Going after any goal that we've never achieved before requires us to become a different person. We're becoming the person who has upleveled ourselves to accomplish it.

I was thinking about how I've put myself in the position to achieve my goal of building a coaching business while working as a full time lawyer to the point where I could leave my law job. And I wanted to distill the top three shifts that I made for you and make them really actionable for any goal you're going after.

If you want to squeeze the goodness from this podcast, you'll want to go back and write out your answers to the questions I pose. Passive learning is not the most powerful learning.

Before I jump in, if you've been listening for a while and love this podcast, would you do me a huge favor and share this podcast. My goal is to impact more people every week, and I need your help to do that.

We don't always believe in our power to influence change, but if you're hearing these words right now, you know we really do have incredible power to influence change with our voice and our actions.

Here's a few ways you can help not only grow Be a Better Lawyer podcast but grow a movement of lawyers who are upleveling their lives and can change the legal profession from the inside out.

1 – Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It takes 90 seconds, and it improve my algorithm score, which makes this podcast more findable on Apple Podcasts.

2 – Take a screenshot of the app you're listening on and share in your Instagram stories, Linked in or Facebook. Tag me on Instagram @dina.cataldo – I'd love to say thank you for sharing.

3 – Text one person you know about this podcast if you think they'd love it.

Thank you so much for spreading the word. And thank you to those of you who've already shared. It really means the world to me.

Okay, let's talk about Upleveling Your Growth.

These are three major shifts I needed to make to achieve my goals so far. These were hard won shifts. These were not even on my radar while I was just lawyering. It took entering the world of entrepreneurship and getting coached hard by numerous coaches before I learned these.

But you don't need to be an entrepreneur to use these. In fact, I believe if every person implemented these, we'd be living in a much different world.

You may want to listen to this podcast a few times and maybe even go to the show notes at dinacataldo.com/172 to read the transcript to get all the questions. This is a great episode to sit down on a Sunday morning and just journal to.

OK, so…

#1: I had to stop believing everything my brain told me.

What do I mean?

A circumstance is something factual that 12 jurors could agree on. Facts could be something like “the sky is blue” or “there's 24 hours in a day.”

But we're taught to believe that our thoughts are actually circumstances.

So when we think thoughts like, “I don't have enough money,” “I don't have enough time,” “That client wasted my time,” “I have way too much work,” we really believe those thoughts are facts.

“I don't have enough time” is an opinion. It's a thought.

We know that because someone else with the same 24 hours can think something completely different. They can be thinking, “I have plenty of time.”

The thought, “That client wasted my time,” is an opinion. We know that because another lawyer could think something different about the same conversation. They could be thinking, “They really value my opinion” or “I'm glad I told them ahead of time that calls are on my hourly rate.”

If you notice your brain fighting this, that's ok. Seeing thoughts as thoughts takes practice.

But if you want to uplevel your growth, this is an important step.

I used to work from my thoughts — what I believed were facts — whenever I wanted to spend money on my business.

I would think thoughts like, “That's expensive,” “I don't have the money,” “Maybe later,” “I can figure it out on my own.”

I'd try to piece together things through free webinars, books, podcasts. And I'd waste a ton of time. I'd think that this was how I could save some money, but I was throwing away my most valuable commodity: my time.

I had a lot of limiting beliefs about money from growing up without much of it. I've talked about them in the podcast before, and I'll link to a couple podcasts about money in the show notes.

Because of these limiting beliefs, I felt uncomfortable every time I invested in myself. My brain wanted to freak out.

What I didn't know at the time was that was what growth felt like.

Any time anyone builds a business, more money will be invested in the beginning to start it that will be generated at first, and then consistent investments in myself will be necessary as I uplevel.

I had to stop working from my thoughts about my student loan debt, consumer debt, and all the old stories I had growing up. I believed these were all factual circumstances that were preventing me from growing myself and my business.

I'm not saying that debt is the right move for you, we're all different, but take a look at where you may be living from your thoughts about your circumstances instead of taking responsibility for what needs to be done to take charge of your life and move forward on your dreams.

It could be time. You may be telling yourself you don't have enough time like I was telling myself I didn't have enough money. Where may you be blaming things in your life for “not having enough time” to do what needs to be done to further your goals? Is there a person you blame?

As soon as my clients start to see what and who they're blaming for not having enough time or feeling overwhelmed, they start to make more time and reduce their overwhelm, so this is important work to do on yourself.

Maybe your belief is that you're tired when you get home, and you think that's the reason you don't want to work on that book you've been wanting to write. What are you blaming for not getting started? Your legal practice and how much you need to do? Where are you not taking responsibility for having boundaries with the office?

This last question is a good segue into #2.

