Deficiency vs. Growth Mindset in Decision-Making

If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or totally paralyzed by a big decision lately… this episode is for you.

Last week, I shared the big decision to leave my job (without having a new one already lined up) and in today's episode, I’m getting real about decision fatigue, fear-based choices, and the mindset shift that finally helped me leave a job that was taking a serious toll on my mental health. I share what I’ve been learning about deficiency (scarcity) motivation vs. growth (abundance) motivation and how the lens you make decisions from can completely change how your life feels.

Whether you’re thinking about leaving a job, ending or starting a relationship, having a hard conversation, changing your living situation, or making any life move you’ve been putting off, I hope this episode helps you stop spiraling in fear and start choosing from a place of growth, trust, and self-respect.

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Transcript

0:40

Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm so glad you're here, especially because it feels like the world's kind of a shit show right now, and I feel like we all need a little more pep in our step. We need a little boost and we need to talk about a. Real things, but also maybe have a little bit more positivity or just kind of growth mindset, some actionable things that we can work on instead of just dwelling on the fact that the world's going up in flames, which I commend you if you are paying attention to all of that and somehow staying sane. And you know, I've been paying attention as well, but at some point we kind of have to put boundaries up and utilize the fact that we can only control what we can control, and unfortunately, not everybody is as privileged as us to be in a position to be able to control how much of that we are paying attention to and whatnot. But all that to say, I'm glad you're here because I think of these. Episodes as though we're sitting there talking over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine at happy hour or something like that, and we're just talking about real, real things. And I like to be vulnerable about what's going on in my life and utilize what I'm working on and what I'm going through at the moment to help Maybe you see something in a different perspective, and I really appreciate whenever you reach out as well and give me your perspective or say like, oh my God, I know exactly what you're talking about. A few people did that after my jealousy episode last week, so I would recommend if you haven't listened to that one, to go back and listen to it, because I talked a lot about some jealous feelings that I've had. Recently and just was really open about that and then also talked about, okay, well how can we use these feelings to be a force for good or something that can be positive in our lives? So today I'm talking about decision making specifically, and this is something that I have a really hard time with. I get major decision fatigue, and I think a big part of it is if you're familiar with the Enneagram two or the Enneagram in general, I'm an Enneagram two, which is the helper, and they're driven by a need for people to. Love them and need them and desire them in their life and, and they are constantly wanting to help others. So a lot of the time it makes it really challenging to be in tune with what it is that you actually want as an Enneagram to, and not be. Just making decisions for whatever the people around you, what you think that they want, or what you perceive them as wanting from you. And so that's something that makes it really hard for me to go through decision making. And I was recently reading a book, and it's kind of like a personal development book, but. It had it pointed out some things about decision making that I found to be really, really helpful and really insightful, and so I wanted to come on here and share them with you especially, like I said, whenever we are consuming so many negative things in social media, in our daily lives and the world's in shambles, but we also have real regular lives where we have to make decisions every single day. And there are probably also big things happening in your own life personally, where you have to make a decision and all of that noise can make it really, really difficult. And so. I thought that these were really helpful things that I wanted to share with you and talk a little bit openly about the decision making process that I'm going through right now, because if you listened into last week's episode, I did mention that I am officially job searching. I did decide to leave a job that I was unhappy in and. I know this is gonna sound crazy and it's, I'm in a very privileged position. I do wanna say where I'm. Can support us right now and that we are in a good place financially, where if I'm jobless for a while, we'll be okay. And we were able to sit down and make that decision because in the job that I was in previously, at some point it was just not worth the effect that it was having on my mental health. And I have been job searching on the side for. I'm gonna be so honest with you. 11 months before I finally decided to resign and give my three weeks, I gave three weeks because you had to give a certain amount of time to get your PTO paid out. So if you are making a big decision about leaving your job, make sure you know things like that, your benefits and whatnot. For when you leave, because that is really nice. Technically, I'm not freeloading off my husband right now because I am still in that amount of PTO that I got paid out window, but soon I will be. So I know I'm in a lucky position where I can now full-time job search because I don't have a job and things are going really well, honestly. Have put it out there in the universe, which I feel like the first thing that you have to do sometimes when you're making a big decision, like, should I leave my job or should I find a new job or something like that, that's major. The first thing you have to do is kind of call your shot and like put it out into the world. And I was just talking with a few people about that recently where they were like, you know, I realized that like once you voice things out loud, sometimes it just happens to work out. And truthfully, The first thing that I would like you to take away from that is that sometimes it can be like shame. It can feel shameful. Or you wanna be private about something like this because you might be embarrassed about it or whatever it is. Like I honestly, I'm not embarrassed to be unemployed, but that could, that could be something that I could feel if