Success is in your mind

by Dr Alex

Your business success starts with your positive attitude. Sometimes just by changing the way you think about things, the whole new perspective suddenly opens in front of you.

Have you ever:

• Came to a meeting on time only to get irritated by having to wait on others to arrive
   
• Got stuck in traffic on a way to an appointment and nearly blew the fuse
   
• Wondered how stupid something you have done was
     
• Thought that your skill/knowledge/ability would never be good enough
   
• Said "Why me?"

From time to time we all slip into negative thinking, but this should be an exception, not a rule. We will be looking into alternatives in a moment, but first take a moment to relax, grab pen and paper and jot down how often do you find yourself in any of the following thought patterns:

1. Black-and-white: this frame of mind sees every situation at the extreme ends of the scale. Nothing is ever in-between or gray. For example, you tried banner advertising and the response was meager, so you concluded never to do it again.
    
2. Generalizing minor mishaps: one of your customers just called to say that she was horribly disappointed with your product and indeed regretted ever being in business with you. You completely identify with her perspective and cannot believe anyone is ever again going to purchase from you.
    
3. Blowing a minor problem out of proportion: you have released a new piece of software, but there is a bug - in your mind it grows until it fills the horizon, transforming from an ant into an elephant. A variation of this is perfection - nothing is ever good unless it is 100% perfect.
    
4. Belittling success: your bold action has just saved the company, and instead of acknowledging it, you think "Anyone in my position would have done the same." Sometimes people completely negate any success. For example, day after breaking all records in selling your product, you start thinking, "This was just a lucky fluke, never to be repeated again", or "After the taxman has helped himself, there will be next-to-nothing left for me."
    
5. Jumping to conclusions: you present your case to the bank manager and asked for a loan, then conclude that his facial expression can only mean one thing - rejection.
    
6. Negative filtering: perhaps are you able to see the good side, but you focus on the bad one. For example, after a meeting, you remember the one thing that you have not addressed adequately, and you start fretting about it.
    
7. Self-righteousness: you think about your last business failure and you are sure you have done everything right, it is just that the world is too dumb to see it from your angle.
    
8. Personalizing the problems: after spending months working on a product that will change the face of the world, you find out that there are no buyers. Based on that, you start to doubt your good judgment and self-worth, thinking, "I am no good at this, and I never will be."

To my experience, developing your professionalism and the right business attitude through positive thinking is at least equally important as having great products and superior marketing. Therefore, here are the antidotes:

1. Develop cautious optimism. Wage the risks and returns carefully, make a decision and stick to it with no regrets. Do not say afterwards, "I should / should not have done it."
    
2. Measure and analyze everything. If your marketing strategy was a failure, why is it so? What can be done to improve it? What are the alternatives? Successful entrepreneurs never get it right all the time, so look at failures as learning experiences.
    
3. Focus. Do not try to be everything to everybody - no matter how hard you try, there will always be people who are dissatisfied with your product and service, or with you personally. Trying to appeal to wide and diverse markets often dilutes your product until it is tasteless to everybody. Focus on one problem, or on one segment on the market, then do all you can to provide the best solution and create most value.
    
4. Learn to say "Oh, well..." and shrug it off. This will keep you sane when others are fuming around you.
    
5. Learn to say "And yet..." and this will allow you to turn many hopeless situations to your advantage, or at least to minimize the impact of the negative.
    
6. Take a break to savour the moment and acknowledge the success.
    
7. Take a break to refresh yourself, practice relaxation methods, yoga, or meditation, and
    
8. Use preparation to develop wide tolerance to error. For example, have a book ready if your appointment is late. Have your laptop ready if others are late to show up for the business meeting. If you are running the show, you can do a lot to provide incentives to others to come on time, but this will often be out of your control.
   If this is the case, remind yourself that time is your most precious commodity and the only one we all have in very limited supply. Therefore, if your business meetings are always late and the general attitude is "Let's wait 10 more minutes for others to arrive," then perhaps they should be waiting for you rather than the other way round.

Putting it all together

Developing a positive frame of mind is a must not only for your business success, but for your personal happiness as well. Analyze your reactions to find out how often you lapse into negative thinking, then use alternative strategies to deal with the situations.