Unlocking Your Potential: The Power of Controlling Your Mindset as a Retail Leader
We’ve begun a journey of understanding mindset and the impact it can have on leaders, your team, and your business overall. I provided a series overview in Mindset: The Accelerator for Exceptional and Effective Leaders. And a deeper introduction of what mindset is in Introduction to Mindset for Retail Leaders. From here, I think the important next step is to understand what this can mean for you and the doors it opens and the potential it unlocks.
The first step in understanding your mindset is recognizing that you have full control. These are your beliefs. What stories are you telling yourself?
Controlling your mindset
Controlling your mindset requires a combination of awareness, intentional effort, and ongoing practice. Self-awareness is a key ingredient to understanding your mindset. You must first be honest with yourself and your thoughts. What patterns of thought are you falling into? How is that shaping your daily behaviors? How do you see those around you? What are your initial thoughts of them? How does that impact your behaviors?
Exercise
Take a few minutes to write down your initial thoughts on how you see some of the more pressing aspects of your current life. It can be business related, it can be personal, or a combination of both. And know that these are completely complementary of each other. As much as we’d like to believe we can fully separate the two, when you’re honest with yourself, they will unquestionably impact one another.
As you jot down your thoughts and begin to take a look at what you have captured, begin to ask yourself, “are these all true? Would everyone else see these the same as I do? If so, why? If not, why not?” You may find that we tell ourselves stories that are convenient for the narrative we want to hear or see, not the actual events that are occurring. Is someone really working against you? Or are they simply dedicated to the outcome they are seeking, unaware of your efforts? Be real. Be fair. Be brutally honest with yourself. No one has to see what you write, but to open the doors you’ll need, you will need to be completely honest with yourself in understanding your mindset.
Limiting beliefs
Perhaps the biggest change that can come from understanding your mindset are the limiting beliefs that you set for yourself. Wait…what? What does that mean? Do we hold ourselves back? YES. More so than anyone else, our own limiting beliefs become the biggest barrier to our potential and future successes. What is a limiting belief?
From a BetterUp.com article:
A limiting belief is a thought or state of mind that you think is the absolute truth and stops you from doing certain things. These beliefs don’t always have to be about yourself, either. They could be about how the world works, ideas, and how you interact with people. 1
This seemed like a straight-forward explanation of what limiting beliefs can be. It seems simple, and even seems like we would avoid them at all costs. And consciously, we likely try. Unconsciously, we are doing more than we’d like to admit.
“I’ll never the chance to do that.”
“I could never take two weeks off in a row, things would fall apart.”
“They just don’t see my talents.”
“That’s a no-win situation.”
“I don’t have the experience for that.”
“I couldn’t lead that team.
“They will never change, I just won’t waste my time on trying anymore.”
All of those are limiting beliefs. And, while some may even feel true on the surface, there is always more to the story than just what you are telling yourself. There are options to work with or around any of those situations. Using a similar exercise as above, what limiting beliefs are you telling yourself? How are they holding you back?
One of the best ways I have heard to begin to overcome a limiting belief is to ask what would need to happen to make the opposite become true? I heard this first from Michael Hyatt, in one of his earlier podcasts as he was talking about not being able to take extended time off from work. His limiting belief was, “I will never be able to be away from my business that long.” The question he asked himself was, “what would it take for me to take two weeks off to be true?” That reframes the problem in a very different way. Your brain begins to go into problem-solving mode, instead of limiting what you can do. It may not be immediately possible, but you can now build a plan to achieve that outcome. Reframing a limiting belief into something that can be solved for empowers you in new ways, and opens the door for endless possibilities.
Your mindset is just that, your mindset. It is fully within your control. It is a journey in itself. Managing your mindset will require ongoing self-reflection and honesty. Your commitment to your personal development will enable you to cultivate the growth mindset that will serve you well in your journey towards being a successful and effective retail leader.
In the previous article, we covered the difference between mindset and attitude, along with the interdependencies of the two together. As I believe we choose our attitude, we can also steer our mindset at every step. In the next article, we will explore the actions you can take that will help you manage and define the mindset you frame for yourself. Jon Acuff, an author, speaker, and podcaster, reframed this as the soundtracks of your life in his aptly titled book, Soundtracks. I will cover how you can tune your own soundtracks, or mindset, to work best for you. This only further refines your ability to put your mindset to work for you and ensure you are capturing your full potential.
What initial steps are you taking to unlock the potential that awaits you with an open, growth oriented mindset?
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1 Don't let limiting beliefs hold you back. Learn to overcome yours