Creator Mindset vs. Worker Mindset


Your beliefs shape your reality: if you hold too many negative ones, youโ€™ll see them reflected in your life. Reality always confirms what you expect. If you believe you canโ€™t create what you desire, your experience will prove you right. It’s important to remember that the biggest block to manifesting your ideal life is the belief that you canโ€™t.

The Worker Mindset

Most of us are conditioned into a worker mindset: the idea that results come only through effort, struggle, and long hours. Society trained us to suppress any dream that doesnโ€™t come with a clear action plan. Hard work has value, but itโ€™s not the driving force behind creation, itโ€™s just one small piece.

People who rely only on effort are often trying to earn worthiness. Their reality mirrors their belief that โ€œnothing worthwhile comes easy.โ€ But when you enjoy what you do, it doesnโ€™t feel like struggle, it feels like flow. True freedom is realizing you donโ€™t have to force what doesnโ€™t inspire you.

As Henry Ford said, โ€œWhether you think you can or you canโ€™t, youโ€™re right.โ€ Your reality mirrors your mindset. Believe that life must be hard, and it will be. Believe that ease and alignment can create results, and that too will be true. The creator mindset works with belief first, not grind. If hard work alone brought abundance, every laborer would be wealthy. The secret is inspired action, the kind that feels natural and energizing, not forced motion that drains your energy.


Limiting Beliefs: The Hidden Barriers

The worker mindset is one of the strongest limiting beliefs there is, but any belief that contradicts your desires holds you back. Worse, limiting beliefs donโ€™t just block your goals; they limit your imagination itself. They narrow your sense of whatโ€™s possible.

When you release a limiting belief, your desires evolve. They deepen and expand. For instance, if you believe you must stay in a job you dislike to pay the bills, youโ€™ll never open yourself to opportunities that combine joy and stability.

Changing beliefs takes time because theyโ€™re wired into your brain through repetition and evidence. Thatโ€™s why calming your mental โ€œmomentumโ€ is key; a quiet mind can question its own stories. Begin by staying open to new perspectives. Ask, โ€œWhat if life could be easier?โ€ Simply entertaining that thought begins to loosen resistance.

A big trap of the worker mindset is obsessing over how things will happen. Your mind only knows what itโ€™s experienced before; it canโ€™t predict new paths from old data. But your creative intelligence, your โ€œlife-streamโ€ can. When you focus on belief and alignment rather than control, you allow fresh ideas and opportunities to flow in.


Attributes of a Creator Mindset

A person with a creator mindset:

  • Aligns their thoughts with the reality they desire and releases resistance.
  • Refuses to force actions that feel heavy or joyless, trusting that true action will arise naturally.
  • Honors divine timing, recognizing that intuition has a broader view than impatience or fear.
  • Accepts othersโ€™ paths without judgment or the urge to โ€œfixโ€ them.
  • Values rest as much as action, understanding that both are vital to creation.
  • Lets go of attachment and scarcity, trusting that whatโ€™s needed will appear when needed.
  • Believes that every desire is matched by the resources to fulfill it.
  • Guards attention carefully, focusing only on what supports growth.
  • Chooses inspiration over struggle.
  • Takes full responsibility for their current reality, knowing that blaming others only gives away their power.

The Essence of the Creator Mindset

The creator mindset is about working with your thoughts, not against them. You allow life to guide inspired action instead of forcing outcomes through resistance. Your higher intelligence, the part of you connected to the whole, has a far wider view than your analytical brain ever could.

Your job isnโ€™t to micromanage the universe. Itโ€™s to stay conscious of your beliefs, let go of the ones that donโ€™t serve you, and trust your creative flow. When you do, action becomes effortless, timing feels perfect, and reality begins to respond to your alignment, not your struggle.

The Creator Mindset: Create Something You Love


I’ve been a teacher for 25 years, a writer all my life, and a “content creator” since 2021. It has come to my attention the internet if full of massive amounts of low-quality garbage. Too many people are trying too hard to get rich quick. It reminds me of all of the sales scammers of my childhood, the MLMs, the mail-in envelope-stuffing business scams–trying to make a quick buck is a tale as old as time.

I’ve since learned that you have to create something that YOU want. I no longer chase the mythical audience. I’m not sure how to find or describe or anlalyze or understand an audience, I think the whole concept of “audience” is something of a myth. Most people who have created something great were simply creating something they loved.

In the past 3-4 years I’ve had modest success on Fiverr and Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) and I’ve created a tiny following on this blog (I have 80 subscribers!). My highest month of earnings is about $800 and my lowest is $24. But I’m learning, I’m ready to expand this, and I have ideas for what to do next.

First and foremost, I’m a teacher. One of my most lucrative clients on Fiverr just likes working with me because I know how to teach her things. As a teacher, both at the secondary (middle and high school) and college levels, I’ve learned how to develop high-quality content, how to capture and hold an audience’s attention, and how to assess my abilities. It feels very natural to teach people how to reach their goals and acheive their dreams as well.

Under the Creator Mindset umbrella, I will be creating courses and tutorials on how to create lucrative side-hustle, how to get started selling on Fiverr, Etsy, TpT, and Gumroad, how to use Canva to create templates, how to find a niche and create courses on Udemy and other platforms, how to create long-form content for Medium and YouTube, how to repurpose that content for Instagram and Pinterest, and how to help others and create value.

I’m not the least bit interested in chasing cheap thrills and quick money through casino-washing, credit-card churning, surveys, affiliate marketing, or drop-shipping. All of those things bore the crap out of me.

