Tell me – have you ever heard someone successful tell you their overnight success took several years in the making?
This doesn’t quite play into our desires or expectations of instant gratification does it!
The line from here to success is never straight, no matter what your endeavour. And it rarely happens overnight!
But with a winning mindset, we can stay strong, stay motivated, keep the momentum up and keep going.
Lose the negative mindset…
It’s tough to stay the course and not become discouraged or disillusioned. Especially when achieving your goals takes longer than you expected, or when something goes wrong along the way!
Unfortunately, when you operate from a mindset of fear or anxiety or stress or negativity, then things really don’t work.
If you’re putting that kind of energy out into the world, what do you expect to get back?
Your best customers and your audience aren’t going to be inspired by or respond to this kind of energy.
When you’re stressed or anxious about sales, you can be tempted to put out some rash, un-thought-through promotions like deep discounts or use pushy sales tactics.
Whilst this may get you some short-term results, all you’re doing here is attracting the kind of customer who is desperate to buy at the cheapest price possible.
Not to mention you’ll probably burn out your email list or your social media audience very quickly if you repeat this strategy too often!
Bottom line – you’ll never grow a thriving community of customers or raving fans like this.
What is a ‘winning business mindset’?
I define a ‘winning business mindset’ as – the ability to focus on growth towards achieving your vision AND have the resilience, energy and resourcefulness to manage the inevitable challenges you’ll face along the way.
So how on earth do you do this? How do you develop and maintain a winning mindset in your business?
A tale of two mountain climbers…
This tale of two mountain climbers is an excellent illustration of exactly what we need to do on a daily basis to develop and maintain a winning business mindset.
Two men trained for months in preparation for an attempt to climb one of the world’s tallest mountains. Physically, both men were equally fit and strong for the task.
The climb would be tough – several days of climbing, carrying their gear and sleeping in tents.
In the end, one climber made it to the top and the other climber quit three quarters of the way to the top. Despite being so close to the pinnacle, he turned around and didn’t finish the climb.
Why? Despite being equally physically up for the challenge, why did one make it and one quit?
Nurture your winning mindset with this one daily practice
After the climb, neuroscientists studied the climbers in an effort to understand why one was successful and the other wasn’t.
Ultimately, they found this:
At the end of every day, the climber who ended up quitting would stop and look up at how much further he had to go.
He was already feeling physically tired, sore and hungry from the day’s efforts. By looking at how much further he had to go, he felt even more tired, discouraged and like it was just such hard work that he would never make it.
At the end of every day, the climber who reached the top would stop and look at the view and down at his progress.
He was also physically tired, sore and hungry from the day’s efforts. But by looking out at the amazing view, and down at how far he’d come so far, he felt re-energised and positive about his achievements.
Even when he then turned to look at how much further he had to go, his positive feelings buoyed him up and encouraged his belief in himself!
Review your progress first, before looking ahead
The lesson from this story is this: at the end of each day, review your progress and focus on your wins FIRST.
Then, you can look forward at what you need to do next!
Use my FREE Action Planner
To help you to review and monitor your progress AND to plan ahead to achieve your goals, download my FREE Marketing Action Planner.
