Unbox Yourself

The way you think about the challenges in your accounting firm can either hold you back or spur you forward. The secret is to savor the challenge. So if you believe you’re stuck, then keep reading. You naturally gravitate toward a closed mindset or a growth mindset. And, and it’s possible to change if you’re not satisfied with the way things are.

If you feel stuck with your circumstances, then you probably have a fixed, or closed, mindset. How you react to setbacks give you clues. A negative response to every setback, big or small, indicates a fixed mindset. When things don’t work out as planned, you emphasize all that went wrong instead of examining what happened so you get better results the next time around.

Imagine shifting your response so you don’t remain stuck. Well, a growth mindset takes a different approach to setbacks and challenges. Your focus aims to resolve issues instead of dwelling on the problems.

Basically, a growth mindset discovers what abilities you need to overcome the challenges in your accounting firm. Every setback is viewed as a challenge to improve. How would that change things for you?

What is a Growth Mindset?

The concept of a growth mindset was developed by psychologist Carol S. Dweck who first started studying students success in school.

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Basically, your mindset is the belief you have about yourself. For example, you may believe you are good at sales or find sales difficult. Or, your self-image may reflect feelings like I’m a poor leader or I’m a failure.

With a fixed mindset, you believe your negative self-image is a fixed trait. Because of this, you continue to do things the way you always have. This leads to further discouragement. You tend to believe you can’t do it, regardless of what challenge you’re facing.

A growth mindset turns negative perceptions into opportunity. As Dweck writes, In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.

Growth Mindset Changes You Can Make Now

Here’s the good news. It’s possible to shift your mindset from fixed to growth. That’s because your habits are not set in stone. Yes, changing old beliefs and habits require effort. However, you’ll finally free yourself from over-worrying and doubt.

5 Steps to develop your mindset for success:

1. Clues. Start to notice how you think about yourself. Notice when you start to tell yourself that you are not successful or not qualified. These are clues that you are living in a fixed mindset. A growth mindset opens doors instead of closes doors.
2. Critique (not criticize). Setbacks will occur. Thought stopping turns bad to good. Once you realize your thoughts went to the dark side, do your best to interrupt those thoughts. Then list the ways a more optimistic person would approach that setback.  If you had the chance to do it all over again, what would you have done differently? Those insights influence your future response. The next time around you’re more likely to have the outcome you desire. Highly successful entrepreneurs follow this strategy.
3. Compliment. Instead of dismissing your efforts, take a moment to compliment them. Congratulate yourself for developing a process. Acknowledge your effort at approaching a new problem. Applaud your emphasis on improvement. This serves a purpose; you develop grit to effectively deal with the next challenge.
4. Connections. Stop living in your comfort zone. Your brain craves novelty. It literally develops new connections every time you push beyond how you’ve always done things. The more you experiment, the more you develop neural pathways to expand your thinking. This is how new habits are created.
5. Concept. Create a new spin on failure. No one wants to fail. Failure, however, does not have to chip away at your self-worth. Entrepreneurs with a growth mindset don’t avoid failure. Instead, they choose a different response. Basically, your performance can improve. You’ll learn more from failure than you will by sticking with things the way you’ve always done them.

Change Your Mindset, Build Success

Switching to a growth mindset puts you on the path for constant improvement. Once you start experiencing how to influence your basic qualities through effort, then your view of yourself, the world, and your business expands.

• The dead ends disappear. Rather than seeing errors as ultimate failures you look for processes to improve on what you have done so far.
• Your become resilient. You’ll savor the process of discovering new ways to problem solve.
• Instead of feeling like giving up, you’ll build new neural pathways that expand your thinking and problem solving capabilities.
• You grow your abilities. This expands your knowledge base and develops core building blocks necessary for your success.
• Relationships with coworkers and associates improves due to your new attitude and belief in your value and your worth.
• The fear of failure disappears. You’ll realize that you learn from every setback.

As you begin to enjoy your growth mindset, you’ll discover that effort has its own rewards. You will begin to look forward to challenges, relishing in new discoveries and enjoying successes that grow your accounting firm.

Discover the Effort Effect

Your growth mindset enhances personal growth through perseverance and resilience. Rather than staying stuck in you old self-vision of negative labels you will convert life’s setbacks into future successes.

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You’ll find yourself approaching new challenges as exciting avenues to discovery. And, what you’ll discover is your ability to tackle new projects, learn new methods, and see yourself in a positive light as you gain new skills.

It’s All In Your Head

Carol Dweck says in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, It’s not easy to just let go of something that has felt like your self for many years…nothing is better than seeing people find their way to things they value.

As an accounting firm owner, you value your business. Every time you take on a new challenge you teach yourself to value your efforts. Shifting from fixed mindset to growth mindset involves a variety of activities and tremendous effort.

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