Over the last four years of coaching service-based entrepreneurs, I have learned that success is only 20% strategy and execution and 80% mindset. It doesn’t matter how good your service is, how tried and tested your plan is, or even how large your following is. What matters most is the mindset you bring to business and life.
You CANNOT maintain success beyond the capacity of your mindset. Any success beyond what you can believe you are worthy of, you risk sabotaging and reducing down to a comfortable level. Therefore, it is critical to work on building a mindset that fuels success.
Here are five mindsets that do just that.
- Optimism
Henry Ford is quoted as having said, “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Most people don’t experience the success they desire in their life and business because they approach their work from pessimism. If you think that you’re not going to be successful before you even get started, then what’s the point in getting started at all. You have to begin the work of believing that you will be successful. You have to have the mindset of positivity and optimism. When you start your tasks with an optimistic attitude, you bring that energy to your work.
Everything we receive in business is drawn to us by our energy. So when we’re optimistic, we draw positive things into our business. When we are pessimistic, we drop bad or negative things into our business. So focus on being positive or optimistic when you are preparing to move forward towards your goals.
- Enthusiasm
Let’s face it; the average person is not very enthusiastic about their work. But you’re not average. You want to be successful. Not just successful, but highly successful. This means you must bring a level of joyfulness and enthusiasm to everything you do.
Let me share a quick story. The Starbucks near my home has a barista named Jen, who is super high-energy. Every time I walk through the door, she yells out “Hi Trasetta” in the most joyous way. I have come to a place where I miss her when I go into the store, and she’s not working.
I look forward to my visit to Starbucks simply because she makes it a significant bright spot in my day.
When you approach your work from this perspective, you will draw people to you. People will go out of their way to do business with you or be around you simply because you make them feel good. Conversely, no one wants to be around someone who constantly draws them down or brings them down. So be enthusiastic.
- Confidence
Being confident in who you are, what you do, and what you’re selling will help you succeed in your business. When you are on sales calls or are working with clients and customers or making sales pitches, and you are unsure of yourself or feel unprepared, that shows. Just like I mentioned before, your energy will attract like energy.
So when you are confident about what you’re doing, people will feel comfortable putting their trust in you and investing in you. Conversely, if you are unsure of yourself or struggle with the imposter syndrome, you will project that energy and repel the very customers you’re trying to attract.
The best way to feel confident is to prepare. First, make sure that you have all your ducks in a row. Then, spend an appropriate amount of time preparing for your sales call, your event, or whatever it is you are doing where you’re pitching your products and services. When you are prepared, you feel confident. When you’re unprepared, your confidence is lacking. Therefore preparation is key to confidence.
- Gratitude
Approaching life and business from a place of gratitude will help you to attract more of the things that you’re grateful for. If you’re constantly focused on what you don’t have or what’s not working, you end up attracting more of those things. One of the things I consistently say is where focus goes, energy flows. Or another way to look at it is that what you focus on expands. Think of gratitude as a magnifying glass of the things that you want. The more you express gratitude for the things you have, the more of them you will attract.
For example, I started a faith garden several years ago. I planted 12 Gladiola bulbs in the front of my apartment. A couple of weeks later, 11 out of the 12 began to break through the ground, showing their growth. However, the 12th one was not coming up. At first, I waited patiently for it to break ground. After a few more weeks, I noticed it still wasn’t coming up. I wondered if I had planted it upside down or done something wrong. I got my gardening shovel in my head prepared to take it up to check when I felt an unction in my spirit to leave it alone. The spirit said, “Leave it alone. It will come up when it’s time for it to come up.”
I was so focused on the one that didn’t appear to be growing that I was missing out on the glory and splendor of the 11 that were. So approach life, business, and your work from a place of gratitude.
- Perseverance
Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint at heart. You’re going to try and fail and try and fail and try and fail again. It is only those who persevere who experience genuine success in their business and life. You can’t approach your business from a one-and-done perspective. Meaning you try it one time, and it doesn’t work out the way you expect it to, so you quit and try something different.
Think of things like a grand experiment. You try it one way, and it doesn’t work. Then take a step back and look at how things went and what you could have done differently.
- What worked?
- What didn’t work?
- Was I promoting to the right audience?
- Was it the right product for my audience?
Taking a look at the answers to these questions will help you position yourself to go back again; this is perseverance.
Keep pushing, keep going, keep doing, and don’t give up until you get the results you’re after. Yes, sometimes you do need to throw things out, but only after you’ve given yourself ample opportunities to identify you’ve done all you can to make it work.
These five mindsets foster success. It can be overwhelming to implement multiple new strategies at once. Choose one to focus on developing now. Once it becomes a habit, introduce another one. If you keep doing this, you will continue experiencing new levels of success.
Which mindset will you focus on building first?