More Than Anxiety

Ep 146 - The Mindset Reset For Ending the Year Strong | Q4 Mindset Reset

• Megan Devito • Episode 146

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In this episode, I'm sharing why slowing down is the counterintuitive secret to finishing the year strong and achieving your Q4 goals without burnout or stress.

• Most people respond to Q4 pressure by either rushing frantically or giving up completely
• When we feel anxious, our brains aren't thinking clearly, they're just recycling old patterns
• Your brain wants to be right more than it wants you to be happy or successful
• Reset your mindset by focusing on what you learned rather than judging past mistakes
• Calm your nervous system through simple practices like a five-minute walk outside
• Create a simplified strategy with one aligned, intentional step each day
• Start your reset now rather than waiting until November when deadlines loom
• Picture yourself at year-end feeling accomplished while still enjoying the holidays
• A mindset reset transforms both your professional success and personal wellbeing

🌟 The Q4 Mindset Reset is available now for $9.99

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If you're ready to see what's going well so you can celebrate more what's not working or what's keeping you stuck, and have a focused, intentional step forward, join me for a boundaries and balance audit at megandevito.com.

Psst!! I mentioned Jillz Guerin in this episode. Be sure to jump over to YouTube and give her a like and subscribe. 



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Megan Devito (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's podcast episode of More Than Anxiety and also to this YouTube channel, depending on if you're listening or watching this episode. I'm so glad you're here because today we're gonna talk about something that always seems to sneak up on me and I'm guessing if it sneaks up on me, it also sneaks up on you. 

Let's talk about that pressure to have a really successful end of the year, no matter what year it is. I'm recording this on September 2nd of 2025, so talking about the end of this upcoming year and how it feels to know that you set goals or you had goals or quotas put on you, everything felt like you had forever and a day to do it and suddenly Q4 is coming. So you know that moment when you realize that you've had an amazing summer, the year is coming to an end and all of a sudden you are facing these goals that you're not even close to. Maybe they felt completely doable and suddenly you're wondering if there's

actually any time left. If you've had a really relaxing summer, maybe a little bit slower pace and now you're feeling rushed or you're wondering how to get back into the groove now that your kids are back in school, how do I get back into that business mindset? Maybe you're even wondering if you should just give up because getting back on track feels a lot harder, maybe even impossible and you feel like maybe you don't know what to do, you're in exactly the right place.

Who am I? I'm Megan. If we've not met, I am a coach, I am a speaker, and I am the host of this show. I help high achievers, entrepreneurs, and every day people who are out there trying to achieve their goals reset their thinking, get their energy in line, and create a strategy that feels calm, clear, helps them to feel confident so they can reach their goals without burning out, giving up, or stressing out.

So today in this episode, it's all about how you can slow down instead of rushing and how that's actually your secret weapon to having a really strong Q4, both in your personal life and your professional life. So let's get started by talking about what the problem is and what happens at this time of year. If you come off of summer where everything was great, maybe you went on a great vacation, you finally got into the groove of having your kids home while you're trying to go to work.

then September hits and everything is off kilter again. Suddenly you're looking at the deadlines, the sales quotas, all of the projects that you started, maybe earlier in the spring, but then June got here and everything kind of fell apart. Or maybe they're just personal goals that you kept putting off because they felt a little too out there, maybe even a little too big and intimidating. Suddenly you notice that your brain starts telling you all kinds of stories, which is really what brains do best.

It might be saying things like, there's absolutely no way that I can get caught up at this point in the year. Four months, not enough time. Or maybe you're thinking, I don't know what I was thinking about even setting that goal. That is insane. There's no way. Or maybe it's just like, you know what, it's okay. I'll just pick up in January, which seems crazy when we think about it because it's September, not the middle of December. But when that happens,

Most people do one of two things. The first thing they do is they rush. They start throwing everything together, like throwing spaghetti against the wall. It's haphazard. They're scrambling because they feel anxious and they go into overworking, overdrive, overwhelm. The second thing they do is just give up, put it off and forget about it all together. And they tell themselves, too late, but neither of these things actually need to happen.

Here's why neither of those things need to happen and why they don't work. One, when you are rushing, when you feel forced, when you feel frantic, your brain doesn't think at its best. And likely, it's not really thinking much at all. It isn't creating new ideas. It's just recycling old ideas and flying back to the past. Often, when we think that we're thinking, we're just remembering what happened before.

