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Why Mindset Matters for Building a Successful Business!

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Why Mindset Matters for Building a Successful Business!

 

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck found that a person’s mindset plays an important role in determining their success.

In this blog, I am going to explain what a mindset is, the three mindsets that support your success in business and how to change your mindset for better results in your business.

Hopefully, you will be able to identify some mindset shifts that can help you get unstuck, find more confidence and move your business forward.

 

What does mindset mean?

 

 

Essentially, your mindset consists of your thoughts, attitudes and beliefs about the world.

For example, Dweck identified two contradictory sets of thoughts, attitudes and beliefs about intelligence and talent. 

First, she identified something she called a growth mindset. This mindset meant you believed that intelligence and talents were something that could be developed over time.

Contrast that with what she called a fixed mindset. Here you believe that intelligence and talent are fixed. If you’re not good at something, or you’re lacking talent, well, that’s too bad. It’s fixed and can’t be changed.

Basically, what you see is what you get!

 

Some examples of fixed and growth mindsets:

 

FIXED MINDSET: That’s just who I am, I can’t change that!

GROWTH MINDSET: I am constantly changing and evolving!

FIXED MINDSET: If I don’t actually try, I can’t fail.

GROWTH MINDSET: I really only fail if I stop trying!

 

I have coached both kinds of clients over the years.

Often, those with a fixed mindset come to me reluctantly because their company has sent them. Their mantra is often, “Well, that’s the way I am. I’ve always been that way.” And then the conversation ends unless I can find a way to challenge their mindset. 

 

The Three Mindsets That Support Your Success in Business

 

Growth Mindset:

As you can imagine, having a growth mindset can have a positive impact on your success in business.

With this mindset, you are more likely to persevere in the face of setbacks.

You are hungry to grow and learn. And you strongly believe you can accomplish almost anything you put your mind to. 

Of course, you still need to be reasonable. For example, I certainly have a growth mindset, but I am not about to apply to be an astronaut! 

I am however, doing the famous 2020 pivot from coaching leaders who attended in person training, to growing and developing an online business and coaching coaches looking to master their craft and grow a successful coaching business.

My ability to persevere means I can be successful. I know that.

 

A growth mindset means you just don’t give up.

 

You adjust, you learn, you ask for help, you grow and you just keep going, even if you have to switch gears.

You reward yourself for all the actions you take. A growth mindset is all about the process. You celebrate the effort you are putting into something, even if the results have not caught up. 

Can you see how important that mindset is for supporting your success with your business? 

 

 

A Positive Mindset:

Here again, a positive mindset is a game changer. And for many reasons.

For one, you are just a lot more fun to be around! A negative, complaining and critical mindset can really suck all the air out of a room. 

Not long ago, I hitched a ride with a neighbor to go see some friends who were performing in a band nearby.

 

Before we got there, I thought I was going to jump out of the moving car.

 

This neighbor was the most negative person I had ever met.

She complained about everything the entire way there.

I said to my husband later that night that, “I don’t ever want to see her again.” 

And I’m a pretty easy going person.

But I felt like I was under the weight of a giant rock just being near her. I actually found it physically painful. Whew.  

Extreme I guess.

 

But I am certain you can feel the difference between someone with a positive mindset vs a negative one.

 

So take a minute and imagine your clients.

Would they want to work with you if you give off negative vibes? I don’t think so.

The other way a positive mindset supports you is that it focuses you on the solution and away from the problem.

That is really the whole philosophy of life coaching, namely, go to solution.

Talk about a solution. Conjure up solutions and get out of the darkness and difficulty of the problem. 

 

The remarkable thing about focusing on the solution, is that you usually find it.

 

Our brain sees what it is looking for.

It’s the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The more you look for the solutions, the more likely you are to find them.

The more you delve into the problem, the more likely you are to find them…problems. 

Your positive mindset will support your success in business by helping you see opportunities, connections and answers to problems that are invisible to the negative eye! 

 

Abundance mindset:

With an abundance mindset you see the world around you as full of all the resources you need to be successful.

You are focused on the tremendous abundance of life, the water, stars, blades of grass, opportunities and love. 

When I first started my life coaching business back in 1997, I hired a coach of course to help me get going.

 

I was convinced that I would never find any clients. 

 

She asked me, “how many people live in Toronto?” (She was from Texas.) 

“Oh I don’t know, a few million and more with the suburbs.”

“Okay,” she said, “And you don’t think you can find five people who would want to coach with you?”

She made a very good point.

And from that moment on, I have worked to see abundance vs scarcity. 

 

An abundance mindset allows you to live in a world of wonder and awe.

 

It expands your horizons. We get so caught up in only seeing the moment we are in, we lose sight of the magnificence of the universe. 

 

 

How to Change Your Mindset for Better Results in Your Business

 

Shift from Fixed to Growth mindset:

Read more books, especially self-help books. There are many many books on the shelves of book stores documenting transformation.

Watch more Ted Talks on all the people who have overcome adversity.

Read Gandhi’s autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Nelson Mandela’s The Long Walk to Freedom

Marie Forleo’s Everything is Figureoutable. 

Don’t be a snob. Just listen, read and watch. If this doesn’t prove to you that change is possible, well, I’m not sure what will. 

 

Shift from Negative to Positive mindset:

Every night before you go to bed, take out your journal and write out the five things that went well that day.

Look at your wins.

Look at the big, the small and the in between.

Shift your brain from seeing only what isn’t working to all that is working. You need to do this every night.

And you need to review it every week.

Why?

 

Because you are rewiring your brain.

 

And that takes consistency,  persistence and a lot of time. At first, you will struggle identifying the positive, but you’ll get better at it.

And you’ll see your mood improve too.

Here’s a great resource:

The 21-Day Positive Focus®

 

Shift from Scarcity to Abundance mindset:

There is no more powerful a tool for this shift than practicing gratitude.

After a few weeks, then months, and hopefully years of daily gratitude, your whole life will change.

We all take way too much for granted. Every time something terrible happens in the world, I think, “Did I say thank you for all that I have right now in my life?”

 

I have been engaged in a gratitude experiment since February of 2021.

 

And it’s changed my life.

I am happier. I have more energy. And I feel excited about my future because my present is so beautiful and fulfilling.

Did anything change in my life?

Actually, no!

 

I just started to appreciate all that I already had.

 

You’ve got to do it. And you’ve got to do it daily, and forever. I’m not kidding.

Our brain will just go right back to seeing lack if we don’t exercise it every day. It only takes a few minutes.

For help with Gratitude, you can try The Magic.

 

Well there you go. I hope you understand now better than ever why mindset matters when it comes to success and that you’re inspired and motivated do the work to change your mindset to help you get better results in your business.

Thanks for reading, ❤️ Lisa

 
 
 
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