It doesn’t matter if you’re at the height of your career or it’s hanging by a thread, having the correct mindset will distinguish you apart from everyone else.

It will take you so far.

Amy’s Story

Take Amy, for instance. She is a fresh graduate and recently got a job working at Docker LLC as the support specialist in the customer relations department. 

The problem is that Amy is shy. She’s introverted, jumbles her words when she speaks, and her mind races at 100 miles per hour when her boss calls her out in front of everyone.

On the first day of work, Anne, Amy’s coworker, showed her how to answer phone calls and walked through the situations Amy will have to deal with.

The second day, Anne showed Amy the ropes by doing simulations of phone calls with her.

On the third, fourth, and fifth day Anne continued to train Amy on how to properly triage support calls. 

Every time Anne tells her something new, Amy’s anxiety shoots through the roof. She gets sweaty, she pictures all kinds of situations that could go wrong, and instead of focusing on what Anne was saying, Amy kept thinking about how bad her situation was.

I’m never going to learn this. I suck. I don’t know how to do this. Please don’t ring. Please don’t ring. Please don’t ring. 

Are the thoughts that Amy has every day.

Six months go by and Amy is getting better, but her performance is mediocre at best. Because Amy likes to internalize her thoughts, she unconsciously stresses herself out. 

Every day as soon as she sits down, Amy remembers all the bad phone calls she’s received. How customers had yelled at her, called her mean names, and hung up on her.

One day, Amy’s boss tells her that she is hiring another support specialist and wants her to train the new hire. Amy’s stomach plummets. She thinks, “I’m never going to do this right. How can I teach her when I’m so bad at my job?”

Amy got so stressed that she couldn’t keep her mind straight at work all day. 

She went to bed feeling exhausted and drained.

Recognizing that Something Needs to Change

The next day, Amy’s just had enough. She’s so sick and tired of feeling stressed every day. She’s sick and tired of rambling on when her boss calls her out. But most of all, Amy is sick of her own self. 

She is so tired of always thinking that things will go south.

Amy slaps her cheeks and tells herself, “Girl. You’ve been working at this job for six months. Six super long months. You’re going to be the one guiding and teaching the new hire everything. You can do this!”

She told herself she’s done putting herself down. 

The next day, Amy’s just had enough. She’s so sick and tired of feeling stressed every day. She’s sick and tired of rambling on when her boss calls her out. But most of all, Amy is sick of her own self. 

That day, as soon as Amy sat down at her desk she started jotting down the most important rules for working as a support specialist. She told herself she won’t get distracted by her own thoughts.

When she thinks about how many other people in the world have it worse than her, but they’re fighting every day to make things work, she feels better about her situation. 

Amy took hold of what was hers and owned it. These six months of experience that she has cultivated were not for nothing. She worked hard to be where she is today.

She owns this happiness. She owes it to herself to be proud of her accomplishments and where that’s taken her.

With the revised training that Amy has created, she ran it by her boss, who gave her the approvals. She then went about training the new hire. 

Amy doesn’t allow even one ounce of negativity to crawl back inside her head. When it keeps coming back, she imagines flicking it away with her finger. 

Why should she be afraid? She’s been doing this thing for six months. Of course, she will do it right. She knows that she is a very meticulous person and trusts herself to teach the best materials to the new hire. 

Her shift in mindset projected confidence in her that she didn’t know she had. And that’s the day Amy stopped feeling sorry about herself. 

Moving Forward Every day

Because when she was constantly feeling bad about herself, she didn’t realize the positive things that were happening around her.

She doesn’t realize that her boss had been watching her performance and was really impressed with her gentle handling and care of the customer, how she analyzes everything before making a decision, and how detail-oriented she was.

The last time he told her, “Wonderful work handling that customer,” Amy replied solemnly, “ But I messed up so many other calls.” 

But now, Amy says, “Thank you. I plan to help more people next time!”

Her work was amazing, but Amy in the past had thought it was mediocre.

Of course, there were days when negative thoughts came crawling back, but Amy doesn’t allow these thoughts to bring her down like last time. 

Sometimes, all you need is something different. A shift in the environment. A shift from doing things the same way. Or a shift in mindset.

This shift will propel you one step in the right direction.

And no. You do not wait for it. You have to create it yourself.