Building a New Mindset Is a Habit
We’ve talked a lot recently about professionalism and good work. We provided value as a way to help you evolve even more in your work and in your client relationships. However, you will only start to perceive a change in your business, and in your life, once you develop a new mindset. Mindset is related to the way you think. It’s where you set your mind. What makes someone a successful designer or entrepreneur is related with the way they align their mind. A new mindset is a habit. Most of the times it will contradict the “common knowledge” and can sound risky for most people. But the importance of developing a New Mindset is equally related to your future success.
The importance of a mindset
Mindset is what leads everything in your work, it’s related to professionalism and growth. The way you think about certain topics will guide you in the right direction for your business success. What you think about being right or wrong is related with mindset.
A shift in your mindset is also important to make you more money, and it’s easy to understand. Probably, when you’re a kid, there were times you received some money from your parents, right? It may be a $5 bill at that moment. What were your thoughts around those $5? Maybe in your childhood, $5 was enough to buy everything you wanted — reads ice cream. Nowadays, do you see these $5 the same way? You probably may spend $5, or even more, dollars without even blink. It happened because you changed your mindset.
You can argue that it is obvious since today you are much more concerned about money and have lots of expenses that you hadn’t in your childhood. In fact, you’re right. But, all this changes and new responsibilities you have, need to happen to make you start thinking different.
The right mindset helps you make that shift without being forced due to money urgency, expenses and other external things related.
How to make the shift
The difficulty on developing a new mindset is an internal fact. No one can imply a new mindset to you. It’s developed with a habit. At first, you need to learn a lot and continue to learn day by day. Understand how other professionals think about some common topics to you, see how they react when a problem appear, and what they think about money. Study from those professionals but also read a lot of articles and books. There’s no book that will make your mind change from day to night, instead, try to absorb the best from the knowledge you receive and evaluate what you can do different in your work on a daily basis.
The most important way to develop a new mindset is by talking with people that think different. You can be passive reading through blog posts and books, but once you get the opportunity to talk with someone, do it!
Stay surrounded by good people
Being around good people help you to make the shift and evolve your mindset. It also helps to guide you in the right direction. Look for people that think like you, that share same values to you, but also, that have something to add. Sometimes you haven’t developed the mindset to be bold with certain decisions but you know people who are bold with their values in their work. Stay surrounded by that people until your mind aligns with the concepts and until you’re able to do the next step.
If part of developing a new mindset for you is related about how you think about money, stay surrounded by people that think bigger than you. Talk to them and try to absorb the way they think about money.
If you think a hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money, you can expect to earn only a few thousand. A new mindset helps you to think bigger and evolve your work.
Be bold
Your mindset is part of your values and values can’t be compromised. Part of developing the right mindset is to be bold with your decisions and thoughts. It can be hard in the beginning. When you are in the moment to start implementing something new that will benefit your business, you need to be bold and don’t let your mind or your bad old habits trick you.
For example, if you started to understand how important is to be selective with clients and find yourself in a situation that you would need to dismiss a potential client, don’t hesitate or you will regret it. Once you develop a new mindset, allowing old habits can feel very painful. It happens because you now understand the right thing to do, and when you allow yourself to do it ”the wrong way” you will find yourself asking the why of allowing it.
It can be tough but it’s part of the process. You evolve and your business grows once you develop the right way of thinking and taking actions. It will be tempting, sometimes, to allow something you know isn’t right, just to get a new client. That’s why you should learn, talk and be surrounded with the right people to support you in your decisions.
People won’t understand or recognize you.
Building a new mindset is not an easy task, it takes time, effort, and the right people to help you evolve. Most possible, the closest people from you won’t understand what’s around a new mindset, and some of them may not recognize you.
Developing the right mindset can be scary in the first moment, but for those who are around you and don’t share a mindset next to yours, it can be even stranger.
One year ago we were different people in many different ways, especially in the mindset. Since the beginning of MOWE we’ve been evolving our way of thinking and taking action. It helped us to elevate our Animation Studio to a place we didn’t think it was possible in the beginning and we did the whole process here. We studied a lot, absorbed bunches, and bunches of content and talked with lots of good people. If you’re starting as a freelancer, always aim to achieve more and evolve. Look for people in your industry and outside your industry that somehow live a life you’d like to, and learn about how they think about money, business, clients, etc. Start by treating yourself as a business and develop your mind around a business owner, not just a fancy concept as the freelancer word carries.
A good way to develop a new mindset is though the content we post every Wednesday. We are constantly sharing not only our thoughts but our experiences in the Design, Animation, Freelancing, and Business field. All that knowledge was necessary to build what we have today and we want to help you achieve the success you aim to have. Sign up to our Weekly Value newsletter and let us help you to grow.
Originally published at mowestudio.com on January 13, 2016.
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