3 Mindset Mistakes In My First Three Years of Business
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This is an exciting post, because it is going to be a more vulnerable one where I will be talking about the previous three years of my business. For me this isn’t easy to do. Personally, for me, it is never easy to think about areas where I need to grow. But…
If we are going to be excellent entrepreneurs who leave legacies, we have to shore up those places where we are still weak or rough around the edges.
I want to tell you what I feel are my 3 biggest mistakes in the last 3 years of my business. If you can relate to this, then please let me know. You are not alone. In the first few years of my business I felt lost and lone, even though I knew I was smart, and I could do this. If that is you, know that you can do this. You are a smart person. So, Let’s dive right in to this!
What it all boiled down to was mindset issues. There were three specific ones that I didn’t even know I had as mindset issues when I began the journey.
Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS)
The very first one I have now learned to call ‘shiny object syndrome’, which is this thing where you are going down this path and see someone doing something really well, you try to throw that into what you are doing. While it is okay to get inspiration from other people, shiny object syndrome is essentially dropping something that you are doing really well and going after what someone else is doing well.
That was one of the places where I struggled a lot, because I really admired what all these women were doing in business. I wanted to be able to support people doing x thing. My first year of business I struggles with that and had to identify that as a mindset issue.
2. Scarcity Mindset
My second year in business, man oh man, did I have scarcity mindset. The thing about scarcity mindset is that you believe that there is not enough time to go around, enough money to go around, whatever it may be. For me, I had lots of time, and believed that I could do everything by myself. I wanted to be a solopreneur. I got clients, but I did not get very far. and I got burned out. Which leads me to my third hustle mindset issue.
3. Hustle Mindset
When I am talking about hustle mindset, I am not talking about working hard. I know that you are working hard. I know that I am a hard worker, and it is hard for me to set things down sometimes. Essentially, What I am saying is it is a point of desperation of trying to get to the next client. You are just hustling to the next thing, if I can just grow my list to 100, if I can just grow my Facebook list to 300, if I can just get my next client, and just hustling to that next thing. While I am all for taking actions that build things and build momentum. Hustle leaves us drained, and it can burn us out. What I prefer to lean into is persistence and consistency.
If you are struggling with any of these mindset traps, here is how you can overcome them. With SOS, I want you to declare objective truth, which means it is not subjective truth, it is not my truth or your truth, it is objective. How you do this is by taking personality tests, and start declaring objective truths about your personality. One of my favorites is Strength Finders 2.0, it is only $13 on Amazon, and you get a code to take a test that identifies your strengths. It enables you to avoid SOS by knowing what your strengths are. Then you can do what you were created and called to do. It is okay to emulate and admire what people who do things well, but ultimately you want people to emulate you.
Abundance mindset: Spreading money, makes money.
I can’t remember who said it, but “money is like manure, if you keep it in a large pile, it stinks. If you spread it around, it grows things.” If you want your business to grow, then you need to spread the money around in your business. Even if you do not have very much that you are starting with right now, that is okay. Do what you can with what you have. Don’t be afraid to invest, because you are always going to learn things. If you are struggling with copyrighting, hire someone to mentor you or do copyrighting for you. Even if it is only for one month.
As an entrepreneur you have to get things done. When you need the support, sell an old table lamp on marketplace or dog sit for a neighbor or maybe do someone’s makeup for a wedding over the weekend. These aren’t things you are doing all the time, they are little boosts in your business for actions that have a profitable return on that investment of time. Profitable ROI is what that is called. Get the support you need and find solutions. For every challenge there are solutions.
Lastly, for the hustle mindset mistake I had to make a choice about how I wanted to live my life, leave my legacy, and how I wanted people to remember me. People started saying to me, “Brittney I would love to hang out with you but I know you are busy and didn’t want to bother you.” “Brittney, I wanted to call you about something, but I know you are busy and didn’t want to interrupt your day with clients.” And that really started to eat at me, and I didn’t like it. So, I stopped being “busy”. What being “busy” meant was hustling and being stuck in the hustle mindset.
To overcome this, I got a plan, stuck to it, and began trusting the process.
Hustling doesn’t mean that I do not work hard. Stopping the hustle doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to show up or serve clients well. Man, does that experience feel less draining. It is less fear based and more hook based. That is something I need more of and Imagine you need more of, because we are all humans.
There are still times where I go, “Oh she does that so well,” or, “he does that so well! I would love to be able to do that!” Shiny Object Syndrome doesn’t mean that it never happens to you, it is mastering what you do with that admiration. It means you choose what to do with that by picking little things that you like, such as wording or just little things.
For the scarcity mindset, it means pushing yourself to invest in something even though it is scary. Having courage to take a risk, even though all you may get out of it is a lesson learned.
To this day I struggle with hustle and setting things down for the next thing, because I love what I do. I love working with women and seeing the light bulb go off in their head, seeing their dreams become a reality, and seeing them excited because now they have hope and a plan. I get caught up in the emotions of it and in getting excited with my clients.
Those are my 3 mindset mistakes in the first 3 years of my business. Man, it has been a journey. I would love to hear from you about which one of these you struggle with. I know we all struggle with these, but in this season, what is it that you need to work on? Is it shiny object syndrome. Scarcity mindset, or hustle mindset? I would love to support you as you make these shifts and changes. I would love to know where are you and to help you get through that season.
Mindset is so important to this business journey that I created a 5 day workshop for free to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes I do.
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