It is safe to say that by the time flowers start blooming and April is in full swing, you’ve probably heard the phrase “spring cleaning” at least once or twice. Why do we typically clean our houses in spring? Believe it or not, the history of spring cleaning dates back decades and has various origins based on the culture.
Researchers trace the origin of spring cleaning back to a multitude of places. For example, different religions had spiritual reasons for choosing to thoroughly clean in the spring. In North America and Europe, prior to the advent of the vacuum cleaner, March and April were the best times for dusting because it was getting warm enough to open the windows and doors, yet not warm enough for insects to be a problem. High winds were also able to carry dirt out of the house.
Regardless of spring cleaning’s ancestry, people today still choose to carry out the practice in a variety of ways. Some use it as an excuse to get the whole family involved in one giant cleaning frenzy, while others choose to just reorganize certain aspects of the home. However, what if you took spring cleaning a little less literally, and instead used this time to spring clean your mindset?
How Do I Spring Clean My Business Mindset?
The cold winter months can easily take their toll on people, causing them to lose momentum and motivation. As an entrepreneur, the importance of motivation and productivity cannot be understated. You are your own boss, which has its perks, but can be detrimental if you forget to push yourself.
Even if your business is doing well, spring is the perfect time to look at it – and yourself – as a whole; see where things need to be reorganized and re-prioritized. If you are on the other end of the spectrum and you’ve been wanting to start your own business for awhile, the following steps will still apply. There will always be an excuse for not wanting to give your mindset a facelift.
Makeover Your Business Mindset
The most essential quality an entrepreneur must possess to make it in the business world is a business mindset. A successful entrepreneur’s biggest strength is his or her ability to manage time effectively and efficiently, which is essentially the after-product of a business mindset.
If you are performing the same tasks on a regular basis, you’ve got to make a change. As an entrepreneur with a business mindset, you should only have to do something once or twice – maybe three times – before you figure out a way to replace yourself with the right system. Learn how to maximize the strength of others to benefit yourself and your business. Create a system or a process that will allow you to move up the ladder as time go goes by. Communicate your vision and share your results so that you stay focused and avoid distracting fads. Above all else, stay away from any kind of negativity, whether it be friends, family, or coworkers.
Set Goals
A sad reality is that only 20 percent of people set goals. Even sadder, of that 20 percent, 70 percent fail to achieve their goals. The good news is that you don’t need to be a part of those bleak statistics if you learn the right way to map your goals. Than Merrill, FortuneBuilders’ CEO, asserts that “goal setting, if done the wrong way, can be just as detrimental as not setting any goals at all,” which is why 70 percent of people who set goals are unsuccessful.
The key is to set optimistic, yet realistic goals. Your goals should be hard enough so that you can’t accomplish them effortlessly, but are still within the realm of possibility to attain. A tip Merrill gives his students is to sit comfortably in that 80/20 space. You should be able to accomplish about 80 percent of the goals you set while letting the other 20 percent drive you to keep pushing forward.
It is important to remember that goal setting isn’t just for your business: when mapping and tracking your goals, you should compartmentalize them so that you are always clear on where your business mindset stands. There are physical, emotional, intellectual, material, professional, financial, creative, romantic, and friends and family related goals. If you consistently create goals in every area of your life, you will continue to grow. If you start to feel down on yourself or you are not accomplishing as many goals as you hoped, take the time to think about and write down all of your success – and more importantly -the reasons for why you succeeded. Take a look at what helped you thrive in certain areas and try to apply those same actions to a goal you are struggling with.
Learn From Your Failures
Let me give you a very good piece of advice for anyone looking to start or expand their business; a lot of people are unsuccessful in business because they never take the time to learn from their failures. A large percentage of individuals who attempt to start a business give up and run in the other direction after they’ve failed at something once or twice. But here’s a little secret: you WILL fail at one point or another. So it is absolutely vital that you learn how to embrace failure.
Say you invest in your first property, perform all of the necessary steps to rehab the property, but end up losing money on the deal. Instead of swearing off rehabbing forever, analyze what you did well and where you went wrong, and implement what you learned in your next deal. When you take the time to learn from your mistakes, it is easy to turn your fails into wins.
Ultimately, spring is an excuse to go back to your roots and change what isn’t working. Spring cleaning your home is good too, but spring cleaning your business mindset will help your business grow for years to come.