I didn't have such good support around me. But in telling people. That I was leaving my job. I have had lots of people not just show support, but now people are looking out for me. Now I have, I've basically armed other people in my circle to also be job searching for me, even though they're not doing it full-time like I am, they're keeping an eye out like, oh, I heard this place is hiring, or, oh, I heard this place is hiring, or Oh my God, my company just posted this job and so. Quitting was a great decision for me, and it took a long time to make that decision, but now I feel like I'm actually finally making some movement because I finally made the decision and this book that I started talking about and then kind of got on a tangent, this book was talking about decision making, and I really, really loved what it said about, there's basically two types of motivations for decision making. So there's growth motivation and deficiency. Motivation. This reminds me of if you've ever heard of the scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset. Scarcity mindset is like you have fear that there's not enough market, or not enough money or not enough whatever to pursue the dreams that you have. Not enough love or not enough need for the. Dreams that you have. So an example of that would be like say that you're a bookstore owner. I'm only thinking of this'cause in Blue Springs, this cute little bookstore opened a couple years ago, and then they just expanded and moved into a larger building. It's called Read and Rooted. It's so cute and I'm really excited to go visit their new, bigger space. But there are tons of bookstores, right? There are plenty of bookstores. It can become defeating and it would be really, really easy if that was your dream, your whole life to own your own bookstore or. Open your own bookstore to go, you know what? There's just not enough need for this. There's not enough people willing to spend money on books or visit bookstores. That's a scarcity mindset. Whereas an abundance mindset is like lots of people love books and my perspective on books or my take on books or my bookstore might be totally different. It might be a totally different market. There's, there's an endless supply of people out there or money out there, or whatever it is out there that will help me fulfill my dream. That's an abundance mindset versus there's a limited supply and I don't know that there's enough. For me, that's the deficiency mindset or scarcity mindset. So they say growth motivation and deficiency motivation in this book, and it says, when a person is motivated by deficiency or safety needs, he or she acts out of a desire to decrease anxiety, which is kind of when I'm talking about the job search or quitting my job. The safety mindset or scarcity mindset is like, well, I don't know if I'll find another job in the future. I don't know what's around the corner. I don't know if there are enough people hiring that I could find something That would be like a deficiency mindset or like a scarcity mindset, and that's acting out of a desire to decrease anxiety because the thought of being jobless is an anxiety inducing thing, and any kind of change seems too risky and therefore frightening to undertake. On the other hand, when a person is motivated by growth needs, or this is what I would think of as the abundance mindset, his or her actions reflect a desire for greater fulfillment. The risks seem less important than the possibility of improving one's life, and that is the crux of, well, why I left my job because. The risks of staying in that job and letting it take the toll that it was having On my mental health and my mindset, and just the way I was feeling about myself when I was by myself, which at the end of the day is the most important thing, right? Like you're the only person that's gonna be with yourself 24 hours of every day of your life. So you should probably feel good about yourself when you're by yourself, but the possibility of improving my life. Started to supersede the anxiety and fear and of the risk of maybe not having a job. And honestly, I don't even have that fear anymore because I've gotten, I'm, I'm in the process of interviewing. I'm in the, like, being able to dedicate full-time attention to looking for a job has already given me better ability to spend the time on it. So I guess I want you to think about that whenever you're making a decision. So whether that's the decision to leave your current living situation or a really hard decision in a relationship, and it's like, oh my God, I know I'm not fully happy and fully content in this relationship, but I'm really scared of the risk that there might not be anybody else out there for me, that's a deficiency or scarcity mindset. Versus the abundance mindset being like, there are 7 billion people out there in the world, right? And someone is gonna be there for me and. I, I care more about improving my life than I do about the risk of what would happen if I didn't take this chance. So it could apply to a relationship, it could apply to a job, it could apply to a living situation like renting or buying a new house or even having a tough conversation with your spouse and talking to them about your wants and your hopes and, you know, making the decision to have a hard conversation that is just as big as quitting your job or selling your house or buying a new house Or leaving a relationship make having a really challenging conversation a lot of the time that can feel that way and it can feel very risky or it can feel very deficiency motivated or scarcity motivated, but I would encourage you if you're thinking about something right now, like a decision that you've been waiting to make or that you have been deliberating over for a long time, I encourage you right now to ask yourself, am I operating from a deficiency or like a scarcity mindset, or am I operating from a growth or abundance mindset? Because that can really affect how happy you are with that decision or the non-decision later. Something else that the book said that I really liked was like, people think of deficiency mindset or deficiency motivated decisions as safety decisions because they're not TA taking a risk. They are staying playing it safe and it feels. Safe, but it was like you could actually label these danger decisions because there's no growth happening. It's detrimental to your development. And it says if you make a non-decision, you won't have to deal with your pain directly. You won't have to deal, like in my situation, if I didn't make the decision to leave my job, then I wouldn't necessarily have to deal with the pain of finding a job directly because I'd be in