually, I remember, and I did oh gosh, I did this for a long time. I remember getting into a Sunday evening, and I think, right, I'm gonna have my perfect week, it's gonna be perfect. It's and I used to do this every week, and of course, you know, then I would get to the end of the week, and I'd be like, Well, it's not perfect, it hasn't been perfect, and then what would happen? I'd feel quite negative. Now, looking back, actually, I was having I was having a good week, but because it wasn't perfect in my eyes, I was actually having a bad week, and that was all to do with mindset. It was also a lot to do with setting my expectations way too high, you know, absolutely ridiculous to be honest, and that was a that was a lesson I definitely learned, and it's also not about pretending it isn't about pretending difficult things aren't happening because we all have difficult things in our life, it's about recognizing how much the way you think affects the way that you live, and the thoughts that you have about yourself, you know, we've all heard the phrase negative self-talk, you know, the way that we talk to ourselves is the way, you know, that's how we influence our decisions.

When Thoughts Start Feeling Like Facts

SPEAKER_00 4:03

You know, the decisions that we make are influenced about the thoughts, our inner thoughts, and the way that we talk to ourselves, and your decisions, of course, they influence the actions that you take, and those actions over time they influence where your life goes, so you can see a pattern, can't you? Now it's easy to get into that pattern of thinking without even noticing it, and definitely I've done that, and then I've caught myself and thought, Wow, why am I even thinking like this? This is you know, this is not gonna get me anywhere. Just you know, when I say things like that, I I mean um when I've caught myself, it's like I'm not confident enough, and I'm telling myself that. Don't get me wrong, I don't tell myself that now, but I did. Um I've gotta be honest, I did say this though. So I'm 46, and I am launching my brand new brands, uh, brand new hybrid programme, brand new business in January 2027. And if I'm if I'm honest, I did say to myself a few times, am I too old to start this again? And then someone said to me, Oh my god, you're 46, what are you on about? I was like, Oh, okay, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, good point. Um, but it did come into my head, I've got to be honest, and then obviously that put me onto that trajectory of thinking quite negatively, because it was a negative thought, and you know, in hand with that goes, Well, have I missed my chance? That I I gotta be honest, I didn't really think because I'd already know I'd already been in business for years. Another one is I can never do that, which is debilitating, you know. This is why people sit on so many ideas in business. That's why so many ideas never ever come to flourish because they're stuck in someone's head, because they have this fantastic idea, and then they're like, Oh, yeah, I know, but I could never do that. Other people can do that, but not me. And the other thing what follows that is, oh yeah, but what will people think? And I thought that about this podcast, you know. I did. I really wanted to start a podcast for quite a while before I actually started it, and I was like, Yeah, but no, what if no one listens? You know, I'm gonna be talking to myself, and now we are in 37 countries and 93 cities, and I thought that no one was gonna listen. And sometimes those thoughts they've been around in your mind for so long that we stop questioning them, we just we just don't, we just we just don't question it because they become part of our everyday thinking, and then what happens? They start feeling like facts rather than beliefs, you know, which that's where it gets a little dangerous because you don't want to be thinking that. So, what I would probably say today is what have you decided about yourself that might not actually be true? I want you to think about that now. What if what have you rack your brains? What have you thought about yourself that might not actually be true? Could be about life, it could be about business, it could be about anything, and and now look at it this way the when you change that negative self-talk, that unhealthy mindset, all of a sudden it starts believing, you you start believing, sorry, in what is possible, and it starts with changing what you believe and what you say to yourself. Now

Swap “I Can’t” For “How?”

SPEAKER_00 8:26

think about an area of your life where you currently feel stuck. Maybe it's your business, career, money, confidence, relationships, health. Maybe you're thinking of starting something new, and ask yourself what you repeatedly say about that area of your life, your internal language. Honestly, I can't even tell you it matters so much. I can't do this, shuts the conversation down. How could I do this? Opens it back up, okay. You see what I'm doing here? I don't know how doesn't have to mean, therefore, I can't. You can learn, you can ask for help. This is something I think I struggled with a bit. I I remember starting off in business and I wasn't fantastic at on asking for help. I'd ask my dad, he was a very successful entrepreneur. I'd ask him, but I wasn't really great at asking for outside help. But when I then started to, I remember uh back when I first started my business years and years and years and years and years ago, I remember following the entrepreneur Carrie Green, and I remember following her business, the Female Entrepreneur Association, and I reckon I followed it probably for maybe a couple of years, and then I decided to join, and it was one of the best things that I did because then I built my confidence around asking questions, asking for help. And the thing is, you can start before you know everything, you can do something badly before you learn to do it well, you know. That's part of learning, and I think a lot of people wait for confidence to show up. So many people think when I feel confident, I'll do it, but very often it works the other way around. You actually gain the confidence after you've started, you know, you land up doing something probably maybe a little uncomfortable, you realize I've survived it, and you do it again, you get better, and then the confidence it just comes. You know, I remember say again, take this podcast for example, even though I'd had quite an extensive stage background, I was still nervous. I was I was still nervous, but once I started doing it, that's when the confidence comes, and the confidence comes by actually also seeing the stats and actually realizing that oh wow, I can do this, people are listening. I mean, that's always a that's always a bonus if you're doing a podcast.

