The power of mindset in business

Starting and growing your own business takes a special kind of person and key to success is having the right mindset. In today’s fast-changing environment, that mindset is even more important as you set challenging goals and stretch targets for your business.

It’s clear that in the maelstrom of building a business, your mindset is crucial. But defining a ‘business mindset’ is not so easy – it means different things to different people. For some it is about the research and reflection that helps you make better and informed decisions. For others it is about seeing opportunities where others see challenges, or being agile and flexible to respond to the needs of your business. Focusing on your goal is important but so is being aware of your wider environment and adapting to that.

Having a clear vision for your business is not enough, you need to have a big vision that terrifies you. If your vision doesn’t scare you then it’s not big enough and you need to think again. But having the vision is also not enough, you need to take action consistently, and keep pushing, because you are bound to face challenges and obstacles that throw you off track.

That vision needs to be combined with the pursuit of excellence. That doesn’t mean perfection, it means consistently striving to do the best you can in all aspects of your business.

So much of business is about the head – making those informed decisions – but particularly in the early days you need to draw on the passion that led you to starting the business in the first place. If your decision to start a business is based on more than just logic and is driven by emotive words, such as ‘I’m excited, curious, concerned’, then you’re going to be better placed to keep going when times get tough. It’s about knowing your why and using that to help you bounce back when things don’t go your way.

Being prepared to take risks and act without fear is part and parcel of being an entrepreneur. But being fearless is not just about taking brave decisions, it’s also about being prepared to let go and let other people take responsibility for important parts of the business.

Fear can be a blocker and stop you from grasping opportunities as they arise. It’s also self-limiting. Often what stops you from achieving your goals isn’t external factors or what other people say, it’s your own perception of what you can and can’t do. So ask yourself ‘is that goal really out of reach, or am I limiting myself?’

Connected to the idea of being fearless is having confidence in your own decisions and being able to filter the opinions and advice from the people around you. Opinions are important and are given with the best of intentions but not every opinion is valuable for you so you need to understand quickly when information is relevant to what you are trying to achieve. You can’t allow what people think you can achieve to be the definition of or limitation to what you can achieve in reality.

Passion and mindset are important but they need to be combined with the right structure and foundations. Your vision will tell you where you want the business to go but the systems, processes and support will help you get there. You need to ask yourself, if you walked away from the business for a month would it keep going without you?

As you grow your business finding people that share your vision and your mindset can be tough. Anyone can tell you in an interview that they’ve got a great business mindset but they need to demonstrate that. Getting them to reflect on how they’ve overcome a challenge, the processes they went through, the lessons they learned, and how they would do things differently, can give you a good picture of their mindset and whether it aligns with yours.

You need people that will work towards the same goal as you but not necessarily in the same way. Embrace variety and encourage controversy because that can help inspire the innovation that will take your business forward.