By CHINKEE TAN
ARE you planning to start a business? Are you an entrepreneur and operating an existing business?
In all things, mindsets matter, especially in business. Whether you’re a CEO, a newly-hired employee, or an aspiring entrepreneur, if you fail to focus on the correct mindset, then there’s a great chance of making bad business decisions.
The kind of mindset you have will greatly affect the way you handle your startup and it will ultimately pave the way for its success or failure.
Most of the time, what gets in the way are our thoughts and emotions.
A classic example is how students perceive math as a difficult subject in school even before actually learning it and the result is: The preconceived idea that it is difficult now blocks the learning they’re supposed to get as the teacher explains a mathematical equation. In short, their minds close and limit the learning process.
But then there’s always the choice to not let emotions get the better of us. We only need to stay focused on what matters by drawing the line between emotion and reason.
Why am I telling you these things? It is because learning to separate emotions from reason will likewise help in developing mindsets which will affect the way we handle our startup business.
Here are three ways that can help develop correct mindsets:
- Developing a habit of consistency
If you want to be great at something, you need two things: Consistency and effort. You know how they say “practice makes perfect” and how many successful entrepreneurs rephrased it as “consistent and correct practice makes perfect,” it actually makes sense, doesn’t it?
We need to do the work if we want to be great at it and we also need to do it consistently. For health buffs, they’d tell you that muscles don’t just build by themselves, they need to be worked on, not only pushups and gym time when you feel like doing it but consistent pushups and gym time even on days when you don’t feel like getting out of bed. Consistency is the key.
It’s the same thing when it comes to our startup. Leading a team in our business will also require consistency, we don’t get better at communicating with our team if we don’t practice it consistently. When we develop a habit through consistency, we also develop the mindset of constant improvement.
- Learning the art of clarifying concepts
In order to have the correct mindset, you first need to identify what it is that you want. If you don’t have a clear picture of what winning looks like, you will never come to realize whether or not you’re on the right path.
Here are a few examples that we mostly encounter during startups:
- As would-be entrepreneurs, we strive to be more disciplined and focused. It is imperative that we clarify what discipline and focus means. Clarity results to two things: Meaning and guidance.
When we are clear about what we want to achieve in our business, we give meaning to it. At the same time, it guides us to focus on the things we can do to achieve those that we strive for.
- Leadership: Something that we want to be good at especially when running a business. We need to get clear on what good leadership looks like. When we know how it’s supposed to look like, we can identify the things we are doing correctly as well as those which need adjustments.
Learning to clarify concepts will help create the correct and clear mindsets.
- Suspending judgment to complete tasks
Successful people, most specifically in the business world, have the mindset of getting things done. That’s why we often see them as the early birds, the productive ones and the busy people because they value time by making it productive.
We don’t have to like everything that we do, we just really have to do it. And if we want to really create an impact to our startup, we need to learn to suspend judgment.
When we do this, we let go of any emotional attachment we make with that judgment. In short, when we take out judgment from the equation, we are just left with two choices: To act or not to act.
Isn’t it easier if we are just left with two choices (to act or not to act) when it boils down to dealing with business matters? Improving on product quality, to act or not to act? Giving a go signal to that marketing strategy, to act or not to act? See what I mean?
When we learn to suspend judgment to complete tasks, we give way to a more healthy mindset that can benefit our startup.
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If you want to learn more on how to start or grow your business, join me in a special FB Live session tomorrow night from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. For more info, visit chinkeetan/com/juannegosyante.
