I spend a lot of time in my classroom talking about mindset with my students. Especially at the beginning of the year a students’ mindset is critical. I ask students the first day how they feel about school and if they have struggled learning. This helps me understand how their beliefs may affect success.
And the next question is always what has prevented them from being successful in school in the past. The answers to this question reveal so much about students. Many students will blame the teacher, others will say they are not good at anything, which is really hard to hear in a young person. But often, these are things they hear at home, so we are products of our home life as well.
How Mindset Affects Us
Our mindset affects everything we do in life–school, personal relationships, and certainly our business. When it comes to business, having the right mindset is key. If you’re not in the right frame of mind, you can easily make mistakes that will affect your bottom line. And sometimes it is a simple process of recognizing what those
A person with a fixed mindset believes that they have reached their limits. They believe their talents are limited and that success is dependent on whatever talents a person has. Successful people are just more talented, better looking, better educated and success has nothing to do with effort or hard work.
A growth mindset believes we are constantly learning and changing. We can always improve our talents and opportunities through hard work. There is opportunity for everyone who will put in the effort. Look at the mindset mistakes and see if you have one of these.
1. Not Believing
One of the biggest mindset mistakes that business owners make is not believing in themselves. This can lead to self-doubt and a lack of confidence, which can hinder your success. If you don’t believe in yourself, it will be difficult to convince others to believe in you as well.
Yes, there are always things to learn, but as an adult we are better at learning than when we were very young. We are more curious, we are able to focus, we are driven by details. Adults have experience learning and know how to find answers.
2. Settling
Another common mistake is settling for less than they deserve. This can happen when you’re not confident in your ability to succeed or when you don’t believe that you’re worth more than what you’re currently earning. Settling for less can lead to missed opportunities and a feeling of dissatisfaction.
The first step to combatting this limiting belief is to recognize what you want without judging it. Acknowledge your wants and write them down, then imagine you have achieved your goals and write about how you feel now. This exercise will help you imagine what it would feel like to achieve your goals.
3. Giving Up
When things get tough, it’s easy to give up. However, this is often one of the biggest mistakes that business owners make. If you give up too easily, you’ll never know what could have been. It’s important to persevere through difficult times and never give up on your dreams.
Sometimes you need to take a step back and gain a different perspective. Instead of looking at what you have not accomplished, begin looking at how far you have come. Make a list of all the tools you have learned to use, all the products you have created, the mistakes you have made and changes you have made as a result. Focus on what you have gained, not what has not happened.
4. Fear of Failure
Many people are afraid of failing because they think it will mean the end of their dream However, failure is often necessary for success. If you’re afraid to fail, you’ll never take the risks necessary to achieve your goals.
This has been a difficult one for me because when I first began selling online I would stress every time I uploaded a product to TPT. I would be so anxious I would postpone the process. What helped was to batch products and the whole process to do several uploads at once. It is difficult to get anxious about posting one product if you are doing 5 at a time.
5. Not Taking Action
Another common mistake is not taking action. This can happen when you’re frozen by fear or when you’re simply procrastinating. If you don’t take action, you’ll never get anywhere. You need to take decisive action in order to achieve your goals.
One thing that helps with this is to develop a daily schedule of tasks to do. My schedule is in Excel and I color in the task when I have finished. At the end of the week, if there are still blocks that have not been finished, I spend Saturday completing as many as possible.
6. Lacking Focus
When you’re trying to do too many things at once, it’s easy to become unfocused. This can lead to missed opportunities and a feeling of being scattered. It’s important to focus on one thing at a time and give it your full attention.
Recently, I had an issue with Convertkit—it was something I just could not figure out. I was trying to put my forms on my website. Since I have several forms with different freebies and checklists, I wanted to be able to change them up easily. I read that @?!*?(* tutorial several times. I told myself each time I was going to figure it out but kept giving up.
After several days, I realized that my settings were wrong. Convinced that Convertkit was either outdated or not working properly, I did not check out my settings. I took a break, took another look when I was more relaxed and fixed the problem.
7. Making Excuses
Making excuses is a surefire way to fail. If you’re always making excuses, you’ll never be able to achieve your goals. It’s important to take responsibility for your actions and focus on what you can do to improve things.
As the queen of making excuses, this is not a way to make progress. Besides, all those excuses were just a way of allowing fear to stop me from moving forward.
8. Comparing Yourself
Comparison is the thief of joy, as they say. Constantly comparing yourself to others will only make you feel worse about yourself and your business. focus on your own journey.
Think about this instead: You are your competitor. Other people may offer similar products or courses, but they are not you. They don’t do things the way you do them. They do not have your experience, your education, your background and speak with your voice.
You need to learn from others so you can be a better YOU. You do not need to be anyone else or compare your success to theirs. We are all on a journey and it is a different journey for each of us because we have different skills and experiences.
I once attended a seminar where the speaker said she was going to help us get rid of all our problems. Paper was passed out and she said the first step was to write them down.
Then she said we were to come up to the front and drop our problems in the big jar. The audience was excited. Then she added, for every problem we added to the jar, we needed to take someone else’s problem out. NO ONE moved. We all kept our own problems, because we never know what others are going through.
Sometimes a different perspective is all we need.
Did you see your mindset mistake here? I noticed that at one time or another, I have fallen into several of these. But by recognizing the mistake and making a conscious effort to get past those thoughts, we can change our patterns.
Looking for more tips on productivity? Check out these blog posts: TIPS TO DEFEAT PROCRASTINATION and 4 BUSINESS MISTAKES TO AVOID.
And make the last part of 2022 our most successful time.