Ep #36: Effective Problem Solving in Your Search

The Get a Six Figure Job You Love Podcast with Natalie Fisher | Effective Problem Solving in Your Search
 

Any project or goal will come with obstacles, and sometimes, our brain tricks us into giving up before we even get going because it feels too difficult. The key to this lies in knowing how to problem-solve so that you can identify the obstacle or what’s holding you back and move past it towards your goal or result.

 

We unconsciously have a belief that things should just happen for us – and quickly. When they don’t, we get discouraged easily, and it holds us back, all because we find ourselves with an expectation that we didn’t plan to have. But with effective planning and preparation, you can overcome these challenges and stop allowing them to hinder your job search.

 

Tune in this week as I share a seven-step process to change your behavior patterns and the way you approach your goals. I’m giving you some questions to ask yourself to get into problem-solving mode, and showing you how to practice moving forward and problem-solving more effectively.

 

If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast and are ready to learn what’s been holding you back so far, click here to learn how you can work with me and get some help to move forward!

 

Ready to join thousands of other successful candidates in landing a job you love at the pay you deserve? Leave me an iTunes review and email me with the screenshot of the review, and I’ll send you access to my amazing free guide containing 50 examples of behavioral interview questions that you can use to help you prepare for future interviews and land that job!

 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

 

  • Why our brain wants to blame external circumstances and give up.
  • How to be willing to do what it takes to get what you want.
  • The benefits of getting truly honest with yourself about what you want.
  • How to stop feeling discouraged when things aren’t easy.
  • What highest-value thinking is and how to execute it.
  • How to take more effective action.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

 

 

 

SUBSCRIBE FOR WEEKLY INSPIRATION ON

APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER

 

Featured on the Show:

 

DOWNLOAD  TRANSCRIPT

 

Page 1 of 7
You are listening to the Get a 6-Figure Job You LovePodcast. This is episode 36, Effective Problem Solving in your Search.
Hey there. Welcome to the Get a 6-Figure Job you Love Podcast. I’m your host, Natalie Fisher. I’m a certified career mindset coach who also happens to want to skip all the BS and get to what it really takes to create real results for you and your career. On this podcast, you will create real mindset shifts that will lead to big results and big changes in your career and your income. No fluff here. If you want to get a 6-figure job you love and create real concrete results in your industry and make a real impact, you’re in the right place. Are you ready? Let’s go.
Welcome back to the podcast this week. Thanks again for joining me. I know you have a ton of podcasts that you have the option to listen to, and I just really appreciate you being here with me. I really do my best to outline these podcasts so that I can give you the most possible value that you could get from the time that you spend listening to me because honestly, I know that your time is valuable and I’m going to pack it in so that you get everything you can from it.
So, the thing that I’ve identified with most of my clients and with myself as going through the process of creating new things in my world and making new things, new and exciting, awesome new things become a reality is very similar with my clients, with myself, with everything that I’ve seen. And so, the biggest thing that I think it starts with is that we get discouraged very easily when we decide we want to do something. This is a normal thing because we kind of expect it to be easier than it is. We expect it to happen faster than it does. And one of my weight loss coaches, she said, it’s kind of like this. It’s like, “Yeah, you expect to eat healthy and workout for five days and then you’re like, ‘Why haven’t I lost 20 pounds already?’.”
We kind of unconsciously have this belief that things should just happen quickly and fast. And when they don’t, because normally it always requires a lot more time, a lot more effort, more money than we thought, then we get discouraged easily and it holds us back because we have this expectation that we didn’t really fully plan to have, right? So no matter what, we don’t really consider this from the start. We seem to just think that it’s going to flow, and it doesn’t flow as easily as it should. I’ve been guilty of this so many times too. It’s only now that I’ve kind of been in the process of hitting a lot of goals and doing a lot of things that I know how to plan things out so that I can calculate time for failure or money for failure, or I’m just going to plan that in now, because I kind of know what it’s going to take.
And sometimes, it doesn’t take as much now because I’m getting very proficient at my process, which I’m going to teach you today. But it always is going to take what it takes, right? And the only way that you are going to learn how to effectively execute your own result is by getting in the trenches and doing it, right? In the beginning, you’re going to miscalculate things, and that’s just how it goes and that’s okay. So, I’ll give you the example of when I first started my business. And I look back now and I’m like, “This is so funny because this is five years later.” But when I first started my business, I thought to myself, “You know what? I’m really good at job interviewing. I’m just going to set up this online course. I’m going to teach people how to interview for jobs. I’m going to sell it out and everybody’s going to get a job. It’s going to be great.” right?
And now, I’m looking back five years later, and boy, did it take a lot more than that, right? So many webinars, so many people coached, so many things that I didn’t have any idea that we’re going to be required. It’s been a beautiful journey anyway, but just my thinking back then makes me laugh, right? Because I’m like, “Well of course it wasn’t going to be that easy”, or “Everybody would be doing it.” right? So that’s what I want to talk about today.
Most people are going to get stuck when the easy isn’t happening, right? It’s a human condition. It’s the easiest place for our brain to go, is to go into feeling bad, feeling discouraged, feeling like it’s not


