[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1548289356400{background-color: #bcbcbc !important;}”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”4637″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1753491745723{padding-right: 19px !important;padding-left: 19px !important;}”]Your mindset is the foundation of your success. It is tempting to think that skills are, but that is not what I have observed throughout my years in helping lead companies toward greater success. I have seen that if your mindset is not right, success will be elusive. We all have internal stories that we are telling ourselves, and these stories can either help you to achieve success or get in the way of it. You need to understand yours.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]
Chapter 3: Mindset Matters
Mindset is the foundation of all success. It is tempting to think that skills are, but that is not what I have observed throughout my years in helping to lead companies toward greater success. What I have seen is that if your mindset is not right, success will be elusive. Like everyone, business owners often have internal stories that they are telling themselves. These stories originate in their past, yet still manage to get in the way of their success. Unfortunately, these past stories, or self-limiting beliefs, can prevent you from achieving the level of success you dream of attaining. Your limiting beliefs do not merely exist inside your own mind. They have real-world consequences, and that is why they must be addressed in order to achieve success.
During my second visit with one particular client, he went into a twenty-minute explanation as to why he had not been successful thus far and why he would not be successful moving forward. He elaborated on his past as well as his relationship with his father, and he said that he was doomed to failure. After he finished his story, I politely told him that this was complete nonsense. He looked at me with astonishment and asked why. I explained to him that it was like he was driving his car by looking in the rear-view mirror. How successful is that? I told him that he would not achieve the level of success he desired when he believed it would never happen. He was allowing his past and the mindset that had developed there to control his future. Of course we cannot change the past, but we can learn from it. In the big picture, it does not really matter where you came from, it only matters where you are and where you want to go. I love what Tony Robbins, author and success coach, says about the past: ìWhat if your past happened for you, and not to you?î
You have the freedom to let go of the past and reinvent your future. You need to learn how to thrive, not survive. If you want your business to get better, then you have to get better. If you want things to change, then you have got to change. As Dean Graziosi says in his book Millionaire Success Habits, ìWe want to be the thermostat not
the thermometer.î
How to Feed Your Mind
Our minds are not unlike our bodies: We are what we eat. If we feed our minds with negativity, we will get negativity. If we feed our minds with positive information, we will get positivity in return. Whatever we allow in is what occupies our thoughts. Our minds do not discriminate between destructive input and constructive input. Both have an effect on our physical reality.
If you continually tell yourself negative thoughts, you will start to believe those thoughts and they will have a direct effect on your actions, which will eventually get you exactly what you were thinking. The opposite is also true, of course. If you feed your mind with good thoughts and positive input, you will get positive results. Success will come to you if you are determined to be successful and you intentionally adopt a positive mindset. Because you have the power within you to change what you believe is possible, you can affect what actually becomes possible.
I personally have gone on a no-news diet. The news on TV, no matter what channel you listen to, has more negative news than positive. Steven Pinker, a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, wrote an article for The Guardian magazine entitled ìThe Media Exaggerates Negative News. This Distortion has Consequences.î In the article he says that every day the news is filled with stories about war, terrorism, crime, pollution and a host of other negative topics. He states that even magazine covers are covered with negative topics and crises of some sort or another.
Pinker says, ìWhether or not the world really is getting worse, the nature of news will interact with the nature of cognition to make us think it is. News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen.î He went on to say that the news can and likely will distort our view of the world, and the consequences of negative news are negative.
Reprogram Your Negative Thinking
I often tell clients if they have negative thought patterns that have been ingrained over time, they should think of the antithesis or exact opposite of that thought and start developing a mantra of saying the positive over and over until they change their belief system. A good way to do this is to write down the positive opposite of your negative belief and read it out loud every day, morning and night, in order to reprogram your subconscious mind. This sounds rather simplistic, but it actually works and gets your subconscious mind engaged in helping to change your belief system.
Fix in your mind what you want to achieve and write it down. Any idea that you write down and repeat verbally day after day will indeed program your subconscious mind to ensure you are moving in the right direction. Your state of mind often determines the story you come up with. You need a story that empowers you, not one that disempowers you.
In his book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says, ìThe power of auto-suggestion is the agency of central thought through which an individual may voluntarily feed his sub-conscious mind on thoughts of creative nature, or by neglect permit thoughts of a destructive nature.î
Success comes to those who are determined to be successful and adopt a positive mindset with a definite purpose. We all have the power to make the little choices in our lives that can alter our lives forever. If you do not believe that, I recommend Viktor Frank’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Viktor was a prisoner of war in a Nazi concentration camp. He saw his family murdered, and he endured bizarre experiments on his body. He came to the conclusion that while he did not have physical freedom, he did have the freedom to choose his response to what was happening to him. It is not so much what happens to us that has the greatest impact on us and those around us, but our response to what happens.
You should make a concerted effort to spend time around people who are playing at a higher level than you. I have heard it said that we become the sum total of the five people we spend the most time with. Most people hang around with people playing at a lower level. Do not be the smartest person in the room. Invest in yourself and get around people that are smarter and more successful than you. Ask questions and learn. The best investment you can make is in yourself.
The foundation of success is mindset. By mastering the little things that impact your mindset, you can make an enormous difference in your business, and in your life.
Success Steps
- Stand guard at the door of your mind.
- Be careful and intentional about what you allow into your mind.
- Pay attention to any negative self-talk that you have become accustomed to saying without thinking about it.
- Counter any negative self-talk with a positive mantra that you repeat twice a day.
- Focus on the positive, not the negative.
- Write down some positive supporting statements, and repeat them daily.
- Find a way to feed and strengthen your mind every single day.
- Ask yourself this question on a somewhat regular basis: What are the things I am going to do to improve my mindset?
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It’s Not Hard, It’s Business
Fundamental Steps to help business owners learn what it takes to grow their business and increase their revenue.
As the former GM and COO of a $40 million company with seven locations I have learned what it takes to be successful in business. In this book, I share some keys to sustainable business growth and acceleration and the way to close the gap between your performance and your dreams.
You didn’t go into business to just get by, you got into it to succeed. Follow our series on the website and get your desktop reference copy from Amazon.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”4271″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
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