You may have heard of the Pareto Principle, better known as the 80/20 rule. This principle states that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. Well, the same principle applies to success in business and life: 80% is mindset—what’s going on inside your head—and 20% is strategy.
Having spent two decades coaching and mentoring business owners, leaders, and entrepreneurs, I’ve seen first-hand how the logical side of leading and growing a business (20% strategy) —planning, numbers, actions—goes hand-in-hand with a winning mindset (80%) —resilience, self-awareness, self-discipline, determination.
One without the other doesn’t work, and often, one of the biggest inhibitors to your success is your own limiting beliefs. It’s the internalised beliefs that prevent you from setting your bar as high as you can go. And what if you learned that challenging your limiting beliefs will very often cause them to crumble, which will open opportunities for you?
6 mindset traps stunting your business growth today and how to reframe your mindset and turn off those limiting beliefs
Mindset trap #1 – I’m too busy
You set up your business to create more life, freedom, and choices for yourself. But the reality is that you have less life, less freedom and fewer choices. Instead of room to breathe, you feel imprisoned and constrained in your own business, working for an insane, over-demanding and unrealistic boss. You!
‘There is too much to do and too little time to do’.
‘All roads lead to me’.
‘I’m the problem solver, strategic thinker and implementer’.
Sound familiar?
Remember, we can all be busy, but being productive, now that’s something else.
You should focus on what you can do to create the stretch and growth potential for your people and business. Yes, you’ll have oversight and a contributory role in other areas, but your primary focus should be on the high-value activities which allow you to realise the potential of your business and yourself. To achieve this, ask yourself what is truly worthy of your time.
If you find you’re spending more time on daily tactical tasks and activities than you should, then now is the time to change because if you don’t, nobody else will.
Mindset trap #2 – My business is different
Great, I’m glad it is!
Your differentiation is your product, service, proposition, or customer experience. However, business growth is fundamentally the same regardless of industry, sector, business type, or whether you’re in a B2B or B2C environment.
Sales – costs=Profit
People = output
Customers=why we exist
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your business growth journey is different because of ‘xyz’. The difference is you and your mindset and how you think about growth.
A shift in outlook can help for two reasons: it prompts new ideas and is free. An easy shift or reframing of your mindset is to consider today as the first trading day of your business or your first day as its leader. What do you see? What would you change and improve?
It’s so easy to default to comfort zone thinking, which results in statements like, ‘It worked in the past, so why change?’ or ‘This is the way we’ve always done it’. It might be until someone comes along and does it differently. And for that reason, those types of statements can get you in trouble as the market, consumer trends, and competitors are moving forward around you.
Mindset trap #3 – My business has hit a ceiling
While I focus a lot on the perspective of growing a business, the leader’s growth is equally important.
Businesses don’t grow on their own; leaders grow businesses.
Sometimes, the leader needs to grow more quickly in business to take the company to its next level. This could be due to a lack of skills, knowledge, experience, tunnel vision, being set in their ways about how things are done, or holding several limiting beliefs that stop them from moving forward—or a combination of these.
When a business hits a ceiling, the leader’s personal growth is usually a significant factor, as the ceiling that’s been hit is actually that of its leader.
There needs to be more than skills and tools to win. Your growth mindset makes the difference, which enables you to make the most of them. The key to success and failure is that you become what you think about. Your mindset, although incredibly powerful, does not care what you think, whether success or failure, a concrete, worthwhile goal or confusion, misunderstanding, fear or anxiety. It’s all the same to the human mind, which is happy to manifest either in abundance simply following your free will and the programme you choose to run.
Are you thinking 6ft thoughts or 100ft thoughts?
Mindset trap #4 – I’m not motivated.
Motivation is a personal choice that comes from within, so only you’ll know why you’re not feeling motivated.
Have you lost connection with your why?
Are you playing to your strengths?
Are you doing something you love/enjoy?
What does success mean to you personally and professionally?
These soul-searching questions will help you dig deep to uncover why you’re not feeling motivated.
Many individuals who feel unmotivated have usually lost connection with their WHY, either because it’s been suppressed by the number of things to do or the challenges they face.
Reconnect with your WHY.
When you can answer not just WHAT you do but elaborate on WHY you do what you do, you’ll start to feel that rush of excitement, passion, and deep-rooted emotional connection all over again.
Mindset trap #5 – I don’t know where to start.
Often, we don’t start something because we can’t wrap our minds around the whole thing. We fail to take the first step because we haven’t quite figured out the tenth or twentieth step. But usually, you don’t need to know the tenth or twentieth step; you only need to know the first step.
The first step to taking action is where you start. What’s the first step you can take today?
Certainty, predictability, and ‘no surprises’ are critical measures of success, so with this in mind, know your current state of reality. By this, I mean your current, up-to-date numbers: sales, revenue, and profit—your key measures. Sales are the lifeblood of any business, and the direct correlation between sales and revenue means there are no hiding places. Numbers don’t lie; they paint a real-time picture of reality, so an essential first step is understanding where your business is today to help you start planning where you want to get to.
Mindset trap #6 – Whatever I do, it doesn’t work.
Desire and persistence are the only two differences between the successful and the unsuccessful. To ‘Fail’ is the ‘First Attempt In Learning’. Change your viewpoint, and you change the game.
Consistency of ACTION and consistency over TIME create discipline—the critical difference between high-performing and mediocre organisations and individuals.
I’ve seen many businesses achieve accelerated growth, but delivering sustained growth requires a whole new set of leadership skills. It demands focus, rigour, boundless energy, commitment, and resilience.
But most of all, it requires consistency and discipline. This consistency reinforces your discipline, creating a positive feedback loop to help you become more effective and achieve your goals.
Our mindset is a powerful force. Be prepared to challenge your own beliefs. Be brave. You may fail, but as long as you learn from that lesson, you will be a step closer to success.
