MANAGE YOUR MINDSET:
WITH THE RIGHT MINDSET ANYTHING SEEMS POSSIBLE; WITH THE WRONG ONE, NOTHING DOES.
Your mindset can be described / defined as the attitudes, patterns of thought, and areas of focus that receive most of your attention and that reflect your default approach to looking at situations. Generally speaking one mindset is not necessarily better than another, rather they are more or less helpful in one situation or another. Additionally a person can have more than one mindset depending on the nature of the activity or issues they are addressing. Someone can have a closed or suspicious mindset when dealing with one set of issues, like contract negotiations, while having an open and inquisitive mindset when dealing with others, like refining new product designs.
The determining factors for how mindsets get set are:
1. Your own prior experiences.
2. What you believes to be true or false
3. What you believe to be possible or impossible
These factors are not directly driven by facts, figures, or outside input; they are driven by your beliefs and experiences. These factors can be managed, and by managing them you can change your mindset; you are in charge of how you think. This means you can look at a situation, analyze the data, and have a mindset that defies the data. Don't ignore data, but don't let temporary situation dictate your attitude either.
YOUR MINDSET WILL INEVITABLY IMPACT YOUR DECISIONS, LET IT WORK IN YOUR FAVOR.
Everyone has filters through which they look at the world, make decisions, and analyze data; some people develop those filters intentionally, and others let outside influences build their filters for them. If you want to run your business in line with a set of values, goals, or priorities you can increase your alignment with those priorities by deciding ahead of time what tests or checks each decision has to pass before you implement a course of action (or inaction).
If high profits are the priority you can pre-decide that you won't take a course of action unless it meets certain profitability criteria. If having your family involved with your business is super-important to you, you can set standards around making sure you always find a job for family members.
Whatever your priorities are, being intentional about setting standards will help you stay on track when seemingly equally good or bad options exist. If you don't pre-set your criteria then you are leaving each decision open to how committed you feel to a priority when decision-day comes. The more successful you become the more decisions you will make at an increasing frequency; without set standards it gets easier & easier to miss the mark and drift away from your priorities.
SET YOUR PRIORITIES AND STICK WITH THEM
Make it specific & personal
When challenges come and difficult decisions need to be made, you will benefit from having a specific standard to measure your decisions against. If you let yourself have a vague standard you are more likely to find a way to choose a more comfortable option instead of what may be closer to the priorities you have committed to.
If it's not personal you won't feel it when you are about to compromise. It will just be an intellectual choice and it is easy to justify changing a position.
Make it bigger than yourself
When you are committed to a purpose bigger than yourself you can tap into a different level of fortitude and resiliency. Most entrepreneurs have moments when they are ready to quit, when the frustration and exhaustion adds up and they just don't want to do it anymore. When those moments come having a reason to keep going that is bigger than yourself can make the different between a down day, and your last day.
When your last day in the business comes that's OK, but if you let frustration push you out early you will regret it later.
Make it impossible to do alone
You can have a purpose bigger than yourself and still get stuck in isolation. Thinking you are all alone is one of the biggest enemies of progress, and it's seldom true. Having a purpose & priorities that require others to be involved insulates you from choices that go against your priorities because you will have to explain it to someone else who is working towards similar goals.
Working together can help both parties be more efficient and have more fun. Choose your partners well and go do it.