Borrow a Mindset: How High Performers Get Unstuck
Ever stare at your screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, but… nothing? The ideas won’t come. The energy’s gone. You start spiraling: Why am I like this? What’s wrong with me?
Let me hit pause right there.
That “stuck” feeling? It doesn’t mean something is broken. It means you’re in between thoughts. And here’s a little secret: the best performers—whether they’re building companies or painting in their garage—don’t wait to feel ready. They borrow readiness. They borrow mindsets.
Let’s unpack that.
Borrowing Beats Waiting
When high performers feel stuck, they don’t dig deeper into self-pity. They zoom out. They ask, What would the version of me who already figured this out do next?
They mentally model someone else—not to copy them, but to expand their current perspective.
Stuck on writing? Pretend you’re a late-night host under deadline. Need to make a decision? Think like an 80-year-old version of yourself—wise, calm, zero patience for drama. Can’t start a project? Channel a scrappy 22-year-old with nothing to lose and a bag full of big dreams.
This isn’t wishful thinking. It’s cognitive reframing. You’re not becoming someone else. You’re borrowing their clarity—just long enough to break your own mental traffic jam.
The Power of a Rented Voice
Here’s a quick story.
A woman once told me she felt “too behind in life” to start over. She wanted to pivot careers but felt frozen—embarrassed, stuck in comparison loops. So, one day, she tried a trick.
She wrote down the name of someone she admired—not even someone famous, just someone whose energy she respected. Then she asked: What would their voice say to me right now?
The answers weren’t magical. But they were fresh. Things like:
“Nobody cares how long it took—only that you did it.”
“Just send the damn email. Then take a walk.”
“Done is always sexier than perfect.”
That was enough to get moving. Because movement doesn’t come from having all the answers. It comes from disrupting your usual ones.
Why This Works
Your mind is like a playlist. And when you’re stuck, you’re looping the same three songs. All sad. All self-doubt remixes.
Borrowing a mindset swaps the playlist. It opens a new genre. It says: Hey, there are other ways to interpret this moment. And that’s often all it takes to go from “Ugh, I can’t” to “Maybe I could…”
If you’ve ever walked into a gym feeling lazy but left feeling powerful? Same thing. You borrowed the energy of the room. You mentally modeled the person next to you crushing their set.
We do this naturally in small ways. The trick is doing it intentionally when we’re stuck.
How to Try This Today
Here’s a 3-minute way to borrow a mindset—no journaling required:
- Pick someone whose clarity you admire. Could be a public figure, a past version of yourself, or even a fictional character.
- Ask: What would they not stress about right now? This short-circuits your mental noise.
- Then ask: What’s one small step they’d take instead? Not a 5-year plan. Just the next 5 minutes.
The goal isn’t to become them. It’s to upgrade your inner narrator—just enough to write a better sentence, make a bold request, or get out of your own head.
You Don’t Need Motivation. You Need a New Frame.
High performers aren’t always confident. But they’ve trained themselves to pause, pivot, and rewrite the story mid-chapter.
You can too.
Next time you’re spiraling in your head, try this one thought:
What if this isn’t a personal failure—but just a stale mindset?
And what if the fastest way out… is to borrow a better one?
Try it today.
Borrow a mindset for one task you’ve been avoiding. Let that borrowed voice walk you through it. Then come back and reflect—what changed?
Writing after work, with lukewarm coffee. Like what you read? Buy me a coffee ☕