Three mindset shifts that will drastically improve the way you do business

As an entrepreneur, you have to get really good at coping mentally with the lows of your business.

You have to learn pretty fast that things don’t always go the way you want them to and if you are really serious about your vision, you must find a way through those tough times that will ensure you don’t just completely give up.

And while the lows are often more prevalent than the highs, most people don’t talk about them all that much.

We always see the end result. The seemingly ‘overnight success stories’ about how these amazing entrepreneurs just used this one strategy and their business exploded.

But I think you and I both know that is not the whole story.

If you are an entrepreneur who is in it for the long haul, you realise that it takes a certain something to get out of bed each day and keep going.

You will fail, you will make mistakes, and you will waste time and money. Your success is simply highly unlikely to happen overnight.

What will help you during these low periods and what will ultimately help you achieve your vision are the mental shifts you must make.

People who are truly successful know that mindset is the key above everything else. They know that the way they run their business and overcome failures actually comes down to the way they think and how they perceive the world.

Here are three mindset shifts you can make that will change the way you do business and help you achieve your ultimate vision.

1. Define your own version of success

This may not seem like a mindset shift, but most people get caught up in striving for success that is defined by society.

If you take a second to just picture in your mind what a successful person looks like, you probably see the same types of images: the clothes, the cars, the money.

But what you really need to do is be specific about what success looks like for you. And that means really taking the time to think about your own values and what is important to you in your life, based on where you are right now.

What you determine as success will change at various stages of your life.

For example, when you have young kids, success to you might mean that you only work 20 hours a week so you can spend more time with them. 

And, as an added bonus, when you shift your mindset from looking out into society to define success to looking within yourself and at your own circumstances, you will also find that your overall happiness and satisfaction with your work will also increase.

2. Learn to let it go

To really achieve your vision, you need to be willing to let go of anything from the past that doesn’t serve you anymore.

That means you need to let go of any failures or mistakes that you have made along the way so far. 

This mindset shift means that you need to totally reframe how you think about mistakes and failures.

If you want to get past them, you need to think of them as learning opportunities. Take what you can from them in order to do better in the future, but leave the rest behind.

Don’t sit there beating yourself up about them, otherwise, they will hold you back from trying new things and taking risks in your business as it grows. 

If you really get stuck on this, look up your favourite entrepreneurs. I guarantee that they all have at least one story of where something didn’t work out for them.

3. Work within your own season

This one has been particularly hard for me to overcome.

Since having kids (who are still very young and are at home with me most of the time), I have really struggled to accept the fact I simply do not have the time, energy or mental capacity that I once had. Or that other entrepreneurs might have.

I have had to spend a lot of time coming to terms with this, and then figuring out how I can work in a way that ensures I achieve my goals, get my work done and still look after myself.

The key to this mindset shift was just acceptance. Which is not so simple. But the more I fought against my circumstances or compared myself to other entrepreneurs (who either had no children or at best, they were much older), the less I got done and the worse I felt.

But once I just accepted that this is a season of my life and that every day is changing, I started feeling less constricted by what I ‘should’ be doing.

I started working in a way that suited my own unique circumstances and actually getting more done.

Mindset shifts are not always easy. But the main thing is that you are aware of what you need to work on and you work on it every single day.

These three are a great start and they really will change the way you do business and make your journey to your unique vision much easier and more enjoyable.