“90% of your success happens in your mind”
“Fixed mindsets, growth mindsets, positive mindsets, negative mindsets.”
There are countless numbers of books which teach you how to fulfill your potential, with the ‘ground-breaking’ power of your mind.
The new wave of ‘mindset coaches’ and leaders are constantly telling susceptible, impressionable, desperate entrepreneurs, which books they should read, what Youtube clips they should watch and who they should follow on social media to keep their mindset positive.
The problem with mindset is that it’s a theory, a set of assumptions held by someone and I don’t know about you, but I was always taught that to assume would make an ass out of you and me!
Mindset encourages you to spend time picturing what the outcome of a project will be, or how awesome it will be. It’s easy to get stuck, forever, in this thinking and planning phase. After all, it’s a wonderful place to be. Inside your head, you could take on the world, beat the baddies, hands down, and be earning a 7 figure salary in a few months’ time.
The fact is, you can assume all you want, you can assume that you’ll launch your product or service, you can assume that people will love it, you can assume that you will sell out in 24 hours, you can assume that it’s all going to be plain sailing.
But, and I’m sorry to burst your bubble, that may not be the case. Don’t hate me.
People have got so caught up with creating a positive mindset, a goal of success, visualising the place they want to be, that they are actually neglecting the steps to get ANYWHERE, let alone ‘there’.
The cold hard fact is that once you come out of that bubble, there is a lot of hard work to be done. No matter how perfect your goal-setting is. You are capable of drowning out the white noise of failure and live your #BESTLIFEEEVER – although you have to get down to the nitty-gritty, roll up your sleeves and get sh!t done. It’s business, it’s the basics, it’s the not glam stuff but it’s the stuff that will make you a profit, increase your turnover and set you on a path to success.
As an action coach, lately, it has been frustrating to hear the surrounding noise from people promising productivity through the achievement of a positive mindset. This is IMPOSSIBLE, and before anyone quotes the “there is no such word as Impossible, the word itself is I’m Possible” at me… It just is! & impossible IS a word, it is in the Oxford English dictionary. Its definition is “impossible – not able to occur, exist, or be done”.
Your mindset is ALWAYS good enough to take an action, a small action which will take you in the right direction or an incorrect action which you can learn from.
The obsession with perfecting whatever mindset it is that you are being told you need to have as a successful entrepreneur is wasting your time! The time that could be spent making money.
Your mindset is ALWAYS good enough to take an action, a small action which will take you in the right direction or an incorrect action which you can learn from. The action is what will move you somewhere, and not leave you static, which in business may as well be called suicide.
As you take actions, you are always going to have knocks, you are always going to have setbacks, but with a clear strategy and surrounding yourself by people who have your success at heart you can get through any of these! You can refine your strategy and move forward. As you hit these blocks or problems it is essential that you tackle them, head on. It is imperative that you overcome them and keep moving forward. This is what will deliver all the success you want because success loves speed, momentum delivers money and solving problems stifles procrastination.
In my decade of business, working and discussing with thousands of successful entrepreneurs, not one of them has ever hit a problem, stopped and looked inwards to say “if only I had a better mindset, I could achieve more” – they have solved their problems and kept moving. And guess what. Their confidence has grown in line with their business, in line with their turnover and in line with their bank balance. They have gone on to develop a clear view of where they are going and where they want to end up, all done aside from taking actions.
Movement and success in real time.
Now, listen. I whole-heartedly recommend that every entrepreneur has an inner strength. However, sometimes we have deep-rooted beliefs which are pre-determined and ones which don’t support growth. But these aren’t your mindset, these need to be discussed, brought in to the open and overcome, and the best people, qualified to do this are professional councilors. Not ‘mindset’ gurus.
So, if you are reading this you have 2 options, you can keep pretending that you haven’t got the right mindset, or you can realise that you are kidding yourself and that in fact, you aren’t putting the right action is to achieve anything. Let alone the huge, wonderful goals that you are setting yourself.
Embrace the action habit. Because inaction is expensive.