So you think that you're problem solving, you think that you're coming up with solutions, but you're actually just remembering what you did. And if the past hasn't worked, it's not going to magically start working now. I follow someone else on YouTube, her name is Jillz Jillz Guerin. I'm totally gonna botch her last name and I apologize Jillz for that. But I listened to something that she had said earlier this week. I caught one of her, I can't remember if it was a short or a full episode, but I will tag her in the comments here so that you can be sure to follow her as well. And what she said was, your brain wants to be right more than it wants you to be happy. And I would add to that more than it wants you to be successful. Even if success makes you happy, even if having more money would make you feel secure, your brain wants to be right. In order to prove itself right, it looks to what it already knows. You have some really solid habits and most of your thoughts are just habits or things that have already happened.

This means that your brain is just trying to protect you from growing, from having what you want, even if that seems crazy or it seems like you're doing everything you can to get there, it will throw up roadblocks and it will sabotage you every single step of the way, which is really unfortunate, isn't it? But this is exactly why you need a mindset reset. It's why I created this Q4 mindset reset, because it's non-negotiable. It has to happen.

Because if you want to finish the year strong, you have to do more than hustle. And here's what you need. One, you have to have a mindset that you actually believe and that is focused on what's in front of you instead of what's already happened. Number two, you have to have a calm body so that you can think clearly, creative, and strategically. So you can go back to some of my previous episodes and I talk so often about how your body feels determines what you're thinking.

When your brain starts noticing that your body feels anxious or stressed, it creates stories based on the past about what it thinks could be wrong, what you did wrong, what might potentially happen and what you can't do just to keep you safe because again, it wants to be right. And the third thing is you need a simple strategy, not a million tasks, not going 100 miles an hour, but one strategy that makes your goals small, bite-sized, simple, but also challenging and doable. And that way you can feel calm, you can feel confident, and you can get in control of your day and the next four months. So as you're listening to this, I want you to grab a notebook, hit pause if you need to, write down which of those three pieces, whether it's your mindset, a calm body, or a strategy, feels the hardest to you right now.

And that's where you want to focus first. So how do you actually reset? This isn't about doing more. It's not about rushing. It's not about like putting on your game face and like hustle, hustle, hustle to get to the end. I know we've been taught that we have to hustle to be successful. And for sure, there will be times when you have to work more or do more. But if you are constantly hustling, you're going to burn out.

What I'm offering you in this mindset reset is a way to slow down and to think differently. And that's what's going to change the game. And let me be clear, for years when I started my coaching business, when I left my teaching, when I left the classroom, where they teach you nothing about selling or a business or anything else, the hardest thing for me to buy into was that my mindset mattered or that what I thought was the most important thing.

I thought it was what I do. thought it was the content I created. I thought it was the things that I said or the way I wrote the sentences. And part of that is true. But when push comes to shove, it really is about your mindset. It's what about what you believe and what you say because it comes across in what you are doing, right? So here's how we start. One, get clear on what you're thinking. Reset your mindset. Stop recycling old

and circling in the past in that old evidence. Instead of, I messed this up, I always screw this up, and remembering what's happened in the past, I want you to ask yourself, what did I do right? And what did I learn? And that tiny little change in what you're thinking and what you're focusing on moves you from judgment into growth. The second thing you have to do,

And this is so necessary as you have to calm your body down so that your brain stops creating stories and spinning in the past. Your nervous system is the foundation of your success. How you breathe, how often you move your body, and when you unplug yourself, yes, from YouTube, from this podcast, from whatever it is that you're watching on Reels or TikTok, or even just binge watching Netflix, you have to unplug. And you have to go to a place where it's quiet. For me,

That's taking a walk. A five minute walk can flip your brain out of survival mode and into a place of creative thinking. Go outside, touch the grass. People will say that as a joke. I'm telling you for serious, go touch some grass. Stand there, look at the clouds. It's September, the leaves are gonna start changing soon. Go outside and look at the leaves. Because unplugging and getting yourself outside into a place where it's quiet allows you to reset your nervous system.

