One of the biggest things that has contributed to my progress with my entrepreneurial journey is the fact that I’m 100% accountable for what I take on. In other words, I don’t depend on others to dictate my path. I am constantly paving the way for myself because the vision and goals I put in place for myself are there to fuel my passion for what I do.
In addition to this, being self-aware has been something that I take very seriously because it enables me to put my ego aside, be reflective, and really figure out what I’m actually good at. When it comes to entrepreneurship, I know that I have to keep learning and growing. I can’t foresee myself getting to a point where I will be 100% satisfied or complacent. If I do, that just means I’m not really pushing myself and tapping into my fullest potential.
In today’s blog, I’m going to dive into the five successful ways you can have a growth mindset in business. My hope is that no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, you find inspiration to apply some of these practices.
1. Be a Doer Every Single Day
The quickest way to start seeing results for your hard work is to actually “do.” It can be easy to get stuck with brainstorming and overthinking to the point where you hold yourself back from actually executing.
So what can you do?
Instead of thinking about the end result, start taking the steps to getting you closer to your goals and milestones. Don’t worry about perfecting your craft either because doing so will only slow you down. Rather, don’t be afraid of making mistakes and take the necessary steps to growing your business or even starting it.
More specifically, do the following:
- Keep the bigger picture top of mind
- Create a roadmap for your goals
- Break down your goals into small doable tasks
- Celebrate the little wins
- Be open to trying new approaches if something doesn’t work
- Set clear deadlines
2. Starve Your Distractions
It can be easy to get caught up with the bright and shiny new trends in business, but once you really focus, you’ll see that your ability to actually yield positive results will grow.
Distractions can come in many different forms — from taking care of daily chores like laundry and cleaning to joining friends for happy hour. In one of my most recent blog posts, I wrote about creating daily habits that can be a big part of business success:
Progress with anything will take time, especially if you’re wanting to start a business or even a blog. Instituting small daily habits will get you to climb higher steps without having to feel overwhelmed by all of the tasks that need to be implemented before you hit a milestone…
One of the biggest challenges that I had to overcome before running my company full-time was to stop making excuses as to why I couldn’t do it. Once I surpassed this hurdle, my mindset changed from “I can’t do this because of…” to “I realistically can do this at this time.”
Just this simple shift of thinking and approaching my entrepreneurial path is what really helped me see what I was capable of achieving. Sometimes the reason behind making excuses came from the fear of failure, the fear of not having financial stability, not knowing what to expect, not feeling like I was ready, and being afraid of being judged.
3. Know Your Superpower
Assessing your strengths and weaknesses are important to growing any business because you can keep doing what you’re good at, and you can delegate or hire help for the things you’re not so great at.
This isn’t about being embarrassed by your shortcomings, but just spending your time on the things that will make a positive impact on your business and help scale it. More specifically, knowing that ONE thing you do really well is going to take you to greater heights than trying to be really good at a lot of small things.
In fact, here’s a snippet from an earlier blog post on How to Make Your Dreams a Reality:
Part of being a good entrepreneur involves staying humble too. Even if you have business degrees, decades of on-the-job experience in the field you are attempting to enter, and advice from a great mentor, there will always be new things to learn and new challenges to overcome.
To truly be effective, you have to accept that you don’t know everything and you never will. Every day is a learning experience – and unless you’re willing to learn all of the many different ways there are to swim, you’re going to sink.
Approach situations with humility, and take every event that arises as a chance to grow. Don’t bristle at criticisms or feedback from others, either. Instead, carefully process the advice you’re given, and use your reasoning skills to determine whether taking action is the right decision.
Achieving your dreams as an entrepreneur takes significant time and effort, but that doesn’t mean that your aspirations are out of reach. The right knowledge, awareness, understanding, patience, and humility can make all the difference in preparing for you for the journey ahead. It’s always possible to make your dreams a reality – but you’ll never know for sure unless you try.
4. Do What You Love, Love What You Do
When you’re doing what you love, you’re not working for the weekends or for your next vacation. You’re in the long game of making your work the best you can. And as I wrote in a previous blog post, Key Lessons for Entrepreneurial Success:
When you love what you do, it becomes less about the destination but more about the journey.
One of the things I learned early on in my career was that making decisions based on money would result in loss of passion, and ultimately make me unhappy.
Being truly passionate about what you do means that you have a deep love for your craft and you’re willing to do what it takes to make your vision a reality.
Next, embrace failure, and make sure it is seen as a stepping stone to success.
It can be easy to let the fear of failure hold you back from really pursuing your dreams. I always like to say: “get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.” It’s in those moments that you start to experience growth, which in turn, fuels your chances of success.
Change your perspective on failure and instead, embrace it, and learn from it. Know that failure is not the opposite of success but it’s a part of it.
5. Be Grateful for What You Have
It can be easy to let your thoughts drift to all of the things you don’t have and the results you haven’t yet experienced. Make sure you control these thoughts by practicing gratitude. Instead of looking at your entrepreneurial journey with a negative mindset, be grateful for what you have as you continue working for what you want.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting a better life and wanting a bigger business. Where you can start to feel stuck is when you only focus on the things you don’t have and allow that to burden you with your ability to actually make any sort of progress.
Everything great requires hard work. Keep putting in the hard work but also don’t forget to celebrate your support system, your growth, and current learnings. This will keep in the right mindset so that as you look ahead, you’re also being mindful and present.
Final Thoughts
To me, the real big win in business comes in the hard work and being able to embrace challenges that you face. Every experience will teach you something and help you as well as your business grow.
Know that there are unlimited opportunities, you just have to figure out a way to create enough value and trust so that people will want to do business with you. Lastly, don’t focus on making relationships transactional, make sure that the value you provide is making an actual difference.
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