How Your Mindset Can Help You Build Your Business
Whenever my schedule allows I like to walk the two miles from home to my clinic, and rather than plug myself into whatever music is currently flavour of the month (Noah and the Whale is a fave at the moment), I often take the time to listen to audiobooks.
So today, as I wandered merrily on my way, I decided to listen to Carol Dweck’s “Mindset – The New Psychology Of Success”.
Carol’s book is based on her lifetime study of human mindset. Her concept is that there are two basic mindsets which determine how we approach life’s challenges.
Our mindsets are either “fixed” or “growth”.
A person with a “fixed” mindset will tend to avoid making the effort that is necessary to become successful, as they feel there is little point in trying too hard as they have a “fixed” ability and will never grow beyond where their current levels.
Someone with a “growth” mindset, however, has a completely different way of looking at life.
For this person working hard and putting in effort will naturally lead to success – because they see that intelligence, creativity and purpose can all be nurtured and encouraged to grow over time.
As I listened to Carol talking about these concepts I was struck by how business owners fall into one of these mindsets when it comes to growing their businesses.
The “fixed” mindset people try a few bits of marketing, none of which they really do whole-heartedly. None of their practice building efforts gives the instant success that they are after and before long they throw up their hands in disgust and say “ahh, this is never going to work, I am just not cut out for this business building stuff”.
Interestingly enough, when I have these people as clients it is invariably a rocky road to success. They struggle to muster the energy to take any action whatsoever and look to shift the reasons for their failures onto anyone but themselves. After all, they’ve done their best and it just wasn’t enough, so why try again.
But the other mindset brings a completely different focus!
The “growth” mindset people start out marketing their business knowing that it is going to take repeated effort to get the results they want. They know that they might well fail along the way, but this will just be a learning curve along the way to mastery.
When I see THESE people as clients, the story is completely different. They are generally a pleasure to work with and get dramatic results very quickly. In fact, I have often wondered why some clients just seem to “get it”. They do everything that is suggested to them and continue to charge through whatever gets in their way.
This isn’t to say that they never have any setbacks – of course they do.
But it’s the manner in which they deal with these setbacks that is most illuminating.
So Carol’s book gets a big thumb’s up from me – it’s given me insights into my own blind spots and helped me see what I can do with clients who are struggling to fulfil their potential.
And the best thing of all is that, with work, everyone can change from a “fixed” mindset to a “growth” approach. That means that once we understand that our own mindset is getting in the way of our own success, we can do work to change it.
Of course that’s great to know – because the only thing keeping you from the business success you deserve may well be the way you are framing your thoughts. And if these thoughts can be changed for the better, then perhaps the business you have always dreamed of is only just around the corner…
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