Talk
to most online entrepreneurs who have seen a great deal of success
and they’ll all tell you one thing – mindset matters. In fact,
it’s often the one
thing that can make or break your success.
Self-doubt,
worry, and other sabotaging emotions can prevent you from achieving
your goals and building a profitable brand. So you want to not only
learn about the technologies and selling strategies needed to
cultivate your success, but also develop and nurture the mental
fortitude to help you push through obstacles and attract affiliates
and customers alike.
Cleaning
Out the Self-Limiting Beliefs
Before
you can spruce up your mindset, you have to clean out the clutter.
That means getting rid of any limiting beliefs that can harm your
potential. It’s time for a clean slate. Once you have a clean
slate, you’ll either feel fully capable of your abilities as an
online entrepreneur – or you’ll gain the clarity to see that
you’re not cut out for this business.
It
may sound counter-intuitive to hear that you need to learn whether or
not you’re right for this industry, but it’s better to discover
that early on than to continue pursuing a career that keeps you mired
in pain.
What
you may not want to admit is that much of this pain you’re
experiencing as you try and fail at online marketing is
self-inflicted. Once you encounter anything bad, it tends to stick
around and taint any positive possibilities in the future.
And
most people don’t let go of stuff easily or quickly. They like to
relive it and continue the dialogue in their heads with excuses and
discussions about why something happened and what they could have
done to change it.
All
this does is keep your mindset mired in muck. It needs to be shelved
so that you can move on with a clear head and focus on what you do
want to see
happen. This “dirty surface” in your mind is filled with emotions
that aren’t helpful.
They
include things like anger, shame, guilt, frustration and confusion.
You might be mad that you got ripped off in the past, ashamed that
others are grasping things you’re not, guilt at not bringing in
enough income for your family, frustration at being overwhelmed and
so on.
Identifying
Outside Mental Distractions
It’s
not just
mental clutter related to your online marketing journey, either. If
your mind is filled with negative thoughts about your relationships,
your health, finances and other areas, then it’s also going to
burden you on a day to day basis and create an obstacle between you
and your ultimate success.
When
you’re an entrepreneur working at home, life seeps in all around
you. Even if you’re still working a 9-5 job, you know there are
days when your mind is on your worries and not on your work tasks.
It
works in reverse, too. When things are bad at work, you take it home
to your family and it taints those relationships and the potential
for creating wonderful, lasting memories.
You
must
be willing to say to yourself (because no one else matters in this
equation): “ENOUGH ALREADY! I GET IT!”
Get
fed up with the mess in your mind and give it a rest already. You’ve
spent hours, weeks, months – maybe even years
going over and over these negative emotions and it hasn’t helped,
has it?
It’s
only dragged you down further into a pit of despair and hopelessness.
So it’s time to clean up your act and try something new –
something more powerful. Something few people understand how to
accomplish.
You’ve
got to be tired of this mindset in order to rid yourself of it
completely. You may have spent most of your life cocooned in
negativity and pain, but the rest of your life is waiting for you –
and you are the sole person in charge of determining how that will
unfold.
Will
you stay stuck? Or will you finally allow yourself to break free from
the chains of misery and blame and guilt and embrace new
possibilities?
Check
Yourself for a Victim Mindset
You
honestly may be one of those people who enjoy being mired in these
emotions. You may not admit it, but day after day you have to ring
the bell and tell everyone you know about the pain you’ve gone
through, who it is you blame, what you should have done differently,
and so on.
The
victim mindset is attractive because in most cases, it removes any
blame or personal responsibility. It also elicits lots of coddling
and nurturing from your friends and family who chime in with
encouraging comments to try to protect you from your pain.
Understand
that your future is squeaky clean. It is filled with promise.
Anything you want it to be. But you have a choice to make now. Do you
walk into that future with a clean mindset and decorate your future
with everything you dreamed of?
Or
do you track in a muddied up past of pain and blame with you, so that
your future begins to look just like the past? You have the same
helplessness, the same worry and discontent, and the same problems
that have plagued you year after year.
This
is what happens if you try to adopt a new mindset without first
cleaning up the old one. You have to face the past problems and
mental poison and undo their effect on you before you usher in a new
future.
It
is not
an easy process. That’s because we want to be right and we want
people to understand our side of things. So we rehash it over and
over again – getting nowhere, but feeling a temporary bit of
satisfaction from voicing our displeasure.
The
problem is, some of the very people who you want to “get it” will
never get it
– so you only have to be responsible for your own enlightenment.
Not anyone else’s. Trying to fix other people’s mindset is a
nightmare.
There
are two issues we have to clean up. The first one is that others have
wronged you. It may have been a vendor (you paid for a product and it
didn’t fulfill your expectations), a family member (maybe they keep
taking advantage of your kindness and you’ve had it), or a
significant other (trouble brewing and you’re on the verge of a
split), for example.
Most
people harbor ill will on these issues for what is effectively a life
sentence. If you’re able to address these issues and clean your
mindset to start anew, then it’s something to be very proud of.
