Great ideas take flight when you are free of fear. Easier said than done, I know, but everyone faces fear — and that includes innovative, successful entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur’s very job is to swim upstream. The trick is maintaining faith in yourself and in your ideas despite doubt.
Find below 4 ways to embrace positive thinking.
Understand that a Setback Isn’t a Failure
A setback is not automatically a failure. Rather, failure is letting a temporary setback change your permanent outlook. You’ve actually failed when you let failure define how you think of yourself.
Learn from early failures to build a platform for success. Elite athletes aren’t just magically ready for competition, they must run through hundreds of practice drills to perfect their skills before the big day. Just the same, there are ways to strengthen your faith in the face of fear.
Instead of Failure, Call It Opportunity
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, once wrote “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way”.
Yes, there will be obstacles and blockades along the road, but let’s keep it positive. No path to success is perfectly smooth, and something that might look like an instant success comes from years of learning how to avoid obstacles.
Adversity leads to prosperity. Embracing failure is a process of cultivating your own confidence as much as finding the lessons you need to move on to bigger and better things. Even when things don’t turn out the way you thought or hoped, you can benefit from all the experiences you go through. It’s a matter of being willing to change your expectations and direction as necessary in pursuit of your larger goals. By doing so, you will learn how to pivot when things don’t go your way.
This positive thinking is essential for an entrepreneur. If you remain agile, no obstacle will knock you down permanently. Staying nimble means you can adjust quickly to a setback and keep moving.
Get Out of Your Usual Surroundings
Positive thinking is not about walking on sunshine all the time, in fact, conflicts are common and can happen at home, in the workplace, and even in the most unexpected places. It’s inevitable due to our diverse personalities and our different views and opinions. Some of my best business ideas come to me when I’m away from the office, walking with my rescued pup Magic in Central Park. Mulling things over in a totally different setting is rejuvenating and re-energizing.
Create an Optimistic Mindset Around You
It all starts with you. Find the willingness to see other people’s virtues, be grateful for all the good in your life, and be as authentic as you can. Ingrain these habits into your daily routines and you’ll gain genuine trust which will also be instrumental in your journey to self-improvement. To establish trust among your colleagues or peers, they have to see the amount of passion and hard work that you have. In simpler words, prove to them that you are worthy of their trust.
When trust has been established, research reveals that it will increase information sharing, openness, fluidity, and cooperation among the team.
In a recent study by the National Library of Medicine, a group of employees at a company in Spain was asked to either be kinder to their peers or simply count the acts of kindness received by others. It turned out that the people who received acts of kindness became happier. However, those who delivered acts of kindness ended up experiencing more job satisfaction.
Bottom Line
How do you set your mind to positive thinking? Please let me know below or reach out to me via Twitter. For more of my thoughts on investing your time and money, please visit my company’s website, LexION Capital.
Elle Kaplan is the founder and CEO of LexION Capital, a fiduciary wealth management and woman-owned business firm in New York City serving everyone who feels left out by traditional “Wall Street”, including women and the families they love.
