Motivation ABC

“Any ideas, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.”
Napoleon Hill

Whether you have years of experience in the business world or you are just starting out, the chances are that you are not making the most of the biggest resource available to you – your mind.

If your business currently brings in a modest $30,000 a year and you want to treble that, your mind is the one thing that is capable of getting you there.  The secret to growing your business successfully is to form new habits that will lead to advances in the way you think and work.

Your conscious and creative mind will come up with the purpose you seek.  In the example above, your plan is for your business to bring in $90,000 a year.  In order to achieve this, you need to keep that thought at the forefront of your mind throughout each day.  Write it in your diary and stick a note to your desk so you will see it often.  Make sure it becomes an integral part of your day, whether you are in a business frame of mind or not.

The act of repetition helps to cement a thought firmly into our minds.  This thought becomes a habit which we accept into our lives without question.  Very soon we expect this particular idea or plan to come to fruition.  In short, we believe that we will succeed and will start to think and act as if we already have succeeded, even though the success hasn’t come to us yet.

Many successful business people had this belief long before they achieved their goals.  The act of repeating these positive thoughts about their goals reinforced their focus on a daily basis and drove them towards their success.

The act of repeating an idea or plan in our own mind brings into play the power of the subconscious mind.  To the subconscious, the reality of a $90,000 a year business and the thought of achieving a $90,000 a year business are one and the same.  It cannot distinguish between them.  It will assume you already have the success you seek.

You need to make sure your repetitive thoughts are in the present tense for this to work properly.  Tell yourself you already have a successful $90,000 a year business, rather than telling yourself you want to have one.

Think about your successful goal every possible minute of the day.  This will not only place it firmly in your mind, it will also set your subconscious to work finding ways to achieve that goal.

As with any new habit, it takes time to establish the pathways in your brain that will allow you to use this thought repetition technique more easily.  But the more you use it to develop new ideas and goals for your business, the more successes you will begin to experience.

“Take chances, make mistakes.  That’s how you grow.  Pain nourishes your courage.  You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”
Mary Tyler Moore.

Whatever type of business you are in, your outlook on life will greatly influence how successful you can become.  It’s natural to want to do well and not make mistakes, but the people at the pinnacle of success in every business you can think of didn’t get there without making some errors along the way.

There are two ways to look at any mistake you make in business.  The first way is to view the error as a total disaster and vow never to try achieving that particular goal again.  The second way is to pick yourself up, accept your failure and then look at it closely to see how you could improve next time.

Many average or less than successful business people take the first way.  They take the view that they failed because they are no good at that kind of task.  But ask yourself this question – how many times did you fall off your bike when you were learning how to ride without training wheels as a kid?  Are you still riding around with training wheels on as an adult?

Of course not - because you persevered.  You experienced the pain of failure and then gathered up your courage and determined not to let it beat you.

The same is true in business.  A positive mental attitude to making mistakes in business will lead you to achieve everything you could ever want.  Of course, you shouldn’t aim to make mistakes or put in a performance that is less than you are capable of, but when you do occasionally fail there will be a lesson in that failure for you to learn from.

The biggest mistake you ever make in business – whether you are selling cars, dealing with customers on the phone, or setting up your own company in information publishing – could just be the one that gives you the knowledge to make the biggest sale of your life.  It could also lead you to realize a better way to serve your customers and grab more business in the future.  It might even be the error that leads you to publish the biggest selling book on the bookshelves a year or two from now.

It all hinges on your point of view.  Accepting that failure is a necessary part of growth as a human – and as a business person – will lead you towards all kinds of new discoveries and ways of working.  You’ll find a new confidence in your work, as the fear of making mistakes will no longer paralyze you and stop you from achieving your full potential.

The actress and comedian Mary Tyler Moore knew all about success and failure.  She used her failures to spur her on to greater success in the future.

You can do the same, and you and your business will reap the benefits.