Page 2 of 7
possible, feeling it’s not possible for us, feeling like we can’t do it, feeling like there’s some sort of external limitation that doesn’t allow us to do it because our brain is looking for the easy way out. And if we get discouraged and depressed, it means that we don’t have to go any further because we don’t actually have to do the hard work and the hard thinking. We don’t have to expand our brains and evolve because we’ve just decided that we’re discouraged and feeling bad. And that’s going to lead us to go do something comfortable, like eat or drink or watch TV or stay in a job we don’t love or just stay comfortable. That’s what our brain wants us to do because it’s designed to keep us safe, so that’s what it’s going to do.
So that’s what happens when we expect it to be easy and then we go into it. That’s why we have that kind of excitement at the beginning and then that dip of like, “Oh, this isn’t working. This isn’t as easy as I thought.” right? That’s a very common pattern that happens with a lot of things. So I would be curious to see the dropout rates from colleges or how many people actually see the whole thing through versus how many people don’t. I know that in the job search it’s super common. I know that in business it’s super common, right? People think it’s going to be easy to start a business, and most businesses fail. People think it’s going to be easy to go get a job right out of college, and most people… Well, I don’t know the stats, but I know a lot of people don’t, right?
It’s like, we just kind of have that belief, right? If you think of things that most people have achieved that are really impressive, if we talked to that person, they’re going to say it took more than they originally anticipated in the beginning, right? How we try to solve it is, we still want the thing. And the problem is that we want it, but sometimes we don’t know how much we want it. We’re not really clear on what it’s going to take. It’s kind of we’re at war with ourself because we’re like, “Well, I really do want it, but it seems it’s going to be too much work or it wasn’t as easy as I thought.” So then our brain will just trick us and say, “Maybe it’s just not going to be possible. Maybe you should just give up. Maybe you shouldn’t even do it.” right?
So we kind of end up at war with ourselves here because we still want it. And I know this from working with all my clients. They still want it, right? Even though they can come to me and they can say, “I have literally tried everything.” I’m like, “Yeah, but you still want it or you wouldn’t be talking to me.” right? Or you wouldn’t be taking steps to still go and find more answers because you still have that desire for it. And so, of course we do. We want a better quality of life. We want a better career. We want more money. We want all that stuff. The problem is we’re not trained to get there, right? It’s like, you want to run this marathon, but you haven’t trained. You don’t know what it’s going to take. You haven’t mapped out your milestones. You’re not really clear on whether you’re successful or not and how you’re going to know along the way whether you are successful.
So that’s why our brain just wants to kick up things like, “This isn’t working. I’ve done everything. It’s too hard. It’s not possible. I’m not good enough sometimes.” Or when we get rejected in the face of rejection, that stops a lot of people or slows them down. So they’re going to be like, “Nobody wants me. Opportunities are limited. My market is just very niche and there’s not enough companies” or, “I’ve explored all of them. I’ve talked to everybody.” And our brain just wants to blame all the outside, like, the economy. It just wants to say, “It’s an outside reason why I can’t get it.” That takes the control out of your hands, right? And then you just kind of, “What are you going to do?”
If you believe those things are true, then what? So what are your options? And that’s where you really have to see, because that’s where the rubber hits the road. It’s like, if that’s really true and you really believe those things, if you really believe you’ve spoken to everyone, you really believe your options are done, there’s no more options, there’s nothing more you can do, then what? Then you’d have to be like, “Okay, I’m quitting. I’m not going to do it. I’m just going to stay in my job right now. I’m going to make


