🧠 TREE 564: Your mindset, the really deep down one

In case you missed Friday’s announcement – Jecelyn has joined the FFOREST team to lead on business development. This is her introductory post. The words, photos and song choice are all hers. I’ve got a little note at the end to invite you to a cool thing Substack (the platform that hosts FFOREST) is doing. —Jeff

Your mindset is (almost) everything. I think we can all agree that nothing happens without action but your beliefs decide your actions most of the time.

If your dream is to live in a tiny cabin in the mountains but deep down you believe being a cabin dweller is selfish, you're unlikely to accomplish that dream even if you’re genuinely trying. You don’t want to be a selfish person so you're going to find reasons to wait, reasons not to call your cousin in the forest service, reasons why the cute, little, dirt-cheap cabin in front of you is just not quite what you're looking for. It feels logical until you realize that you are not the decision maker in these situations, your mindset is. Once you work through and replace the mindset that cabin dwellers are selfish, taking action becomes infinitely easier and you get out of your own way.

I have huge dreams. I’m a woman, neurodivergent in like 47 different ways, the main breadwinner of my family, and a mom. I spend time every week working on my mindset because many of the mindsets I was handed will not get me where I want to go. My guess is, it’s the same for you.

There are lots of ways to do change your mindset: journaling, visualization, therapy, ayahuasca (so I’ve heard – don’t try this at home), breaking limiting beliefs with your bare hands while screaming along to death metal (probably). Pick the thing that works best for you.

This is not commentary on my marriage, it's just a damn good song.

Substack has launched a social-media-ish thing called Notes. Jecelyn, Skyler and I are on there. It’s more freeform and less focussed than what we do in TREE and FIELD GUIDE. So far I’m using it to post links to good stuff and thoughts about creativity and cooking.

I’d love for you to come hang out with us on Notes. You can get there by going to substack.com/notes or by tapping the Notes tab on the Substack app. As a FFOREST subscriber, you’ll automatically be following us (and all the other Substack writers you subscribe to).

Grow slowly
Jeff