Mindset Training: Applied Neuroscience in Coaching
How I Approach Mindset Training
“I can’t possibly achieve that goal.”
“If I slow down, I’ll lose my edge.”
“I’m afraid of failure.”
“I’ll be punished if I shine too brightly.”
“I am not enough.”
“I can’t change.”
Sound familiar?
You’re not alone. These kinds of beliefs are very common — and deeply human. I’ve carried them too. Most of us have.
But here’s the truth: Just because a thought feels true doesn’t mean it is.
Where Limiting Beliefs Come From
These beliefs aren’t random. They’re survival strategies — formed in early childhood when our brains were still in the most absorbent, impressionable state. They often arose as protective adaptations to unmet needs, uncertainty, or emotional pain.
Our brains think they’re keeping us safe. But in truth, they keep us stuck.
They prevent us from stepping into the fullest, self-actualized version of ourselves — the one who thrives, connects, leads, heals, and shines. And most of the time we are completely unaware of them, or their power.
Enter: Mindset Training
Here’s the good news: while you can’t erase the old neural pathways of the beliefs that held you back, you can absolutely overwrite them.
You can train your brain to believe a new story — one that aligns with who you’re becoming, not who you were told to be.
That’s what excites me about coaching through a neuroscience lens.
If you’re ready to change your life — whether that’s your health, habits, or self-image — your brain is capable of transformation. You just need the right tools, consistency, and guidance.
Step One: Identify Your Goal and Growth Edge
What do you want to change?
Maybe it’s the belief that you’re not allowed to take up space. Maybe it’s the fear that if you slow down, everything will collapse. Naming it is the first step — and it can be helpful to work with a thought partner who can ask the deeper questions and reflect what they hear in your answers.
Sometimes what we think we want is just the surface layer.
The real breakthrough comes when we clarify the deeper why — your emotional motivation for change.
Step Two: Tell Your Brain Who You’re Becoming
Changing your limiting beliefs takes time and consistency, because from the point of view of your subconscious mind, you are changing your identity.
The reason it takes as long as it does to achieve goals is not because they are inherently time-consuming. It’s because it takes time and consistency for your subconscious mind to accept your new identity.
Until it does, it will resist. And not because it wants you to fail, but because your subconscious equates unfamiliar with unsafe.
Once your subconscious does this, though, the new behaviors you’d like to engage in will flow naturally from it without much effort on your part. They become natural extensions of your identity.
Step Three: Train Your Brain to Work for You
This is where the real rewiring happens — in small, intentional moments:
Changing negative self-talk to positive, in alignment with who you’re becoming
Visualizing your future with emotion
Taking micro-actions daily to reinforce the new identity
Repetition + Emotion = New Neural Pathways.
If you repeat a message to your brain often enough, it starts to believe it.
It’s not just true in advertising — it’s true in your own mind.
Want to feel confident with public speaking?
“I’m someone who feels calm and magnetic on stage.”
Want to eat healthy consistently?
“I’m someone who batch cooks once a week and nourishes my body with ease.”
Want the promotion?
“I’m someone who speaks up in meetings, follows through, and leads with clarity.”
The more you affirm this through thought and action, however small, the more effortless it becomes.
Step Four: Use Visualization for Mental Rehearsal
Visualization is a powerful tool for reprogramming the subconscious. Why?
Because the brain can’t tell the difference between a vividly imagined scenario and a real one.
When you mentally rehearse being the version of yourself you’re stepping into — at work, in a relationship, in the gym, at home — you literally lay down new neural pathways. And when it’s time to act, your brain draws on that internal blueprint and those new resources you’ve created.
Athletes have used visualization for decades.
In Visualize, a fantastic read by author and visualization expert Maya Raichoora, Maya discusses the impact of visualization on athletic performance. She mentions a 1980 Soviet Olympic study which showed that athletes who visualized their sport — without training physically — performed better than those who trained more but didn’t visualize!
Countless high performers, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Phelps and Gabby Thomas have all used mental rehearsal to build confidence and competence in advance.
The same applies to you. Whether you’re preparing for a big speech, a tough conversation, or a career leap — the more you practice in your mind, the smoother it goes in your body.
Step Five: Keep the Promises You Make to Yourself
Each small action you take in service of your goal sends a powerful message to your subconscious:
“This is who I am now.”
Consistency is key — not perfection. Every time you follow through, you reinforce your new identity. And over time, that identity becomes second nature.
The work isn’t about hustling harder — it’s about becoming someone new in thought, feeling, and behavior.
This shifts your subconscious mind’s sense of your identity from your default – often steeped in limiting beliefs – to the upgraded identity you are consciously choosing through your incremental and consistent actions, visualizations, and positive self-talk.
Final Thought
Most of us are running on autopilot, following scripts that we internalized in childhood that may no longer be serving us. In fact, those scripts may be contributing to the ways we self-sabotage and causing more harm than good. With intention, and self-awareness, we can change any script we decide to.
The thoughts that once protected you don’t have to run your life anymore.
You get to decide who you want to be — and your brain, body, and nervous system can get on board.
Ready to rewire what’s possible?
Let’s work together.
P.S. For an incredible read on overcoming self-sabotage with lyric hopefulness and breath-of-fresh-air positivity, Brianna Wiest’s monumental work, The Mountain is You, is essential and will nurture you in new ways. It did me!