7 Factors That Influence Your Mindset

Written by Tammy Durden

Do you realize how important mindset is to the success of your business? Mindset can determine your success or failure. You may not think your mindset affects your business but the truth of the matter is that mindset absolutely affects the fall and rise of your business. These 7 Factors influence your mindset and can be overcome with a little help to set your path to success.

We have all had those projects or clients that we just did not like but we dig into the project (hopefully not the client) and get it done. You have probably heard many say ‘Grin and bear it’ in regard to these types of things. Now imagine that 9 out of 10 of your clients were those types of clients? Would you still be as motivated to put your all into your business and complete those projects or work with those clients? Not so easy then is it? If this were true I would first recommend vetting your future clients better. As we were discussing, there are many factors that influence your mindset. In thinking about things that affect us in this way, I began creating a list. The list contained 7 factors that influence your mindset and how to overcome them to succeed.

Defining Mindset

It is always good to stop and define the word. Here is a great definition:

“A mindset is just a series of beliefs combined and our beliefs are created by repeated thoughts.”

Amanda Gore

Those beliefs and repeated thoughts come from many factors in our life. Let’s take a look at just 8 factors that influence our mindset.

7 Factors That Influence Mindset

  1. Personality
  2. Your Surroundings
  3. Interruptions
  4. Family & Friends
  5. Arguments
  6. Jealousy & Perceived Competition
  7. How We View Ourselves

1. Personality

Our personality traits show up through our mindsets. We are not our mindsets but our mindsets influence everything in our lives! And our thinking determines our mindsets. Both of which can be changed.

Amanda Gore

Our mindset can come from many influences, both from inside ourselves and from outside forces. One of those inside influences can be a person’s general personality. Many personalities lend toward a negative mindset. This does not mean that it cannot be overcome. I think it is important, however, when discussing mindset that we also mention personality.

Your personality, your inborn traits, your natural strengths and natural weaknesses make you more susceptible to adopt and develop certain mindsets. That is, some mindsets come naturally to you. Others you must work hard to develop.

Vladimir Elie

How to Overcome Some Of Our Personality* to Better Mindset…

Some personalities have a more difficult time being positive in their mindset while others naturally have a positive mindset. Rather than our personality influencing mindset what if we could control our mindset and let that influence our personality? That could probably be a test and have ground-breaking effects if a study was done on it. (haha) For now, however, it is helpful to understand yourself and your personality so that you know how to respond and not react, but mostly to train yourself (if inclined to negative thinking) to have a positive perceptive.

Our personality traits show up through our mindsets. We are not our mindsets but our mindsets influence everything in our lives! And our thinking determines our mindsets. Both of which can be changed.

“Personality traits ‘appear’ through our actions, attitudes and behaviours. At the base of all three of those is our thinking. So our ‘traits’ are not set in cement – nor were we born with all of them! Most are learned from our childhood environment, our experiences and significant adults in our lives.”

Amanda Gore

2. Your Surroundings

Where and who you surround yourself with can also affect your mindset. Making your surroundings just a backdrop and not the headline is key. Maintaining your office at the end of each workday to be clean is an important part of your process. Add in any necessary equipment to accomplish your work and no extras laying around on surfaces may help you maintain a good mindset for work. I like to also listen to music in the background.

Do you get stressed and frustrated when your home is a mess or dishes aren’t done? I can honestly tell you I do not have a perfect home – FAR From it. Being disabled does not allow me to clean my home or office anymore. Try as much as he does, my husband is just not a cleaner. He has many gifts (speaker, Pastoring, and singing, but not cleaning) All know this can really feed into my overall mindset. Which in turn affects my mindset and how I approach everything. If you choose to also surround yourself with negative people that can also affect your mindset and work outflow.

How to Overcome Your Surroundings…

Surround yourself with positive people (whether on your team or in friendships). In the office make It empowering through artwork but keep surfaces clean. If you do not you will find yourself spending too much time cleaning up the next day before you can even get started on your work. Keep it clean and surround yourself with positivity.

3. Interruptions

Interruptions are a fact of life, aren’t they? As much as we plan out our day, week, or month, life happens and we find we have to adjust. Interruptions can be very frustrating, especially for you who are ‘Type A’ personalities – like me! (haha) . I like to say that I’m a recovering perfectionist and control freak :D.

Some items on your calendar will be set in stone but others will be more playable and you should be able to reschedule, move them around, or even cancel when necessary. As frustrating as interruptions they can also be a blessing in disguise. I’ve had this happen to me many times. I’ve had my whole day interrupted by surprise visitors, sudden family needs, or my own health at times. In the end, more times than not, it was a good thing.

How to Overcome Interruptions..

Part of overcoming this mindset influence involves changing our mindset to accept interruptions and to view them as blessings rather than frustrations. I know easier said than done, right? It takes time and it doesn’t mean you can do this every time but as you slowly begin to try to get your mind to stop going down that rabbit hole of frustration and anger and bring it back around to ask, ‘where Is the blessing in this?’.

From a practical standpoint, I think you can set up some goals to help guard against interruption daily or your own mind’s wandering even. One of the ways to do this is to create goals and focus on achieving these.