Page 3 of 7
the most of my job right now and I’m going to adjust my life around what I have.” And then, that would mean you’d fully have to embrace and accept the fact that you’ve decided to stay where you are, right?
And I’m guessing that’s not you if you’re listening to my podcast. It usually doesn’t work because you don’t really want that. So there’s some people who do want that. They’re not normally the people who are going to be listening to a podcast like mine. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but there’s people that I’ve worked with. They’re in the same job for 15 years. They walk the same route every day. They never go on vacation. They have to get forced to go on vacation. They do the exact same thing every day and they love that, right? But those are not my clients. They would never want to hire a coach because I’m going to push them out of their comfort zone to do bigger things so they can have bigger results in their life, and they don’t really want the bigger results badly enough or enough at all to do something uncomfortable to get them.
That’s kind of the difference between what you have to reconcile. You’re like, “Well, I am the person who wants this big growth. Am I willing to be the person who does what it takes to get it?” right? And then you have to decide, “Do I want it badly enough? Or do I want to stay comfortable more?” And you have to be really honest with yourself, right? And so, why it doesn’t normally work for my clients is because they still want the thing. They really, really do. They want the thing so badly that they end up feeling in a place of feeling stuck and unhappy for not having it versus just accepting and happy where they are, because they’re not putting themselves on the best track to getting it. And that’s because they usually just don’t know how it works, right? And that’s okay. That’s what I’m here for. I’m here to guide you with that.
So, you want to be practicing always moving forward in a more effective way. Now, if you can identify the pattern that most people get into that I’ve seen, which I just kind of explained, but I’ll recap it, is like, we get really excited. We’re going to go do this thing. We’re going to go get this new job. We’ve decided. And that’s a pivotal moment where you decide. “I want a new career. I want to change. I’m going to do this”, then excitement. And then there’s going to be a dip where you’re like, “Oh, this is getting hard. I’m feeling stressed out. I just had a conversation that didn’t feel very good.” right? And you’re going to have to decide at that moment how you want to be in the situation, right?
And where most people are going to get discouraged and make it mean something about it not being possible for them, you’re going to have to decide whether or not that’s what you want it to mean, or whether you want to move effectively on from it in a more powerful, more effective way, which is what I’m going to show you how to do in the process of high value thinking. That’s what I’m going to teach you on this podcast. So that’s where you have to reconcile. “Am I this person who wants the growth? Do I want it badly enough? What am I willing to do to get it? How do I want to act in the face of stress, discomfort, when something’s not working? How do I want to be?”
When we don’t have this awareness, we end up in this spiral of people saying, “No. We get discouraged. We’re unhappy with ourselves. We’re unhappy with the results.” And we just go into this negative spiral. And then, we turn into a person who has the identity of someone who doesn’t get the results they want in this area. I know that you can look at other areas of your life and see how you’ve been successful and how you’ve created something. Maybe those areas have come easier to you and those areas are things to look at to be like, “Yeah, I can create results I want in my life.”
But in the areas that are going to be challenging for you, you need to approach it differently. So you need to notice that depending on how long you’ve been in the spiral for, your identity is going to become that of a person who tells themselves, “I can’t do it. It’s too hard. It’s not going to be possible. Things are limited. It’s not working.” They’re going to create this identity for themselves of somebody who doesn’t hit this goal and someone who stops and starts. Maybe takes a long time between stops and starts, but never really gets there, right?


