Mindset is the Key to Believing that You Can Succeed
Step 1 of the Roadmap to Business is Confidence is called Believe You Can. This step is all about getting and keeping a mindset that supports you in believing you can succeed in business. I made it step 1 because it’s probably the single most important step you will take toward your business success. And like all the other steps, it’s not one you will ever get to mark as done.
I found out in my own journey that this step is more than just believing that you can succeed. It is more about believing that you can, will, and deserve to have the business of your dreams. It takes a belief in all three to succeed. If any one of them is missing, you will struggle. For me, the first two were fairly easy. I struggled with believing that I deserved to.
Believing that You Can Succeed
For me, believing that you can is all about believing that you have what it takes to create your business. One part of that is believing that you have the skills you need. The other part is knowing that you can get help when you need it. I will admit there are many tasks in my business that I have no desire to master. The good news is that there are plenty of people out there that will happy to do the tasks for me.
As entrepreneurs we tend to think we have to go this alone and rely on our own devices to succeed. While you probably can successfully grow your business by yourself, you don’t have to, and probably shouldn’t. Getting help with your business is only one reason to look for connections. Getting support is a bigger reason for creating connections with others.
When we first start, our circle includes friends and family that may not support our decision to create a business. Although they may support us, they may not be able to relate to what we are going through. When it comes time to ask for advice or discuss ideas we have about areas of our business, our supporters may be willing to listen, but may not be able to help us beyond that.
Creating Connections to Help You Believe
Part of working on your business will be to grow your connections. We tend to focus a large part of our time on creating connections with people who are our ideal clients. By putting ourselves out there, we will also have people who want to connect with us as their ideal client. Don’t ignore those requests. Two benefits can come from it. One, they can be a source of resources, coaching, and insight into areas of your business that you could use help with. You may not be ready for coaching, but join their group or get on their email list. You can pick up tips and tricks that can help you.
Two, they could become part of your support system. They don’t have to have the same niche or areas of expertise to be able to help you. Someone who has been in business for longer than you can have insights into the struggles you are having. Some business owners may only want to connect because they hope to do business with you. Some you may connect with on a more personal level. These are the people who could become your business besties.
Struggles and growth in business are not necessarily linear, as compared with something like child development. For example, just because you’ve been in business for a certain period of time does not mean that you’ll automatically have a specific set of issues at that time. You may run across someone who has been in business much longer than you who has never run across issues you dealt with in the early part of starting your business. Just like you might have a circle of friends at all stages of life, having a group of business besties at all stages of business growth can allow you all to draw on each other’s experiences.
Believing that you will succeed
Believing that you will have a successful business is believing that everything will work out for your business to succeed. You need to have some degree of belief before you start. It’s about believing that your offers are ones that people will buy, that there are clients out there that are willing and able to pay you, and that everything else will come together in a way that works nicely.
This is one of those situations to which Henry Ford’s quote applies – with my slight edits of [can] to [will].
“Whether you think you [will], or you think you [won’t] – you’re right.”
Your beliefs create your reality
Keep in mind that your current reality is created by your earlier beliefs. That’s one reason I feel like this part of it should be in place before you start. If we start off believing that we will be successful, we create a current reality that supports that. We find it easier to create offers that people want, we more easily connect with people who want to buy our offers, and we create business processes that work well for us and support our business growth.
When we approach our business from the point of view that we will succeed, we are more readily able to connect with resources, inspiration, and people that will help us to succeed. It takes on the snowball effect – the more successful we believe we will be, the more we gather things to us that will help in that success.
But don’t give up just because you are currently struggling with believing that you will be successful. This is why it’s important to work on your mindset daily. You can create a mindset that allows you to believe you will be successful. Even when you do get to the point of believing you will be successful, visits from the Imposter, a particularly rough day, week, or month can shake your confidence. Working on your mindset will be just as important a part of working on your business as doing marketing.
Believing that you deserve to succeed
Believing that you deserve to have a successful business delves into your self-concept – do you consider yourself worthy of having a successful business? For me, this was the hardest part of the equation of believing that I can. I am quite confident in my skills and my ability to learn and grow, so I started my business believing I can. Since I’ve had successful businesses in the past, it is easy to believe that I will have a successful business this time. Unfortunately, my self-concept has taken quite a few hits in the years since I last had a business.
When I first started my mindset journey, I wrote out my goal statement multiple times a day. My initial goal was something like, “I am so happy and grateful now that I easily and effortlessly earn $10,000/month in my business.” I understood that there would be some resistance to writing out the goal and that part of the process of changing my mindset was to develop a belief that the goal was something I could achieve. The goal was to be something we’d not ever done before. I had earned over $5000/mo in jobs I had in the past. I had earned $5000/mo in my businesses in the past. Doubling that amount seemed doable.
Creating Goals Around Mindset
Even though at one point I was writing the goal 100 times a day, doing visualization and other manifesting activities, I began to feel greater resistance to incorporating the goal into my belief systems. I looked for other types of goal statements I could use. Finally, I found one that resonated with me.
“I am so happy and grateful now that I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can, will, and deserve to easily and effortlessly earn $10,000/month in my business doing what I love and in service of others.”
This statement took the pressure off me in several ways. Since I had discovered that my lack of self-worth kept me from believing that I deserved to earn that kind of money, the goal was not as much about earning the money but believing that I deserved to succeed. That is the main area that my mindset needed adjustment. I had run spreadsheets with sales estimated and could see, conceptually, that it was possible.
I realized that I had mistaken beliefs that the business I was trying to build was not a “real business”. Because I wanted to serve others, I felt that I was bad for wanting to make money for serving others. So, it was about being worthy on several levels – worthy of the money, worthy of doing what I loved to do, and worthy of earning money while serving others.
Creating a Rocking Business Mindset
It takes believing you can, will, and deserve to succeed to create a successful business. Even with a strong belief today, struggles, doubts, and fears can knock you off balance at any time. Building a daily mindset practice helps you to remain strong when things get tough.
A strong business mindset has three parts: knowing yourself, appreciating the journey, and building a business mindset. Knowing yourself explores understanding how we think and that we are the only part of the world that we can directly control. Appreciating the journey is about working towards goals and making the most of our daily experiences. Building a business mindset is about how we build and work in our business for the benefit of ourselves and others.
We explore these three areas during the 21 days of the Rocking Business Mindset Journal. Each day of the journal contains information on the topic of the day, a checklist of daily mindset activities for you to complete, and space for you to write your goals and reflect on the journey. When you download the free journal, you’ll receive daily emails to help you build your daily mindset practice habit. When you create a Rocking Business Mindset habit you’ll have no problems believing that you can succeed.
