How do you construct a "success mindset"?

There are a lot of articles on the web about the importance of a success mindset. Many of these are sprinkled with words and phrases such as “staying positive” and “determination”.

The problem I have with such terms is that they describe personality traits. I prefer, instead, to describe success mindset in more concrete terms. And so, I focus on the steps and processes that are required to achieve a success mindset, and on the elements that are clearly identifiable, and learnable.

So I’ve put together a list of my top 5—concrete—elements that I believe are key to building a healthy success mindset.

1. Know when to put yourself first

You might be surprised that I included this. After all, how many times have we heard that we should “put the customer first”? Actually, I agree with that statement too! But wait, now it sounds like I’m contradicting myself. But I’m really not.

Putting the customer first means providing a great customer experience, and that’s a necessary component of building trusting client relationships. So you definitely want that.

But sometimes you can give too much, and to your own detriment. Sometimes you can make decisions or choices that may be great for the customer, but no so good for your business. And in those cases, it may have been better for you if you had stepped back, drawn a line, and thought of yourself/your business first.

Why? Because when you run a business, you have to realize that you are running it to make money. Yes, there may be other drivers, but making money is usually the main goal. And, as the president of your own company, you sometimes have to make tough decisions that ensure the continued health of that company.

Here are just a few examples of what I mean.

·         Don’t go after clients that are not worth your time. It takes time to nurture a lead, and every minute you spend chasing a lead that is unlikely to buy from you, is one minute less that you have available to chase ones that actually may buy. Similarly, certain clients, even if they are highly likely to purchase from you, may be too difficult or timely to work with, and you are probably better off not taking them on as customers at all.

·         Charge what you are worth. Understand that you have real value to add, and your time and expertise are highly valuable. For many of my clients, I often point out that they are worth more than what they are currently charging.

·         Charge for extras. We all have times when we throw something in for free, or put in a few more hours than we had anticipated a project would need. We think it’s all part of “good customer service”. And I do think that doing this to a certain extent is good practice. But you need to be careful. It’s far too easy for those freebies and extra hours to add up to a considerable amount of lost cash. A common example involves “changes” to the work outlined in a contract. If one of my clients suddenly wants things done differently than what we had initially agreed upon, that means extra work for me, and I charge for that. I don’t say, “Sure, OK, I will make those changes”. Instead, I explain that we can certainly go that route, but it will mean extra hours and an accompanying extra fee.

And that’s what I mean by “putting yourself first”. It means drawing the line between doing everything you can for a customer (or others) and making sure your business survives and stays healthy. 

2. Learn from your mistakes

No matter who you are, you are going to make mistakes. We all do—it’s part of the learning process (and part of being human!). But it’s important to see mistakes in a healthy light: they are experiences that help you learn and grow. In fact, you NEED to learn from them, because you don’t want to be making the same mistake over and over.

So, when you find you have erred in some way, accept it, learn from it, use the information to improve, and move on. It’s important that you don’t dwell on your mistakes or let them get you down. That’s just wasted energy! Instead, channel that energy into analyzing that mistake.

·         What caused it?

·         What assumptions did you make that were in error?

·         What did you forget to do?

·         What did you do that you shouldn’t have?

And, most importantly, after a thorough analysis of your mistake, decide:

·         What will I do differently moving forward?

·         What tweaks do I need do make to improve the next time?

It’s like learning to ride a bike as a kid—each time you lost balance, you learned a little bit more about how to ride correctly.

So mistakes are really just necessary steps along the way to success. Accept that you will make them, use the opportunity to learn, and do better next time.

3. Be open to new ideas

As a self-employment mentor/coach, I frequently give advice and suggestions to my clients. And, sometimes, my ideas are met with reactions such as, “Oh, I don’t want to do it that way”, or, “I don’t think it works like that, I’m going to do this instead”. Now, if my ideas were wacky, I wouldn’t be surprised at their doubts. But clients often reject ideas that are not wacky—they are suggestions that are based on solid, tried-and-true business methods and principles.

Here’s an example.  I often coach my clients to evaluate leads, and only pursue those that have a high likelihood of buying. But many clients balk at this suggestion. They tell me they want to chase any lead, because maybe one day that lead will end up buying. But I know that’s not a good business practice.

So, why do they reject my suggestions? I think the answer is simple: we tend to evaluate new ideas in terms of what we already know, and through our own frames of reference. So, for example, if you don’t know much about the methods used by professional salespeople, you won’t necessarily see the wisdom of a standard sales technique when it is suggested, because it’s something you haven’t heard of before, and you don’t understand how it works, or why it’s important.

