“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” This quote by the founder of Mary Kay Inc. and one of the most successful female entrepreneurs of all time, Mary Kay Ash, speaks volumes about the importance of mindset in business.

Everyone has weaknesses, but if you believe in your ability to overcome them, you will be able to achieve what you want and realize the potential of your business. Here are some suggestions for helping you succeed.

• Visualize accomplishment. The power of the mind is often underestimated. While you’re lying in bed at night waiting to fall asleep, picture yourself carrying out a task and achieving the desired result. If it’s an important sales call or networking, have both sides of the ideal conversation in your mind. Regardless of the job at hand, visualizing yourself doing it successfully prepares your mind for success and builds the confidence you need to achieve it.  Doing this repeatedly maximizes its effect, so continue doing it when you are in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, en route to work, or any other situation where you have a little downtime. 
• Practice! Actors don’t perform a play on stage for an audience on the first day they receive their roles and their scripts. They rehearse for weeks or months and work out any kinks in the production that prevent it from running as smoothly as possible. The same principle should apply to your business. Go beyond visualizing and rehearse that important sales call or networking. The more prepared you are, the more polished you will be, and the more competent you will appear to the other party. No one wants to do business with a person who doesn’t seem sure of themselves. Put in the time to practice your “role” to give yourself the best chance of success.
• Implement a plan to overcome interruptions and offer ready solutions. Now that you have visualized success and have rehearsed your part, develop a plan of action for when things don’t go as planned because they rarely do. How will you respond to a customer’s doubt in your product? What will you say if someone has heard something negative about your company? If you have a plan in place to field objections and rejection, you will be less likely to have to think on your feet and risk saying something detrimental or giving the wrong impression. It’s impossible to be prepared for every possible scenario, but use your own expertise and outside resources to anticipate common objections and negative responses.
• Assess results and make adjustments. Once you have completed the task, reflect upon how it went. Did you achieve the results you were hoping for? If the answer is yes, then pinpoint what you did right and how that helped you achieve. If the answer is no, identify where it went wrong and develop a solution to the problem. Use your results, both positive and negative, to make adjustments where necessary and continually increase your chance of success in achieving what you want.

By putting yourself in the right mindset and using your own expertise as well as outside resources, you are giving yourself the best possible chance of success. What else do you think should be added to this list? Please add your ideas to the comments section below!