Page 4 of 7
That’s normally what people are creating. When I speak to people, I see this is the pattern. Alternatively, to fix this pattern and to change it for yourself, I’m going to give you a seven step process. Step one is you need to bring yourself back to your end goal always. Where are you on the belief that you can create this end goal for yourself? So, say it’s a dream job, a 100K. That’s what you want to create right now. Where are you on the belief that you can create that? That that’s possible for you. How close are you to being able to visualize yourself, working in that job and getting that paycheck? Are you able to do that?
And so, that’s what you want to look at. You want to see where your number is. So if it’s a very low number, then you’re never going to go through the rest of these steps that I’m going to go through. That’s the first step. You have to have that belief. That’s something that I coach my clients through is help them with their belief. There’s a process to working on your belief so that you can get to the point where you know it’s done, you fully believe that it’s possible. And then it’s just a matter of your actions catching up to it being true, right?
So you get to the point where you have a high number on your belief scale, right? 10 means you’ve done it. You want to have at least a seven or an eight. And if you’re lower, then you have some work to do on that. Because anything that gets in the way of your belief is going to be something that your brain finds evidence for why it’s not possible. So you want to check in with yourself and be like, “Okay. Why don’t I believe it fully? What are the reasons? What are the things I’m thinking that will get in my way of why I cannot do it?” right? “What are the things that are getting in my way?” And then you’ll have very specific beliefs, right?
So some from my clients have been, “There’s just limited opportunities out there” or, “People are just not hiring for the role that I want right now” or, “People are not responding to me.” You might think these are facts, right? You’re going to think, “No, no, no, but I’m reporting the news” right? But as long as you’re thinking these, you’re creating the result of them being true. And so we need to unpack those stories and learn how to tell new stories. Because otherwise, I bring you back to, if that’s really true, then what? You’re either going to quit, accept where you are, maybe change course or direction completely different. Most likely, you just stay where you are because it’s easiest.
So, the first step is believing. Check where you are in your belief scale, and then unpack the limiting beliefs that come up. Step two. Let’s say you’re on board with your belief and you’ve done that work, say you’re at an eight or a nine, then you just need to get to work on creating the results. Step two is clearly identifying the problems that you’re having in the process. Any big project, any big thing is going to come with some obstacles in the way, right? So you’re going to clearly identify what the problems you’re facing are. Some common ones, my clients may be not passing their interviews. That’s something to troubleshoot. Or they’re wasting time with recruiters.
I had one client, he was just talking to recruiters, spending a lot of time on the phone, doing assessments, doing personality tests. This was just wasting his time because it wasn’t even for roles that he was particularly excited about right? So we identified that as an energy leak at a time suck and there needed to be some work done around identifying that problem and solving it, right? Or maybe in an interview, one particular question keeps coming up and it really trips you up. Or just the fact that you get frozen, right? Or any of the specific problems that you’re having, you want to identify them very clearly and then we want to problem solve. Maybe you know your energy’s off, you’re feeling really nervous. You’re feeling needy. Maybe you need to master your energy, right? Any of the specific problems that you’re having, we need to dig into those and then we need to question them and then we need to take more effective action. So step two, clearly identify the problems that you are facing in the process.