#2: I had to take responsibility for EVERY result I was getting in my life.

That's right. When I started taking responsibility for every result in my life — no matter how big or small — I upleveled my ability to show up for myself and my clients.

I'm a big fan of every person taking their own responsibility in their life. BUT mentally I made the shift that everything was my responsibility. Not in a stressful, weight of the world on my shoulders, kind of way. In a way that made my brain more resourceful.

Grant Cardone gives a great example of what responsibility looks like, so I'm going to steal his.

Imagine you're working from home, and the power goes out. You can't use your computer, your internet, and you're basically stranded on a desert island getting nothing done.

Chances are, the power went out because someone crashed into a pole or the electric company was doing work that led to an unexpected outage. Not your fault, right?

But if you mentally took 100% responsibility for this, what would be different?

You'd know that you could get a power generator, so the next time this happens, you're covered.

Let's shift to a client example.

Imagine your client isn't getting you the information you need to complete your work. You've called and emailed them, and they're not getting back to you. Yes, it's they're responsibility to get you the documents, AND you can make a mental shift that will help you.

You could waste energy being upset with the client or ruminate on the matter that's due.

Or you can take a look at what might change if you took 100% responsibility for the result you're getting.

That may look like:
– The next time you take on a client for this kind of work you outline the expectations and due dates ahead of time with the potential consequences if they don't turn in information on the due date
– Firing the client
– Understanding the red flags you saw when they hired you, and learning not to take on clients like this again
– What else could it look like?

Ask yourself what might change if you were 100% responsible for the result, and you will uplevel your progress towards your goals.

This takes us to #3.

#3: Improving my self-talk

I had a client who was really triggered by what I said in #2 about taking responsibility for her results. So if you're triggered too, let's talk.

One of the reasons she was triggered was because of the amount of pressure she was placing on herself to perform.

When I said the words “taking responsibility,” one of the things she made it mean was that she was bad because she wasn't working hard enough. She very much had a voice in her head that was constantly berating her for not doing the work.

That's not what I mean at all.

In fact, upleveling our growth means looking out for where we are being hard on ourselves. Where are we creating this pressure to perform or to achieve?

For me, I created a lot of pressure because I was seeking approval from others. I received praise from my dad for working hard and all through school, so I was always looking for the seal of approval from everyone around me. It was a habit.

What was also happening is that when I wasn't getting things done, when I thought this way. Yes, I'd use an adrenaline rush to pull it out at the last minute, but that felt horrible.

When I had thoughts that I was behind or that I was lazy, I'd spiral out. I'd do less work in the moment and put it off because these thoughts put me in a frozen state. I was full of self-doubt and anxiety that I wasn't good enough. I was also telling myself that I knew I was capable of more, and I should be working harder.

Turns out, these thoughts are NOT helpful to upleveling growth.

They stifle it. They prevent us from living into our fullest potential and completing work without the stress.

What works is unraveling these thoughts. This is the work I do with my clients.

Remember, our thoughts are just thoughts. We are not our thoughts. Our thoughts are not true statements of fact. We are the thinker of our thoughts. Which means we can change our thoughts.

How do you talk about yourself?

Write it down.

This may hurt when you read it.

Then for each thought, ask yourself how you feel when you think that thought.

Remember that feeling in your body.

Then every time you have that feeling, it will remind you that you're having another thought.

Our thoughts create feelings. Sometimes it's easier for us to notice the feeling in our body before we notice the thought.

Would you ever talk to a child that way? Probably not.

This is just scratching the surface here, but it's important to notice the thoughts you have about yourself. Do you want to keep them? Why? What are they doing for you? Are they helping you uplevel yourself?

Here's some examples of how I talk about myself and my business, which is very different than I used to:
– I'm so proud of myself.
– I did that.
– It's working.
– It's happening.
– I love my life.
– I'm so thankful for my clients, my friends and family, etc.
– I help people.
– I have the best job on Earth.
– This work is important.
– For every person I help, 100 people are impacted.
– I've got this.
– Thank you for doing the work on yourself.
– The less I work, the more money I make.

Feel free to steal any of these that click with you.

This wasn't an overnight shift. I needed help slowing down my brain, so I could see the thoughts that weren't helpful and start practicing the ones that were.

I know that was a lot of mindset shifts in one podcast, but I wanted to document what's been happening in my brain for you as I grow my coaching business full time and am leaving my law job.

If you listened to this podcast, and are thinking, “Yes! This is the work I want to do on myself!” book a call with me. This is exactly the work I help my clients with to achieve their goals without the stress.

You can book a call with me at www.dinacataldo.com

All right my friend, have a great rest of your week.

Talk to you soon.