3
Ways to Solve Your Most Pressing Problems
You
have options to solve these problems. You can choose to forgive them.
This may or may not be what you prefer to do, and it’s fine if you
don’t want to. You might choose to set boundaries in place to
protect you in the future and then forget about it – let it go. Or
you might just shrug – acknowledge that it happened – and move
on.
The
alternative (which means hanging on to it and reopening the wound
time and time again) is to drag it with you and waste even more
time and energy on it. You’ll keep having to clean up the fallout
from it and the mess it makes in your life.
The
worst thing is, there will be no room for good
things to happen. This is the saddest thing about having a mindset
that is cluttered with past, painful damage. You can’t see anything
with potential. You’re too busy dealing with the past.
The
second issue you may have to clean up is that you wronged yourself.
Nobody else did anything to you – you yourself made mistakes. Maybe
you didn’t act right toward someone.
You’re
ashamed at how much you foolishly spent on the wrong products and
tools trying to get an online business off the ground. Or maybe it’s
how much time you invested in this career with nothing to show for
it.
Think
about what you would tell a friend if they came to you with this
problem. You’d most likely tell them to be proud of their attempts
and to stop beating themselves up and fix the problem. The only
time this should still be an issue is if you’re unwilling
to stop the bad behavior.
As
long as you’re willing to change, then you can embrace the future
with a guilt-free existence. Forgive yourself and move on to see what
your true potential in life – as an entrepreneur – is.
In
order to clean up a cluttered mindset, you need to have a plan of
action. It’s not enough to rush through and say, “Yeah, yeah, I
forgive myself – let’s move on.”
It
has to be genuine. So first, write it all down – the things that
take up space in your head. Nothing is too big or too small, but
write down the grievances you have in your mind right now. It might
look something like this:
I’ve
cut ties with a friend and I regret it.
I
keep letting a family member take advantage of me financially.
I
really hate a politician and I spend too much time ranting about
it.
I
focus on anger issues and wishful thinking like, “what if, I wish
I had…”
I
keep fuming when I come home to a messy house because nobody will
help clean.
When
you’re finished, mark each one as fixable, forgettable or
forgivable.
Then
make a plan for each issue. If you’re going to fix it – how and
when will you fix it? Will you sit down with the kids and your spouse
and tell them the messy house is wearing on you and give each person
a chore chart that begins that day?
Will
you forget it – literally shrug and be done with it and consider it
ridiculous to waste your life on, like wishful thinking that you had
3 yachts and 5 Lamborghinis like some celebrity or marketing guru?
Will
you forget about spending 8 hours a day getting riled up about
everyone else’s opinions on social issues or politics, when all
that really matters is how you yourself vote at the ballot box and
how you live your life?
Or
will you choose forgiveness – forgive yourself ceremonially and
move into a productive future? Or forgive someone else and set
boundaries in place so that you can’t allow yourself to be hurt in
the future?
Prepare
for the Change to Be Uncomfortable at First
You
have to be prepared for backlash about how you handle things, too.
Someone may not like you putting boundaries in place. They may try to
question your decision to forgive and/or forget something.
All
that matters is what you and your gut feel is right for you. The
other people aren’t living your life – you are. Don’t be swayed
by guilt or shame from others. Make your decision and be at peace and
be empowered by it.
You
have to be honest, too. You might look back on something – some
situation you reacted to – and realize that maybe you overreacted
to it – harbored a little too much ill will.
Sometimes
things will be “fixable” but it might take longer than a quick
“thought session” can accommodate. This is okay. As long as you
have (and are working) a plan for this thing, it won’t have the
same burdensome impact in your mind as it would if you were to simply
ignore it and let it fester unresolved.
Without
a plan in place, you’re making sure that you usher in the coming
weeks and months with the same mental clutter you’ve suffered from
in the past. Embrace the personal power you have to start fresh and
then make it happen.
Identifying
issues that are serving as obstacles to your future earnings is the
first step in bringing your ideas to fruition without the mental
clutter damaging your ability to succeed.
Most
people drag themselves across the finish line with all of this mental
baggage in tow, never fully realizing their potential. It’s like
finally being able to buy a brand new house, yet bringing all kinds
of clutter with you so that when you look around, it’s not quite as
amazing as it could have been.
You
want a clean slate. A fresh start. In order to be able to be creative
and focus on your online efforts, there can’t be many (or even one)
thing pulling your attention and weighing heavily on your mind.
You
need to be able to sit down and actively find ways to serve your
customers and clients fully. If they’re only getting a small
portion of what you’re capable of sharing, then you’re cheating
them out of great things and cheating yourself, too.
When
you want to shift from the mindset of a constantly failing marketer
to someone who visualizes success and implements it with ease, you
have to be able to pinpoint the elements holding you back.
But
understand that identifying them is only half the battle. If you’re
not willing and able to make changes about them, then you will
continue to sit on the sidelines as other, more dedicated marketers
do the hard work instead.
You
have it in you, if you’re willing to try. The discomfort you feel
initially being honest and making changes will subside and in fact,
strengthen your resolve as you see positive results materialize.