Page 5 of 7
Step three, you need to decide to become a problem solver. Like, from the beginning of the process, you need to decide. After you have the belief, you need to decide that you’re going to solve the problems as they come along, right? You’re not going to stop solving the problems when one seems hard. You’re going to figure out how to solve it because no matter what, you’re on your way to the result that you want, right? You just have to clear these roadblocks. You have to solve these problems. But you have to believe that the result that you want is there and it’s just waiting for you to catch up with your actions, right?
Step four. You need to get your brain into scientist mode and problem solving mode on autopilot because this isn’t just a one and done. You don’t just solve one problem and then you’re done, right? You’re going to have another one and you’re going to have another one. And you need to expect for these to come up so that you can then solve them effectively. Maybe the first time you try to solve it, it won’t work. So then you’re like, “Okay.” You gather the data and then you proceed again, right? As I said, it’s not a one and done. You need to be in problem solving mode, right?
When something comes along, you get a rejection or you do a recruiter test, and then they don’t respond to you. Or a bunch of people haven’t responded to your outreach messages or whatever it is that you’re doing that isn’t working, you need to get into problem solving mode on autopilot. So, you’ll get to the point where you’re like, “Okay, who can I talk to? What can I do? How am I going to actually problem solve this because I want a different result?” And this is not only going to increase your value of your brain. It’s like the highest value thinking, because it increases the value of your brain during this particular process of finding a new, higher paying job. It also increases the value of your brain through any process that you decide to do. So after that, anything that you want to do, you’re going to be conditioned to thinking at the highest value, okay? Because the highest value is always going to be what’s the next action that is more effective than the action I took before. And all processes work like this.
Step five. You’re going to learn from each problem you solve. You’re going to evaluate what’s working, what’s not, and how you want to approach it differently next time. Step six. You want to take more effective action the next time with the additional information that you’ve gathered. And then step seven, you want to repeat until success.
So, questions to ask yourself to get into problems [inaudible 00:18:42] mode. The first question is you want to prepare yourself for maybe that you’re going to get discouraged or down because that’s the automatic place where the brain wants to go. So you want to prepare yourself for maybe that to happen. And then you want to ask yourself, “Am I going to quit?” Notice sneaky ways of quitting will be, “I’m going to take a break. I’m just going to wait for this to get back to me. I’m just going to hang back for a bit.” No, those are time-wasters. They’re not anything that’s helpful. I know you probably have a really good reason. It’s not helpful. If you still want the thing, it’s not helpful.
So, questions to ask yourself to get into problem solving mode. What is working really well? What have I learned so far? Who else can I speak with? What else can I try? How else could I present this information in a more compelling way? What other things could I bring to the table that I haven’t mentioned yet? What would be the best way that I could showcase my work in a creative way that nobody’s done before? What would blow someone’s mind that they would never expect that I could do, that would be different to what everybody else is doing? Who could I work with to fix this problem?
Enter a coach. Where would my time sucks be? Where am I wasting time? Where are my energy leaks? Where am I wasting time thinking about things that aren’t helping me? What do I want to do moving forward? How will I be more effective moving forward? How do I want to feel during this process? How do I want to feel when things are not going how I want? What can I do that puts me in control of this process? How else could I approach this? What is the best way to move me forward if I’m going to do


Page 6 of 7
this anyway? What would? And then insert somebody’s name that you admire. Somebody who has been successful and ask, what would they do? What would I tell my child if they were in this situation? Or what would I tell my best friend?
So, why this process works so well and why it’s worked so well for me and for my clients. It’s because your brain comes up with more effective things as soon as you direct it back to this, right? It’s kind of like, you show it the truth. You’re like, “Well, I’m going to do it anyway.” right? I know it’s possible to either you’re going to do it anyway, you work on your belief to believe it’s possible, and you go for it 100% or you quit, right? And where most of us are, is just hanging out in the middle. And that’s not getting us anywhere. We’re kind of moving a little. We’re just kind of floating along. Like, “Yeah, maybe it’s going to work. I’ll try this.” But we’re not really all in on either one. So, this is kind of what this process is showing you. It’s like choose to be all in on I’m doing it or I’m not, and then you can create your ideas from a more advantageous place, right? You can have more creativity. You can have the advantages.
The reason why it works so well is that you have more access to the creative advantages in your brain. You have access to the power of your human brain versus the primitive brain that just wants you to give up, rest, eat cookies, watch TV, not think, not do the work, stay safe where you are. It accesses literally the opposite of that when you direct it to these questions, when you direct it to a more effective, higher value way of thinking. And what you need to do this is, as I normally say, is awareness of what you’re thinking and feeling, right? That’s the first thing. And then you have to have the discipline to keep bringing yourself back here, knowing that your brain is not going to want to, right? It’s never going to want to go back to that part that requires more from it. It’s going to require more things for you to put more energy into for you to think of more better ideas, right? That’s the thing, it’s going to require some discipline.
But again, I bring you back to, if you’re going to do it anyway and you want to be really successful at this process and the next and the next, because the time that you’re resting on this goal is the time you’re not working on your next goal, right? If you’re going to do it anyway, it’s totally worth the discipline. And then what gets created is you become the master of whatever process you decide, and you create the process as you go. You engineer your own how and your own way there by following this process. You learn that doing it is inevitable and it’s just a matter of the ways you’re trying that are working or not working. You see the problems as neutral. They’re not about you, they’re just a part of how the process works. And then you can remove all that emotion. You don’t need to get depressed or stressed out or have concerns about yourself because you’re just like, “This is just a process. It’s very neutral. It’s not about me. I know how to problem solve and I’m just getting it done.”
You create the best brain you could ever have because by constantly seeing and discovering new things along the way and by constantly redirecting yourself to see and discover new things along the way, you are creating more value for yourself and for your future employer and for your future goals. You’re finding the best way for you to get something done that works best for you. And the only way to do that is by going through this process. You discover new strengths of yours. So you’ll discover things you didn’t even know you had in new. When you do things that are uncomfortable or you do things that didn’t work, you’re going to analyze them and you’re going to discover so much more about yourself, about your own resilience, about your own strength.
You find new ways of saying things and doing things, and you keep digging and deeper and deeper until you find the answers you need, and then you take action on that. You obliterate your limitations every time they come up. So you’re aware of them, you see them and you just turn them around. Most importantly, you always put yourself back in control of the process. You always put yourself back in control, back in the driver’s seat. And you get to be the person who is always recalibrating their GPS,


