Career Growth Mindset: How to Move From Probable to Possible

Are you stuck in the past without realizing it? In this episode, we uncover how to shift from probability to possibility and create a future that truly excites you.

What you’ll learn:

• How your past thinking limits your future opportunities
• Why possibility thinking is the key to real change
• Practical steps to start living from your future self today

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, this is Jill Griffin, a strategist board member, executive coach, and I'm welcoming you back to the Career Refresh. This is your go-to source for experienced professionals looking to level up, lead with impact and confidently navigate the ever-evolving workplace. I spent the last 15 years as an executive coach working with professionals to sharpen their skills and amplify their careers, and also providing actionable strategies to create change and to give them tools and tips that actually work. All right, today I want to talk about something that's a little bit of a brain twist, and it's how we're always living in the past and it keeps us stuck, and I want us to get out of that. Live in the past when we need to, and live in the future, which will take us into massive amount of change. Here's the thing your brain is this incredibly efficient meaning making or pattern making machine. It's constantly looking at your past experiences, your past failures, also your past successes, and it's using that to predict what's safe, what's possible, right, makes sense. It's a machine that's making sense and then giving you an output or a blueprint of how you need to move forward. Sounds great, right? Well, it is, unless you're taking your past with you all the time. This is where it gets interesting. It's actually. It's kind of messed up. It's like you're taking your past with you all the time. This is where it gets interesting. It's actually. It's kind of messed up. It's like you have a big bag of trash over your shoulder and you're bringing it everywhere with you. Or, if that analogy doesn't work, you are sitting in the blender of past experiences, hitting that puree button and you're serving yourself up the same dish over and over. I want to dig in more and talk about how to change that thinking and move into what's possible. All right, we're going to dig in. All right, picking up on that thought. Your thoughts are in the blender Same ingredients, same taste, same results.

Speaker 1: 2:08

So let me put this into career speak. You have a goal and your brain immediately goes to all right, how do I go about this? And it pulls from your past experiences, right, the historical data that's floating around in your brain, or even the Excel spreadsheet in front of you. It's all of your failures, any of your doubts, anything about being realistic, keeping your expectations realistic or what's possible within the department or the organization. And now you've limited what's even possible before you've even started. So it keeps you with a ceiling and you're not just bringing all of those past experiences with you. You're bringing all your past interpretation, your stories and all of those past limitations. It's like trying to drive forward while only looking in the rearview mirror.

Speaker 1: 3:02

So I want us to break that cycle and, moving from where you're in, this place of past of like, all right, well, this is probably what's going to happen. Based on past expert right. This is where experts can get themselves into trouble, because they're only relying when they're tired or angry or hungry or lonely I call it halt. You tend to only be relying on the what you know factor. So this is a whole other place called possibility. And why it's so different from probability is probability, has your brain saying based on this, this is probably going to happen, whereas possibility is saying well, what if something completely new could be happening? And possibility, it's going to feel different. It's going to feel lighter, curious, because it's not weighted down by all that past baggage.

Speaker 1: 3:54

When you're in possibility, you're not analyzing what went wrong beforehand, right? It's like pre-traumatic stress or pre-traumatic failure. You're imagining all the things that are going to go wrong before you've actually done it. When you're in possibility, you're thinking about what could go right or what is possible, because it's not being hindered. Every major innovation, breakthrough, massive success started with someone stepping out of that probability space and going into the possibility space, and they weren't always looking at what had happened, because they were trying to imagine something new. So when you put this towards your career, I know you want something new, and whether that is you want to move up within your company or over, or you want to take on a new initiative or you want to be seen differently, any of those career-based challenges, those career-based goals and vision that you're going after, you have to approach it from the future.

Speaker 1: 4:58

So most people think that if they're going to make a big career change, they need to first achieve it and then, when they get into it, they'll figure out. All right, well, how do I now manage what I've achieved? And I'm saying, what if we go into the future? And whether the future is a minute from now, a month from now or a year from now, what if you went into the future and then worked backwards? I often make the parallel or the analogy to running a marathon. In order to run that marathon, if you're sitting there today, having never run before and only going on what you know about how your body works today, then you're going to be thinking of every single difficulty and being like, wow, that 26.2 miles feels like a bear. How am I going to do it? But if you're working backwards from already being there or crossing the finish line, you're able to then step into the place of what you've already created and start to work back. So I want you to think first.

Speaker 1: 6:01

If you started from that place and you brought different energy and a different outcome, then, no matter where you are in your career, you can create this vision from that future. You're using your imagination, possibility, thinking, inspiration and you have this opportunity to shift everything. So if you already had that job, that promotion, that new leadership role, that new team, what would the future you tell you? How would you be starting your day? How would you be thinking through where you need to be on your A game? What conversations would you be having? Who would you be having those conversations with? What's different in your ways of being? How are you asking better questions? All of those things are the steps to be thinking about now and being excited or insert positive emotion, inspired or eager or earnest about any of those.