I’ve decided that I will also be offering most of my stuff for free, giving you access to as much high-quality content and real hands-on tutorials and guidance as I have time to make. Only after I’ve successfully helped a lot of people with my content over the long term will I start bundling it for sale (or offering other ways for people to support my content.

So come along for the ride! I’m a good writer and storyteller with a genuine love of teaching, consulting, and coaching. I have many digital media skills like writing, illustration, photography and editing, teaching and public speaking, coaching, designing effective and engaging learning experiences, and creating sincere and authentic content.

The Creator Mindset: Part I


Almost a year ago, I started writing about the Creator Mindset, both as a life philosophy and a course that I’m developing. I’ve spent the past six months exploring content creation resources, taking courses, reading books, and working to improve and expand my own brand and online presence, to great success. I am now starting to put it all together into what I hope is a dynamic and valuable course for content creators, particularly teachers and writers who seek to create and audience and sell valuable content to supplement their lives as teachers and writers (sadly, both of these professions are quite low-paying).

The basic idea is that anyone can become a sucessful content creator by focusing on creating VALUE, and also focusing on creating digital content that they love (because content creation is a hard slog, and you won’t succeed unless you love what you’re doing).

There are TEN basic steps to becoming a successful content creator:

  1. Create a polished website or social account that is your main account (mind is this Word Press blog)
  2. Create daily content for a targeted audience
  3. Connect with your audience and community
  4. Provide free products or consultations
  5. Find a simple process (you need a system to ease creation and publication)
  6. Develop your first “offer” (a product or service that you will sell)
  7. Use an existing platform (TpT, Fiverr, Gumroad, Udemy) or set up your own store
  8. Drive people to your new store by creating a sales funnel (more on how to do this in the course)
  9. Continue creating targeted content
  10. Expand to other platforms by breaking content into “bite-sized” pieces (YouTube shorts, Instagram Reels, Tik Tok videos, Pinterest Pins, etc.)

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The Creator Mindset Course


I have been giving a lot of thought to the idea of mindsets and why they are so important.

A mindset refers to a set of beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions that shape the way an individual perceives and interprets the world around them. It is essentially a mental framework or lens through which people view situations, make decisions, and respond to challenges. Mindsets can influence various aspects of life, including how individuals approach learning, handle setbacks, pursue goals, and interact with others.

For example, I was recently reading advice about fitness and nutrition, and it recommended visualing yourself as a fit, healthy person when making choices about what to eat. In other words, instead of thinking about having a list of restrictions (“I can’t have these french fries.”), think of yourself as a fit, healthy person who doesn’t eat french fries (“I don’t eat french fries.”) This may seem like silly semantics, or word games, but research shows it really works.

One of my most popular posts is The Creator Mindset, in which I discuss what it means to think like a content creator and develop a creator mindset. I’ve become convinced that changing your mindset is the most effective way to achieve your goals. Here is why mindsets are more important than goals.

A Creator Mindset:

Improves Resilience: Having the right mindset helps build resilience by encouraging you to see challenges and setbacks as opportunities for learning and improvement. Instead of being discouraged by obstacles, those with a growth mindset are more likely to persevere and find solutions.

Embraces Learning and Development: A mindset shift towards growth fosters a love for learning. Instead of fearing failure, individuals with a growth mindset view it as a natural part of the learning process. This mindset encourages continuous improvement and development over time.

Increases Motivation and Effort: A belief that effort leads to improvement is a core aspect of a growth mindset. This perspective can increase motivation and effort, as individuals understand that their actions have a direct impact on their abilities and success.

Adapts to Change: In a rapidly changing world, adaptability is a valuable trait. A growth mindset facilitates adaptability by promoting openness to new ideas, experiences, and challenges. It allows individuals to see change as an opportunity for growth rather than a threat.

Enhances Self-Reflection: Changing your mindset involves becoming more aware of your beliefs and attitudes. This increased self-awareness allows for more effective self-reflection, enabling individuals to identify and challenge limiting beliefs that may be hindering their progress.

Leads to Long-Term Success: While setting goals is important, a fixed mindset can limit one’s ability to achieve those goals. A growth mindset, on the other hand, supports the sustained effort and learning required for long-term success. It’s not just about achieving specific goals but about continuously evolving and reaching new heights.

Over time, I have done a great deal of research into the concept of mindset, beginning with the work I did while earning my doctorate in Education and Curriculum Design, in which I learned how to motivate learners without using the traditional (and ineffective) cycle of punishments and external rewards. Once I realized the impact that developing a resilient mindset had on student motivation, I began turning those tools toward myself, working with a success coach, taking courses, and reading books that provided me with the insight and methods needed to be successful. After putting together a system that worked for me, I decided to develop the Creator Mindset course to share that system with you. I’ll be launching in early January. Here is a sneak peak of the course content:


If you’re already a content-creator or want to be one, this course will catapult you to the next level. If you’re a writer, teacher, or student, you will also find this course helpful for improving your motivation, outlook, and results.

Developing a creator mindset is about creating a foundation for achieving goals more effectively. A positive and growth-oriented mindset can serve as a powerful catalyst for personal and professional development, enabling individuals to navigate challenges, learn from experiences, and achieve sustained success.

If you’re interested in learning more about how developing the right mindset can be a powerful tool for achieving your goals, be sure to subscribe to ELA Source by entering your email below. As always, I NEVER share your email with anyone, and I don’t spam your inbox.