What is mindset? 

Business leaders are all over the internet talking about mindset. But what is it and why is it important to cultivate a strong and positive mindset in business? 

Mindset is a way of thinking, a foundation of emotion and thought that structures how you react, how you create, and how you move forward through both success and adversity. Mindset helps cushion blows. Mindset attracts followers. Mindset prepares you for failure and helps develop your processes. Mindset tells the universe what you want and how you want it. Mindset tells your team members about your expectations and what success looks like for you. Mindset is both a goal and a way of being. It positions your waking brain for thought and reason and decision-making, and it positions your heart for gratitude, being resilient, and finding your purpose. 

Challenging your mindset on a regular basis can be healthy because we all fall into patterns that don’t work for us anymore, and we can unconsciously get stuck. Actively working to improve mindset will help you overcome assumptions about others and about yourself, or about the way the world works. It will help you transform your outlook on life leading to healthy relationships. Improving your mindset can lead you to a place where you can think positively, overcome inner objections, squelch the fires of doubt, and embrace abundance.

Whether you have actively and purposefully cultivated a mindset or not, you have one. We all do. We all have a way of looking at the world and of judging ourselves and others. Of expecting certain outcomes and anticipating certain consequences. Especially if you’ve been in a rut, or if you are starting new work, evaluating your mindset can be extremely helpful to overcome biases and start fresh.

Mindset can be a powerful tool. In my Selle Entrepreneur business courses, I like to provide my students with tools for their toolboxes, from hard skills to use every day on the job to loftier ideas that support emotional, spiritual, or professional growth. Mindset can be “set,” meaning it can be firm and concrete and we stick with it because we are used to it. But it can also be fluid and mutable and changed, so if you find yourself sitting with fear, or anxiety, or pessimism, or not-enough-ness, modifying your mindset is the key place to start to feel better, stronger, and prepared.

Challenging & Changing Your Mindset

You can change your mindset in a number of ways. For instance, morning and evening routines where you think or speak aloud certain words can be affirming and can re-signal your brain to think differently. It may feel artificial at first, but our brains don’t know the difference between something organic and something scripted. If you say it, your brain believes it. What you repeat over and over becomes what your brain latches onto (for better or for worse), so repeating positive and uplifting words can make a huge impact on your state of mind. 

Posting visual notes with key words where you see them regularly (on the refrigerator, on your laptop, in your car) can help your brain restructure old thinking patterns with new and better ones. Listening to a positive podcast or audio book can help with auditory conditioning. And of course, using positive self-talk will go a long way in communicating your value to yourself so that you can practice communicating it to others, as you will need to do in a wide variety of situations.

When cultivating a mindset for a thriving business journey, think about your own professional mindset and the mindset of your team. Success mindset for CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs is vital so that you can communicate the value and worth of your contributions, build a strong company culture, identify and prioritize what’s important, and ultimately be the strongest professional you can be, whether you work for yourself or someone else. How can you rewire your thought patterns to work to your advantage? You want to succeed in your business journey, and you also want to ENJOY it.

After all, how we think is how we live, minute by minute, and year by year. A healthy and vibrant mindset will take you further in your life and career than anything else.