Speaker 1: 6:55

That's where you get the place of going into the future and preparing your brain, for your brain starts to get calm right when you're in the place where you're trying to create a new reality and you're like, all the way out there your brain is going, but I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. But when you start working backwards and tacking and almost like doing a project management map of all the things that you need to do and then realizing I could do that, I can do that. Okay, I can figure that out. That's not that hard you start getting excited and now, when you come back to today, you're sitting in today looking at the future, but now you're excited about it, versus bringing all the things from the junky past that didn't go well and using that to navigate forward. That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 7:43

That is the trap of the predictable thinking. Our brains love to make decisions based on the past because it feels safe. We kind of know well it's going to either be between this and that and here's how it's going to work. And your strengths are rooted in that data, your history, your analytics, your career narrative. So going out into the future is going to feel really natural because we don't know what other strengths and skills you're going to acquire in the future is going to feel really natural because we don't know what other strengths and skills you're going to acquire in the future. But your brain can start to navigate and create the project map or the blueprint for what that is. So one of the easiest ways to do this is to think through your future, your career, your relationships, your goals and notice where your mind goes.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Are you in probability mode? Give yourself a little chuckle. If you are. Are you recycling all those past experiences and what your last CEO did or the C-suite did? Or are you in possibility mode, where you're wondering and imagining something totally new?

Speaker 1: 8:47

The real opportunity isn't about getting better at using your past to predict the future. It's about letting yourself think beyond it. It's in the asking what if? Instead of saying what's likely. And also what I will tell you from my own personal experience is continue to ask yourself how this can be fun when I ask myself that, even if it's the most dodo bird answer, when I come from a place of fun well one it makes me pause and smile and maybe even giggle and laugh at. That feels outrageous, but it helps me put down all the shoulds and find a way to let my brain wander. And I'm talking like, well, what if we approach the brainstorm only through finger painting, right, and that's ridiculous. And then you start imagining your executive level client and your C-suite and all your fellow peers doing it with you and you're like that is outrageous and it just provides a little bit of possibility and pause.

Speaker 1: 9:49

And that's what we're saying. We're letting your brain wander in the ridiculous as much as it's wandering. You want to try on a movie or a book or a piece of content you've seen and you're inspired by it and you say what's possible there for yourself. And let's make sure it's not severance Hopefully you're watching the latest seasons, because it's kind of amazing Letting your brain wander. And if you need to borrow from somebody else's possibility, as long as it creates a positive feeling for you, then go for it. And again, we want to make sure it's that positive feeling, because when our brain is not let me say it the other way when our brain is in positivity, it's able to be strategic. When our brain is in fear or negativity, that is that negative bias that we all have and our brain is trying to protect us. So it's not going to be thinking about secondary systems like thinking. It's going to be saying you know what? We need the heart and the lungs to work right now really fast, because I'm going to have to run right. So digestion shuts down secondary things like strategic thinking is going to shut down. So when we're coming from positive emotion, it keeps it open and loose so you're able to think clearly.

Speaker 1: 11:01

I want you to think about that next big possibility of what you might want. Again, whether you're doing it in the notes app or your pen and paper, whatever it is, write that down and then really think through. How are you going to carry yourself differently? What's different in your personal brand? What is your personal brand doing and saying? And how might you approach the work, your team, your career? What goals might you set for yourself, the team, others, where else might you shift in your current job or your responsibilities? And if you're a small business owner because I know I talk to many of you as clients too, it's the same questions you don't have to be on a large corporate team, it could also be within your organization.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Remember your past is just information. It's not a fortune teller, and sometimes we feel safe and we want it to be the fortune teller. But just because something hasn't gone our way or it didn't work one way in the past doesn't mean that it's going to stay that way. The change happens not when we're in the safe, predictable space of probability, but in the exciting, out in the wild space of possibility. So I want you to imagine possibility for today.

Speaker 1: 12:17

All right, friends, when you want to break through and that past and get into possibility, first of all hit subscribe. And if you love this episode and like what you're hearing, please rate and review Five-star ratings, please. It helps. It helps across all platforms. It helps. It helps across all platforms. It helps me get this content into the people's hands that need it. And if you're looking for help to get to that place of possibility, I would love to be your coach. And if you want to work with me directly, you can check out the show notes or my website, jillgriffincoachingcom, and you can see the various ways to work with me privately or bring me into your organization and team. All right, friends, until next week. Stay in possibility. It's delicious, be intentional and please be kind. I'll see you soon.