Confidence Comes After You Start

SPEAKER_00 11:38

You know, failure can become evidence that you're incapable or information about what needs to change, the event hasn't changed, the meaning you give it has. You know, sometimes we see people, don't we, further ahead, and we think they're thinking that their success proves that you're behind who's done that? You just looked at someone on socials and you've been like, well, they're there, but I'm here. What you're actually doing is you know, you're putting yourself up against someone's shiny building and and you're still on the foundations, but that's okay because that at one point they were on the foundations, you know, so you're not behind, you're just where you need to be because that's where you are. So instead, their success can be evidence that what you want is possible. I've definitely looked at people like that 100%. I remember you know, following certain entrepreneurs, one of them Lisa Johnson, one of them my dad. And so, you know what I you know, we can all look at entrepreneurs and go, wow, you know, that's what's possible. But but for me, I lived it. I actually lived it. I saw, you know, my dad working and and he was working hard, and we went from this tiny little two-bedroom house up to a mansion, you know. So I lived it, I saw it, I saw him reap the rewards, and myself as well, because I was his daughter, and the thing is, there's not one universal timeline for everyone, everyone is not supposed to be on the same timeline, starting at 25, 45, 65 is still starting. You know, you haven't missed the opportunity simply because your life hasn't happened in the order that you expected, or the order of someone else's, and sometimes the biggest mindset shift is changing the way you describe yourself, such as I'm terrible with money, I'm just not a confident person, I've always been like this. I'm someone who never finishes anything. Be careful about turning something you've done into something you are. Your past behaviour, okay, is evidence of what happened before. It isn't a contract for what happens in life next, and this all comes back to mindset, all comes back to mindset. Look for evidence that contradicts your old story, okay? We can all do it, believe me. Think about the things you've already done that you once thought you couldn't do. Now I do this a lot actually. I do this a lot, and you know it really, really helps. I I and I didn't always do it, but I started to I think it was one day I was kind of procrastinating and I was thinking, yeah, but I haven't done that, and I haven't done this, and then all of a sudden in my head, it came in it came into my head, yeah, but hang on, a couple of years ago, you wanted this, this, this, and this, and then I was like, oh wow, I I've done that, I've achieved that. I'm a business strategist, okay. I'm a business strategist through experience. So this year, well, last year, I decided, okay, I'm a really good business strategist, I know my stuff, but actually I want to qualify as a business strategist as well. And I kept thinking, yeah, but what if I can't do that? What if I just fail? I didn't, I passed. It's all to do with confidence and mindset. It it just comes down to that. Think about the things that you've survived, think about the things that you've learned, decisions you've made, times you've started again, we've all done it. Times you've been scared and done something anyway. I've definitely done that. Probably not always the best decision, but I've done it anyway. And the thing is, you probably already have evidence that you're you're more capable than the story that actually you are telling yourself.

Build Evidence With Small Actions

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Mindset without action doesn't change very much. You can have a fantastic mindset, but you do need the actions to go with it, it they go hand in hand. So maybe today choose one thing that you've been putting off. Make the phone call, send that email, apply for whatever it is, start the business, book the thing, have the conversation, take that first step. It doesn't need to be huge. Small actions start creating new evidence. New evidence creates new beliefs. New beliefs make different actions easier, and that is how the cycle starts changing. Start proving to yourself that things can be different if you want them to be. Now, what would you do differently if you genuinely believed you could change this? What decision would you make? Ask yourself that now. What decision would I make if I genuinely believe that I could do this? What would you stop tolerating? Okay, because we can all get into that ruck situation, however you want to put it, where we do tolerate things, but actually we don't have to. What would you start? What would you finally give yourself permission to do? A lot of it comes down to that, you know. It's we have to give you know, permission does not come from someone else, it comes from within. You don't need to completely transform your mindset before you begin, and you certainly don't need to wake up tomorrow as a different person, definitely not. If you believe you're not confident, do one thing, just one thing that requires just that little bit of courage. If you believe you never finish things, just finish one small thing, so only one thing. If you believe you left it too late, for example, start something today. Give yourself tangible evidence that the old story is not completely true, and then what you do is you keep keep building on that evidence because changing your mindset isn't one big motivational moment. I can tell you, believe me, and it also is something that you will always work on, it's something that you effectively practice, and eventually you look back and you realize you're you're making decisions, but you're making them you're making them very differently, and that is literally how it works. You're you're saying yes to things that maybe you would have avoided, you're handling things you once thought you definitely couldn't handle, and your life it begins to look different because you're showing up differently, so you don't have to change your whole life today, but change the way that you think about what's possible for you. Take one different action, and that could be where everything starts to change.

Final Reflection And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 21:11

I hope you've enjoyed this up today. Do you know I've really loved recording it? I think I've lived this, I've experienced it negatively and positively, and I know that changing your mindset, you know what, it really does have a positive effect on your life. Okay, I will be back next week. Have a fantastic week, and I will talk to you all soon.