Okay listen… mindset shifts that transform vision into reality are not the clean Pinterest-quote bullshit people sell you.
They’re usually ugly, they hurt your feelings, and half the time you fight them for years before you finally give in. At least that’s how it went (and still goes) for me.
Right now it’s January 2026, there’s this gross half-melted snow-slush outside my window in Brooklyn, my radiator is making dying whale noises, coffee’s cold again, and I’m sitting here wondering how the hell some of my dumbest ideas actually became real things.
Not because I became some enlightened guru. Because I finally stopped being such a dramatic little perfectionist baby about it.
The First Mindset Shift (the one that felt like getting punched in the ego)
For the longest time I thought you needed The Perfect Vision™ before you could start anything. Mindset Shifts Like a 4K ultra-HD cinematic vision board with mood music and everything.
I spent literally 2021–mid 2023 “refining” my idea. Refining = staring at Notion pages, changing fonts 47 times, watching motivational videos, crying in the shower, repeat.
Then one night in late 2023 I was tipsy on warm white claw and mad at the world and I just… posted the ugliest possible thread on X about what I wanted to build. Typos. Bad grammar. Zero structure. I even spelled “definitely” wrong twice.
People roasted me. Some people were nice. A few weirdly nice people slid into DMs and said “yo I can help with that.”
That was the mindset shift that transform vision into reality for me: A blurry, shitty, embarrassing vision is infinitely better than a perfect one that never leaves your head.
Here’s a terrible photo I just took of my desk rn to prove I’m still a disaster:
Mess Office Images – Browse 454,290 Stock Photos, Vectors, and …
Second one: I had to break up with Motivation
Motivation is like that friend who’s super fun for three days then ghosts you for two weeks.
I used to wait for it like an idiot. “I’ll start the thing when I feel inspired again” → never starts the thing.
The mindset shift that actually moved the needle was deciding motivation is nice but optional.
I stole this from James Clear (Atomic Habits guy – seriously read the book if you haven’t): Mindset Shifts Make the action so stupidly small that you can’t talk yourself out of it.
So instead of “I’m gonna write a masterpiece today” I switched to “I’m gonna open the doc and write one bad sentence at 7:30pm.”
One bad sentence usually becomes five, then twenty, then suddenly it’s 1am and I’m still typing like a maniac.
Systems > motivation. Every single time.
The Third One (this one still stings)
Here comes the really gross one.
For years I was addicted to looking smart. Big words. Clever tweets. Sounding profound. Collecting knowledge like Pokémon cards.
Meanwhile… zero things shipped.
The mindset shift that transform vision into reality (and honestly still transforming it) was switching from “I need everyone to think I’m intelligent” to “How can I actually help one random person today even if I sound dumb doing it?”
It feels disgusting at first. Like lowering your standards.
But the second I started posting half-baked thoughts without seventeen proofreads? People started actually using the stuff. Giving feedback. Building on it.
Look at Derek Sivers’ site. Guy just writes short raw thoughts. No fancy design. No polish. People lose their minds over it.
12 powerful mindset shifts | Ashley VanderWel
Sometimes ugly + useful > beautiful + useless.
The messy list of shit that kinda worked (so far)
- Stopped calling it “my big dream” and started calling it “the dumb experiment”
- Treated every flop as data instead of proof I’m trash
- Deleted TikTok off my phone for 4 months (relapsed twice, whatever)
- Started celebrating tiny ugly wins (wrote 187 terrible words = I bought the $8 oat milk latte and felt briefly superior)
- Realized 97% of people are way too busy with their own shit to judge me
- Stopped waiting for someone to anoint me “ready”