Think about how teenagers often believe themselves to be “adult” enough to handle whatever comes along. They don’t understand their parents’ concerns about staying out late, walking home alone, drinking and driving, etc. They evaluate their own preparedness for such things through their own young, limited lenses. Parents, on the other hand, have a much larger frame of reference, and more fully understand how easily things can go wrong.

So keep your mind open. If a new idea or suggestion sounds strange, it may just be because you don’t know enough about the topic yet to see the idea’s true value.

4. Build a Vision and Plan for Growth

Many of my clients, when they first start their own businesses, have what I consider a “minor” goal: they want to start making some money. Now, it’s a legitimate goal, but it’s very focused on the here and now, or at the very best on only the next 6 months or so.

The problem with that is that in order for your business to be successful, you have to always be planning for the next steps. Why? Because if you don’t plan for something, it probably won’t happen.

Successful business owners are constantly planning the next (better) stage of their businesses. They consider problems such as the following.

·         How will I increase profits next year? In two years? In five?

·         What new products/services will I introduce? How will I decide what those will be?

·         What new markets do I want to penetrate? What methods will I use to achieve that?

·         What level of sales do I require to bring my business to where I want it to be?

·         What new skills will I need, and how will I acquire them?

·         Who/what do I need to help me achieve all this? How do I need to grow to make it happen?

So look to the future and develop a long-term vision. Once you have this vision, create an outline of a viable pathway forward. Break that pathway (which is essentially your plan) into steps, focusing on the things you need to tackle in the immediate short term that will help you reach your longer term goals down the road.

Of course, it’s important to periodically check to make sure you are still on course and on target. And it’s normal to have to do some “course correction” from time to time, especially if problems or barriers arise (and they will!). You may have to “side-step” your pathway a bit for a while, and that’s OK, as long as you keep your eye on the end goal, and create a new, still viable pathway to get there.

(A great book on this topic is Mindset. In it, author Carol Dweck explains the difference between growth mindset and fixed mindset, and explains why focusing on the former is crucial. I particularly love her approach to learning: you want to stop thinking, “I don’t know how”, and instead think, “I don’t know how…yet”.)

5. Act with Intention

I think this element is huge. You only get one life to live, and you only have about 100 hours each week to do whatever you choose to, so make it count!

Because, let’s face it—it’s just too easy to waste hours away. How many times have you said to yourself “I was busy all day but didn’t get much done”. We’ve all been there!

But by acting with intention—purposely choosing what we will work on—we can pack way more results into our days and weeks, and propel our businesses further, faster.

Now, when I talk about acting with intention, I am really talking about two things.

1.       Deciding what’s important

One of the reasons we waste time is that we haven’t given real thought into what tasks or projects are truly important, and which ones matter less. But clearly identifying these is the key to getting things done. In my case, at the beginning of every week, I make a list of all the important things I have to accomplish over the next 7 days. And I choose the items that go on that list carefully. I also create a list of the less important things that I want to accomplish. These lists then set me up for the coming week. They help keep the important items top of mind, making it much more likely that I will actually accomplish them. (I make a similar list at the beginning of each day too!).

2.       Creating a schedule. Once I know what I want to accomplish in a week, I then create a schedule.  I slot in all of the important/crucial things first. (This includes all things that I consider highly important, including personal ones, such as exercise and relaxation, as well as business related items.) Then I slot in the somewhat lesser important items, and so on.

By creating a schedule, I accomplish two things. First, before I can slot a task in, I have to evaluate how long it will take. That, in turn, helps me determine whether or not I will, in fact, be able to complete it in the coming week. Second, by filling in most of my slots for the week, I ensure that I don’t have “open slots” in which I just dawdle, or work on things that don’t actually need to get done this week. And, because I have deliberately chosen which items I will work on, I have taken control of what happens down the road.  

The main point is this: work on things that you intentionally choose to do. By consciously deciding what you will spend your time doing, you will get more of your important stuff done each week, and will steadily propel yourself and your business forward.

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There are, of course, other elements to a success mindset that I could mention. But these five are the ones I find most important, the ones that have made the most difference in my own business, and in those of my clients.

I hope that by sharing them, I have given you some ideas about how to begin channelling your energy and thoughts in more focused ways, ways that will help you ensure your business keeps moving in the right direction.