To be clear, I’m not talking about money. I’m talking about your own personal definition of success and what that means to you.
If the lifelong goal is to reduce work hours and free up more time for things you actually enjoy, that is a personal definition of success.
You might choose to graft tirelessly for 20 years so that you can sit back with early retirement and live off modest, passive incomes.
Or maybe you’re the type of person desperately trying to juggle the work/life/family/me-time/chores/everything-else-on-the-planet — balance.
That last one’s me.
When we think about what success means for our own lives there are going to be some differences between each person’s definition but within that, lies a universal truth for all of us.
Over the years I’ve listened to and watched far more successful people speak about how they did it, and the one piece of wisdom that shows up consistently in these discussions is that we have to adopt a new mindset if we’re ever going to make our dreams a reality.
That’s where the CEO mindset comes in.
Take my career as a copywriter for example. Since pivoting into freelancing I’ve been faced with some pretty tough personal challenges.
The same goes for anybody who steps out on their own and decides to make a go of their passion.
Namely, for the first few months whilst I was training to be a copywriter, I battled, at times, overwhelming resistance.
This is when our brains shift into protective mode, to keep us “safe” they try to keep us in a box, in a mental bubble free from danger or risk.
This protection manifests with thoughts like “you’ll never make it”, or “this is too difficult”, or “stop being unrealistic and be happy with the status quo”.
After a while, it gets exhausting having to listen to these thoughts and it takes a great deal of willpower to override them with positive sentiments.
I knew that I wanted to be a professional writer, I researched the industry, the pros and cons, gave myself a timescale to get up and running and ploughed through until I reached that goal.
None of that would have happened without changing my mindset to that of a CEO.
I had to understand that I was now in control of my destiny and my actions alone were responsible for whether I got there or not.
This type of thinking is all about accountability.
Successful business owners are able to identify faults or flaws within their company and rather than blaming employees (who may be undertrained, misguided or lack empowerment) they look at themselves and take accountability for their business’s failings.
When we start taking ownership of our lives, that’s when we can make positive changes and move forward toward our goals.
You may not ever open your own business or even have the desire.
For some of us, we’re fine working under an employer and it’s easy to see why; stable income, fair security, accountants sort out what you earn and what to tax, and paid holidays; it’s not a bad thing at all but there’s always room to grow.
By adopting a CEO mindset you’ll start to focus on how you can improve your work contributions.
You begin to measure yourself by a higher standard and in doing so, are able to identify shortcomings and if you’re proactive, you’ll create action plans to tackle these weaker areas.
That shift into an “accountability” mindset is the catalyst for all good things to come.
Thanks for coming back this week and as always, give the page a Like, Share and Comment — how does your job affect your mindset? Do you get in a habit of blaming? Could switching your mindset help progress your definition of success?
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