Page 7 of 7
right? You’re going to be on your way there. And the more information you gather is just a little recalibration for the GPS. And the difference between going through this at the highest value thinking and going through it with the normal stop, start model that we mostly have is that you’re decisive. You know what you want, you’re going to do it anyway. And you’re going to get there a lot faster, right?
So I hope this has been helpful my friends and I look forward to talking to you next week. I have some opportunities to work with me and an opportunity to get a great free gift so stay on and listen to that. And I will talk to you next week. Bye.
If you’re resonating with what you’re hearing on the podcast, I want to tell you something. If we ever talk or work together or interact in any way, I will not even for a minute buy into the story that you can’t get the job you want at the pay you want and deserve. I will not buy into the story that the recruiter said you needed to have more experience or that you were told that you needed to get another degree or certification before you could be considered, or that there are so many other great candidates out there that are more qualified who have already applied, or that you need to check with your accountant first or whatever the excuse you have that robs you from your power. I will not buy it. Because what I know for sure is that if you’re not being valued and if you’re not being paid at the level you know you can and deserve to be, there is a clear reason why. And it is a reason that is completely within your control.
If you want to learn what’s really been holding you back so far and you’re ready to get some help, head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I will be able to help you identify why you’ve been stuck so far and exactly what you need to do to move forward. I will help you do this by showing you how to take control of your career, how to set the frame for what you want instead of thinking that you have to be at the mercy of what you have. And as we all know, if you don’t believe that the job you want is available and that you can have it, you will always settle for the jobs you don’t want. If you are ready to move out of that space and into a better situation, I am here to help you. I’m going to teach you exactly what to do with lots of examples. Head on over to www.nataliefisher.ca/apply. I’ll see you over there.
And when you leave me an iTunes review and send me a screenshot of the review directly to my email at natalie@asknataliefisher.com, I will send you a free gift as a thank you. And this free gift, I usually sell it for $100 so it’s $100 value. It contains 50 examples of behavioral interview questions. If you’ve ever stumbled, second guests, rambled in an interview, not sure exactly what to say, I have this free guide that’s going to give you so many examples that there’s no way you’ll be confused at the end. It’s helped thousands of people land jobs just from understanding so clearly what needs to be included.
So, if you don’t know how to tell a good story, inside, you’ll find the exact words. If you don’t know what stories to tell, you’re going to see the components of a successful story in action, and 50 of that. You don’t think you have any good stories to share? Don’t worry. There’s 25 questions in there to ask yourself to pull the stories from your own brain. To get your hands on this, all you have to do is leave me an iTunes review and send it to me to my email and I will respond with this guide. Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Get a 6-Figure Job you Love Podcast. If you’re ready to dive deeper into your career mindset and start creating bigger, more impactful results in your career, join me at www.nataliefisher.ca/getstarted. I’ll see you over there.

 

Enjoy the Show?