a safe place with, I'm getting a steady income, I'm getting a steady paycheck. I'm not worried about losing my job or not having something necessarily, but I would never really get rid of that pain either, because it would, it's just, you just choose your pain, right? Like you choose the pain of making the decision to make a change, or you choose the pain of staying the same and dreading your every day for whatever reason that that is. And when you are not making the decision, that's still a decision. You're still deciding to stay in whatever it is that you're staying in. And something else that the book said about people who don't make decisions or like stay in that safety decision space or aren't in that growth abundance mindset and are constantly in that fear, risk averse scarcity mindset is that they're bound. To feel like victims of their own life rather than like they are guiding their own life themselves, or empowered to guide their, their lives themselves. And I have been there, I don't know if you guys have been there, but I related to that, I was like, yes, there have been times, honestly, the last 11 months in this job where I was really unhappy. I remember kind of the final straw when I was in my last week of my job. I was, there were things that were happening outside of my control, truly outside of my control. Like I was a, I planned blood drives in the local area. So around the wintertime, when there's. Snow or when there's just things out of outside of your control, like holidays, like I don't pick when Christmas is, but when those things happen, people don't show up to blood drives. They're not donating blood, they're not thinking about that. I totally get it. Me neither, but it directly affects my job, and so I would be like, oh my God, like this one didn't come through again, or This one didn't go well again, and nobody showed up to this one again. And started to feel very much like a victim of being unhappy in my job. And those aren't even really the biggest reasons that I was unhappy in my job, but they were contributing to the unhappiness and it becomes really, really easy to. Whenever you are staying the same and not making a decision, and not drawing a line in the sand to do something different or make a choice out of the belief that you will find something better when you're sitting there and not doing that, you kind of have a victim mindset. You kind of become like, oh, everything's against me, the world isn't going my way. And it's like. You determine your reality. I mean, yes, the shit show that's in the media right now, you don't determine that, but your everyday life, you do determine and so I just encourage you that if you feel like there's something that you've been kind of in a non-decision mode for a long time, that you finally take that leap and you make that decision. And maybe it's not as simple as quitting your job. Because for me that was a long time coming and it was a conversation that I had with my husband and we decided together and we thought through all of the things like benefits. Another tip. I know that my coworkers and like my former boss are listening to this probably, and so it's a little bit weird to talk about, but I value transparency and so I wanna be open with you all, and I know that they appreciate that too, which is why I definitely did not leave because of the people at my previous job or anything like that. But another thing for if you are considering leaving your job, like one thing that we decided was that I would quit at the beginning of January instead of like the end of December, because when you quit at the beginning of the month, typically your benefits go through the entire month. So I. My last day was January 6th, but my benefits don't end until the end of this week, January 31st. And so that gave us a little bit more time. So my husband and I, we kind of thought through this and very logically determined, okay, this is the decision that we're gonna make finally. And basically looking at our finances and looking at, okay, we would be okay until this time, financially if I did not have a job. And here's how many days I have to give if I wanna get my PTO paid out and let's do it at the beginning of the month instead of the end of the month because I'll have my benefits and whatnot. So I'll. All very thought through like not, I'm not saying just make the decision, just cut your losses and take the risk and jump in. Like, I'm not saying that because there is some logic that has to happen here, but if you're truly just not doing something because you are afraid of the risk of what might happen if you did, then. You're then you're just not going anywhere, you know? And that's a sucky feeling. You're just waking up every day feeling stuck, and nobody wants to feel stuck. So hopefully this is resonating with you if you have some big decision to make. Honestly, I know a lot of my friends are kind of in the process of decision making when it comes to not just having children, but having a second child Or timing of when having a child or things like that. And I think sometimes that can be daunting as well, or trying, I, I guess I should say trying because not everybody just gets to decide to have a child, but deciding to try or not. Just ask yourself if you are. Thinking through this, out of the, what's, what's the best thing that could come from this versus what's the worst thing that could come from us from this? Ask yourself that instead. So I hope this was helpful for you., I love talking about things like this, and this has come up a lot recently just with me being open and publicly telling people that I left my job and I feel good about it. And I just wanna be transparent with you as I'm going through things in real life, I feel like there are things that we all learn as we go through major life events like this, and I just love talking about them and sharing, okay, this is what's helping me and this is what's not helping me, and this is what I've noticed is beneficial Hopefully you enjoy that too. I would love to hear from you if you are job searching as well. This is another reason I thought that this was particularly relevant because I know several people that are job searching or are unhappy in their jobs or are looking to make the next move even within their company, making the next move. To the next step of their company or something like that. So hopefully this resonates with you. If it does, I would really appreciate if you share with someone or leave me a rating and review on Spotify or Apple Podcast or YouTube. If you're watching this, I'd love to hear a comment if you have one. I appreciate you guys so much. Love you. Thank you.