Learning to quiet the mean girl voice in my head created space for gratitude, grace, and growth.

There used to be nothing crueler, or with worse timing, than my own inner critic. Just when I needed a hug after a rough day or wanted to sit down and cry over the disaster my work call was, my inner voice would not so kindly point out all the ways I'd messed up, as if I weren’t aware. If this inner voice had been a physical friend, I would have either dropped her back in middle school for being a mean girl or wrapped her in a big hug and asked who hurt her so badly. After decades of taking the abuse, I decided a few years ago that enough was enough.

I started by trying to understand what that voice was in my head. Turns out, it’s one face of my complicated ego. I had fallen into a feedback loop that only picked up the negative things happening in my life. My mindset, over time, had been trained to tear me down, not lift me. With all the focus on the negative, I was missing all the beautiful pieces of my life. The small daily blessings that happen to us repeatedly but can be missed in the noise. But what does it mean to change your mindset?

Mindset is one of the most influential pieces of living the life you have always dreamed of. You know the saying “mind over matter”, right? Science has proven that mindset can influence not only our behaviors, but also things like how often we get sick and how we feel pain. Mindset is the inner operating system that shapes how we notice opportunities, respond to setbacks, and make choices. Improving your mindset is a cornerstone of lasting change because it shifts how decisions are made. You can move from always reacting to circumstances (ego-seeking) to intentional values-driven choices (soul-led).

Small daily practices, like journaling, gratitude, and affirmations, set the stage for tiny shifts in your perception of circumstances, which also begin to influence your behaviors. When you start to make decisions from a place of knowing who you are and where you want to go, you find alignment. Soul-led decisions that bring meaning, connection, and sustainable well-being. Your energy improves, your life satisfaction improves, and burnout fades away.

Becoming more mindful and setting up mindset practices doesn’t require perfection or a lot of time. It simply asks us to pause, reflect, and choose with intention. Our 28-day mindset workbooks give you a space to practice gratitude, with a daily journal prompt and supporting affirmation. Each workbook focuses on a different empowering theme: hope, self-love, finding purpose…to support you on your journey. Why 28 days? Research shows that it takes 28 days for a practice to become a habit, and we want to support you in creating a habit that empowers living your best life.

To help you get started, we’re offering our 7-day Inner Strength Mindset Workbook to you for free. Get it here. You can find our 28-day Mindset Workbooks on our website at Speckledpoppy.com or through the link below.

Sending you love and good thoughts!