limiting beliefs
    Tom Clairmont

    Tom Clairmont

    Helping you pivot through your small business journey.

    Be Successful With A Positive Mindset

    Today, I’m going to talk a bit about how you can overcome your self-made obstacles to think more positively about yourself and achieving your goals.

    We live in a time where it’s very easy to get discouraged and think that only the wealthy can have opportunity and success. Many people even pay to hop on someone else’s path or join their community just to have hope that a positive future is possible and obtainable for them too. We even talk ourselves out of the very dream we thought up in the first place. 

    After a lifetime of difficult times you may not know just how to be positive. If not, then you have to learn how to think positively about yourself and your circumstances in order to gain success, and I want to help you achieve that.

     

    My Past Mistake

    I used to have a business in IT and half of the business was doing custom websites.  When I saw that there were a lot of people making the shift to the build it yourself website platforms I was starting to think that I would lose a lot of website business, and I did. But I did because I let it happen, because I believed web designers weren’t needed anymore. I didn’t pivot with the times and that was a big mistake.
     
    I could have been more flexible and turned my mindset around to be, ‘now that more people are using the build it yourself platform, more people will eventually need website developers and SEO work done’. I could have said, ‘now is the time for me to be a WordPress expert’, but instead I let myself feel stuck. I eventually did change, but it was a long time coming for me.
     

    Overcoming Negative Thinking

    We all have our fair share of negative thoughts about ourselves, but just because we think them doesn’t make them real. You may not know how to be positive, how to be strong and confident in yourself, or how to not be afraid of failure. Yet. Negative thinking will not produce positive results so we need to learn and teach ourselves to shift our mindset and overcome our negativity.

    Here are some common self-made obstacles I’ve seen in my clients before and how to conquer them. 


    You Think You’ll Fail…Again
    Let me be clear- just because you may have failed at something in the past does NOT make you a failure. Your past failures may have been because of something completely out of your control, not having the right resources, not putting your effort in the right places and so on. Even if you tried and quit at something before also does not make you a quitter for the rest of your life. 

    If you think you’ll fail, but want to overcome that feeling, write down a list of all the reasons why you think you’ll fail then follow them up with a detailed explanation of how you can overcome them. For example, if you constantly doubt yourself of being capable of starting a business, try filling a jar with notes of positive reinforcement to read at will or surround your work area with reassuring quotes. It’s important to give yourself support in whatever way you feel you need. Both success and failure can come from within you. Which one are you going to let win? 


    You Feel You’re Not Smart Enough
    The concept of being ‘smart’ is subjective. You may not think you’re smart in a topic, but someone else could think you are. There are so many different types of intelligence or ‘smart’: book smart, emotionally intelligent, interpersonal skill, logically smart, musically intelligent. For all of these there is no exact measurement or test to determine if you’re smart or not. 

    Also, lack of education does not mean you don’t have the knowledge on how to start a business. If you’ve been working in a similar field you want your own business to be but never went to college, doesn’t mean you don’t know what it takes to run your very own. Take the time to write down all your knowledge and thoughts on the industry. You may surprise yourself and figure out you know more than you thought you did. 

    If you need help expanding your knowledge in certain areas of the industry, or even learning about a new industry entirely, there are plenty of free websites, blogs, articles that you can learn from. Online certificates are also a great route. They can give you the information you need without the college price tag and time commitment. 


    You Don’t Have the Time
    Busy schedules can be tough to adjust to fit in something new. If starting a business is something you absolutely want to do, then something in your schedule will have to give. Now remember that’s not a bad thing! You’re not taking something away from your life and leaving it at that. You’re adding something very important to you. Working on your business plan, customer demographic etc. before you start your day, on lunch breaks and after dinner time may not be ideal, but it’s important. If you don’t make the time now, then when? Push through to produce results while also not spreading yourself too thin. Find a good balanced schedule that works for you.

    You Think It’s Too Late
    Can I borrow your copy of life’s rulebook? I seemed to have misplaced mine. Wait- there isn’t one! Remember that! There is no rule or set end date that says you can’t start a business whenever you want. If you have the will power and drive, like I know you do, then you can absolutely start a business at any point in your life.


    Final Encouraging Message to You

    So if you’re considering a later in life pivot, or if you’re in the middle of one now, don’t be discouraged thinking that the best years are in the past. Believe that the best years are coming and that this year will be the best one yet. My best dream came to me after I was 50 years old, after my lowest point in life. But then I started looking up, I started to hope again. I saw smaller milestones come and go and felt my hope turn into confidence that bigger things were, in fact, possible.
     

    I believe that our biggest obstacle is ourselves. We need to break out of our own mental jail cell and rip the door off so we don’ t get trapped in there again. 

    My blog and podcast are about taking your idea, your dream, of starting a business and helping you turn it into a reality. With my help, the road to your businesses opening day can seem less like a dream and more like a reality.

    So stay encouraged, be positive, follow your dreams and don’t give up!

    “You've reached a true decision when the pain of not taking action becomes greater than the pain of acting.”

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    For more tips, tools and motivation to help you on your online, small business journey, sign up for the weekly emails HERE. Learn from my successes as well as my mistakes that will hopefully give you clarity and a strategy as you plan your new small business launch. 

    If you’d like some help in turning your dream of having an online business into a reality, click on the ‘Get Coaching’ button below. 

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