12 Business Mindsets for a Successful 2023
Check out our top 12 mindset shifts to re-energize your business in 2023.
We’re now done with 2022 and have headed into 2023. Is your head still in the game? Are you still as revved up about your business? If not, let us suggest these 12 business mindset shifts that can help pave the way to a successful 2023 for you and your business:
1. The only constant is change
We’re challenged every day. Change happens whether we like it or not. Maybe it’s a simple change in the weather, a change in our schedule, a new job or career, the health of a loved one, or the change of the seasons. Change affects each of us differently, whether we expect it or not. Having the right business mindset when it comes to these changes, is crucial so you respond to change in a way to best shape the future of your business and yourself.
2. Be You, Bravely
Some call this authenticity, but we like to call it being bravely you. Think of how different your life could be when you give yourself permission to be happy. What will happen when you own your story and embrace how far you’ve come. Imagine your life when you’ve kick-started all new habits and routines in the new year.
Part of being you means surrounding yourself with people who inspire, challenge, and empower you to not only keep focused and aligned with your mission, purpose, and passion but guide you on your journey.
3. The power of in-person connection
While video conferencing and phone meetings are great technologies to help us run our business, there is simply no substitute for meeting face-to-face. In-person meetings provide a sense of intimacy, connection, and empathy that is difficult to replicate online or over the phone. It’s the intangibles that matter—a new relationship forged over a drink or in yoga class, relationships started after a long day of panel discussions at an event or team function, or the level of trust created from a casual conversation or a handshake, there is no substitute for being in the same room, connecting over coffee or sharing a meal.
When possible, make it personal!
4. Stay curious
Does your business mindset have a place for curiosity? We are born to be curious – to wonder, to discover, to question, and yes, to doubt. Curiosity is a key part of what it means to be human. We have the cognitive ability to think beyond our immediate surroundings and we can choose whether to embrace curiosity or ignore and suppress it. Staying curious means, you’re always learning. And because you’re always learning, you increase the speed at which you can grow.
5. Take time for play
When was the last time you just played? We know that play is crucial for a child’s development, it is also beneficial for adults too. Play adds joy to life, relieves stress, supercharges learning, and connects you to others and the world around you. Play can also make us more productive and happier. To get motivated in your business, make your work feel more like play. Get lost in the flow of it. To be innovative, we need to PLAY with ideas and problems.
6. Make sure you disconnect
When you unplug from technology (ie: turn off your phone and electronics), it helps you fully experience the moment without being distracted by social media or the adrenaline that comes from being “online.” It gives us more focused time for self-reflection. With our faces constantly buried in our phones, we miss life experiences and wonderful things happening around us because we’re too focused checking in on what other people are doing.
Here are a few simple ways to unplug (even briefly) in your daily life:
- Commit to zero technology for the first hour you’re awake. Focus on meditation, journaling, exercise, or another activity you enjoy that doesn’t involve your phone.
- Choose a power-down hour during your day. If a morning time doesn’t work, maybe right before bed, or the hour around dinner time?
- Schedule time to take extended unplugging breaks. Choose days throughout the year (add them to your calendar now) where you only use your phone for texting and calling when absolutely necessary.
- Take note of times when you can leave your phone alone or turned off. Maybe go for a hike? A vacation without your phone (or with internet turned off)? Or maybe to go outside and enjoy nature by “looking up” instead of “looking it up.”
7. Test, evaluate, shift
Rarely do we get it right the first time. No idea, business, vision, platform or innovation is perfect “out of the box.” Businesses are iterative. You try something, it doesn’t work. You pitch to the wrong team or form a partnership that doesn’t work out. Each of these are building blocks to the success/achievement you seek. Don’t become stubbornly entrenched in an idea that isn’t working or a product/market fit that isn’t there. Test everything, measure and evaluate, and shift where necessary.
8. Stay the course
It’s not sexy nor fun, but one of the most common traits that successful business owners share is the trait of perseverance. You stay the course even when the going gets tough. Staying patient is one of the keys to success. It’s when you pursue your goal, vision, career, job, or hobby regardless of obstacles, challenges, or criticism. It means accepting that sometimes you’ll be right and others you’ll be wrong. You’re going to make mistakes and know which advice and lessons are worth keeping and which don’t serve you.
But most importantly, stick with it. There are so many shiny objects that can derail a well laid-out plan and sometimes distract us, even when we’re on the precipice of making our dream a reality. Staying patient isn’t always easy but it’s always worthwhile.
9. Resilience and a sense of humour
Both resilience and humour are key factors that lead you to success in life or business. Resilience is the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity. Know how to treat setbacks and successes as positive learning experiences by taking a non-judgmental, analytical approach. Resilient people face reality with clarity, find meaning out of hardship, and improvise solutions from thin air.
Studies have shown that a sense of humour can improve your mental and physical health and improve your business and leadership skills. Laughter and humour are ways of blowing off psychological steam or to release pent up energy. Reframing a negative event in a humorous light, acts as a kind of emotional filter, preventing the negativity from triggering unhelpful emotions. Being funny is possibly one of the best things you can do for your health. A sense of humour as your mind’s immune system
10. Power of goal setting
There is tremendous power in goal setting. It helps you plan where you want to go in life and keeps you motivated to turn your vision of your future into a reality. Goal setting enables you to be proactive about what you want to achieve. If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there?
If you want to achieve a goal you need to write it down. It sounds a bit cliché, but it works. Neuroscientists, business leaders, psychologists, teachers, and philosophers today and throughout history, all agree on this point. In fact, studies have shown that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. That’s a significant difference in goal achievement just from writing your goals down.
The exercise of writing your goals forces you to get clear on what, exactly, you want to accomplish, but it also plays a big part in motivating you to complete the tasks necessary for your success. It forces you to strategize, to ask questions about your current progress, and to brainstorm a plan of attack.
11. Play to your strengths
Put yourself in a position that allows you to best use your natural abilities and specific skills to create flow, become more productive and thrive. Strengths are not activities you’re good at, they’re activities that strengthen you. A strength is an activity that before you’re doing it you look forward to doing it; while you’re doing it, time goes by quickly and you can concentrate; after you’ve done it, it seems to fulfill a need you have.
Activities that are your strengths must meet 4 criteria:
- You are great (not just good) at it;
- When thinking about the task, you are excited and you positively anticipate the activity;
- When doing the task you find it easy to concentrate and get absorbed in the activity, even losing track of time; and
- Once the task is completed, you have more energy than before.
12. Detach from outcome
Put your heart and soul into what you do, but don’t let the outcome become your identity. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to creating a vision, launching a business, building a brand, undertaking a new product launch? It’s worrying, wondering and getting impatient about whatever it is you’re trying to create. It’s being attached to the outcome so much that you literally block your own desires from coming to life. Stay true to your vision, create your intentions daily, weekly, or monthly and go.
A few steps make a big difference!
Based on the 12 business mindsets above, which ones do you need to focus on the most? Even changing your mindset around a few, can make a huge difference. But, when you optimize all 12, then you are setting yourself up for a stellar 2023!
If you’d like some coaching around one of these business mindsets, schedule a free 30-minute coaching call with us to see if we can help you.