Tools to Help You Stay Focused:
  1. Calendar & Using Calendar Blocking
  2. Bullet Journal and Other Journaling tool
  3. Keeping a White Board with Your Goals in Front of You

4. Family & Friends

I will be the first to tell you that Family and Friends can affect your mindset, both negatively and positively. We choose our friends but not our family, right? We often have to work extra hard when it comes to family and trying to stop negative thought processes to keep our mindset focused and where it needs to be.

How to Overcome Family & Friends Influence…

The biggest way to overcome negativity with regard to family & friends is probably not what you want to hear, but here it is = Forgiveness! Forgiveness is not easy, it is often a journey, and usually takes time. I have a lot of experience with forgiveness. From childhood hurt through to the present day pain from family and friends. Keep in mind, I’m not one that offends easily, but when someone purposely targets you it is difficult to look the other way sometimes. I only share this because I want you to know that I have been there in very difficult situations. I had to learn how to forgive.

FORGIVENESS Is for You, Not the person who hurt you!!! [Please read that again.] Take it one day at a time. My faith is a big factor in helping with forgiveness. My ‘formula’ (if I can call it that) is to pray and I literally pray this, “Lord, I know your Word says I need to forgive, so I confess it with my mouth, but my heart does not feel it and I will trust you to bring the feelings.”

Sometimes I can pray this and immediately feel different, other times I must pray daily for weeks, months, or years! It is all about the Heart!!! If you let the anger or hurt become more intense it will turn into bitterness. If your heart really wants to forgive and move forward you will. Too often we stop our minds by replaying and replaying the hurt. Try daily to make a conscious decision to let go and to forgive.

5. Arguments

Arguments certainly affect your mindset. What happens if you have an argument right before trying to close a deal, for example? Or if you have a spat with a particularly difficult client and then have to finish up a project for another client? Arguments can affect the way we walk into our next action which also affects the outcome of each step, failure, or success.

How to Succeed and Overcome Arguments…

You can overcome mindset changes (due to arguments) and still succeed by taking some of these steps.

  1. Take a 15 minute timeout – go for a walk, sit down and close your eyes and focus on something you love to do. Set a timer. We often do not realize the length of time when not viewing a watch or clock.
  2. Wait to begin the next activity (related to business) until later, when your mindset is in a better place (unless you have a hard deadline and need to push through).
  3. Talk to your business coach or an encouraging colleague or friend.
  4. Take 30 – 60 minutes to go to the gym or go for a run (or walk).
  5. Meditation or Prayer can play a huge part in your mindset and your success in business.

Forgiveness

(as discussed above)

is key to moving forward, not looking to the past, to help your mindset.

“We’re all human and make mistakes. Research tells us that society, as a whole, is angrier than the previous generation. This is primarily due to harboring unforgiveness or offense, and it can take down the mightiest of persons. Letting go of bitterness is an active choice. The mistake people make is thinking that it’s a “one and done” option. In most cases, it requires an ongoing process of actively choosing to let go and forgive.

Dr. Brian G. Brown

Any one of these can help you reset your mindset for your work at hand.

6. Jealousy & Perceived Competition

It is very easy, especially in business, to feel the perceived competition and jealously. We tend to compare ourselves to others, naturally. It’s one thing to do competitive research and yet another to try to feel we come up short of someone else. We each have our own gifts and talents to offer.

How to Overcome Perceived Competition…

Do not compare yourself to others, you are an individual, created with gifts and imperfections. None of us are perfect as much we try to be we are not. I consider myself a ‘recovering perfectionist’ – how about you? Do not get hung up on what others are doing instead focus on your goals and moving forward.

The quote, “Do not reinvent the wheel” comes to mind when discussing the competition. I say this only because it’s easy to get caught up in what others are doing and how they are doing it. Yes, we can copy certain aspects like email marketing (there are enough out there telling you how to do it), however, you cannot and should not copy your competitor’s exact work. You have a uniqueness about you and that will envelop your business.

“Shine as yourself, rather than copy others and be in their shadow.”

7. How We View Ourselves

Your personality has influenced your mindsets. But you’re not a prisoner of your current mindsets. You’re a work in progress and thus you can continue to cultivate them.

“You didn’t decide your personality. You didn’t decide your temperament, your innate attributes, your mental and emotional characteristics you were born with. However, as an adult, by the decision you make and the action you take, you can decide how you act and react. You can participate in your own “programming”.”

Vladimir Elie

How to Overcome How We View Ourselves…

“We only truly fail when we stop trying, and we’re certain to have success (eventually) if we continue to move forward. For this reason, it is vital to set goals that matter deeply to you, and to stay focused on the benefits of achieving your goal and the dangers of coming up short…”

7 Mindsets

If I can help you with your mindset or business please reach out. Thank you for reading.

www.fearlessbusinessboss.com

*Disclaimer – I understand and acknowledge that some ‘mindset’ and psychological illnesses cannot be easily ‘overcome’ and you cannot simply talk yourself out of depression or mental illnesses. This is only meant as an overall mindset help. If you experience deep sadness, depression, or other mental problems please see a professional who can help.

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