And the third thing you have to do is you have to create a simple strategy that you can follow. And that means breaking your goals down into small chunks. Instead of the 27,000 things on your to-do list, you need to focus on one aligned, particular, intentional step every single day. We don't go into things trying to do everything at once. We don't start at the end. We always start at the beginning and we take one step at a time. Here.

is another thing that's going to be really important as we go into the end of the year. And that is not waiting until, ugh, I've got a little more time. I don't want to think about this now. I just got the kids back into school. I've still got four months. You want to start now because we know from this episode alone that your brain loves old habits and old thoughts. Your brain loves to think the same things and do the same things.

over and over and over again, and it will keep you repeating those things until the middle of November. And if you wait until the middle of November, or worse, until the holidays, you're going to be fighting a battle on two fronts. You're gonna have a deadline that is way too close, and you're gonna be distracted trying to have a good time. And I want you to have success and fun. That's the entire foundation of my coaching. You can be successful. You can feel calm and confident. Have more time and energy.

and still have fun. So right now you've got space, you've got time on your side. Use the next few weeks to start practicing new thoughts because we want to make this something that your brain believes and it takes it a while to catch on. It needs evidence and it needs time. So I want you to imagine what it feels like to go into this fourth quarter feeling sure of your success and sure that you can do it. Feeling calm and grounded and confident. Imagine yourself at the end of the year.

Not right now. Imagine what it'll be like in that week between Christmas and New Year's when everything comes to a screeching halt instead of frantically trying to wrap things up. Imagine yourself being like, I did that. my gosh, I'm so proud of myself. I got to enjoy the holidays and still feel this way. That's incredible. That is the power of a Q4 mindset reset. So if you want a tool to help you start, download the guide. It's the Q4 mindset reset. It's super cheap. And inside you're gonna find journaling prompts and guided exercises to help you release old judgments about who you are and what you can accomplish and build that forward focused mindset. You're gonna find the link in the show notes. You can check that out right now. Here's what happens. Remember, go back to the end of the year. I want you to picture this with me. Instead of feeling frantic, you feel calm and clear.

You're hitting your goals, yes, but you're also at that Christmas party or you're enjoying Thanksgiving or maybe you took a ski trip. You have a life outside of work during the holidays when we all want to be able to celebrate and relax and have a good time. That's why this matters because resetting your mindset doesn't just impact your professional life. It transforms your personal life too. So,

You know how sometimes at the end of the year you go to work and you have all of these things. I'm trying to finish the year strong. I'm trying to tie up these loose ends. I come home, I'm grouchy with my partner. I'm snapping at my kids. I can't think. I'm just stressed out. I need a drink. I have to do this. And suddenly you feel guilt because you didn't mean to be grouchy and a lot of shame because your kids didn't deserve that. And you shouldn't have had this done already. We can avoid all of that when we start now and we start focusing on what you are thinking.

The reset is designed to help you align your energy, to get your strategy going and to get your mindset going. And then we can add onto that with coaching if that's something that you're interested in. You can finish this year strong and set yourself up to slide into 2026 or whatever year is following when you listen to this or watch this video and to feel really good about what's coming up next year so that you don't have that, my gosh, that was so much, I need to stop and rest and now, it's New Year's and now I gotta make more goals. Let's just keep that flow even and consistent and watch as you change what you believe about yourself and what you're capable of. You don't have to reset every single month. Wouldn't it be nice not to feel like, God, a new month and new quotas and now I have to start all over again? I know that happens because it's happened to me and it's happened with my clients who I'm working with.

So here is what I want you to remember from this episode. 

1. Rushing and giving up are both fear responses. 

2. When you are rushed, when you feel anxious, your brain is not thinking, it is remembering. It is remembering what's happened in the past. 

3. When your brain wants to be right and not happy, it'll do everything it can to prove itself right. So you've got to train it gently with love towards forward-focused, intentional, and believable thoughts. 

And 4.  A calm body and a strategy is going to give you the confidence and the clarity and that flow that you've been looking for. And do not wait until we get further or closer to Q4. Start now, because the future that you want doesn't just fall into your lap.

I know that a lot of people, when we talk about manifestation and everything else, and like, and then when you believe it, it's all of a sudden there. Yes, and there's a buildup, there are steps. It's not coming from a place of inaction. It's coming from a place of belief and action. I'd love to say it just falls out of the sky, and maybe sometimes it does. But if you want that security and you want to feel good, whether it's Q4 or Q1 or two or any other time of the year,

You have to get started and you have to create the mindset to make that happen. So I will be back again next video or next podcast to talk about how to set goals, even if you're not sure that you can create them and achieve them, or even if you don't like goals, because some of y'all don't like goals and I get that, I used to avoid them too. So make sure you're subscribed, make sure you hit like, leave a little comment. I would love to hear from you. 


Are you working on your mindset? Are you working on finding a calm body? Or are you working on your strategy? Leave a comment and let me know. In the meantime, I will be back next week. I am cheering for you and I cannot wait to see you again then. Take care.