Developing An Entrepreneurial Mindset | Achieve Personal Excellence

September 7, 2013

The Success Mindset

An A-Z Guide to Developing and Maintaining Your Entrepreneurial Mindset

Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture…Do not build up obstacles in your imagination.
-Norman Vincent Peale

Did you know that author Stephen King was rejected 30 times before his bestselling book, which was later licensed for a movie, Carrie was accepted?

Did you know that it took Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield three years to get their first Chicken Soup for the Soul book published?

Did you know it took millionaire entrepreneur and inventor of SPANX, Sara Blakely, months and months of knocking on doors before anyone would give her idea a second thought? Now she’s hanging out with the likes of Sir Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey and has her own foundation – not to mention she’s sold more than $150 million in retail sales.

What do these three stories have in common and what does it have to do with you?

The key to success as an entrepreneur is hard work, perseverance, and a belief that you can succeed. So…

Are you an entrepreneur?

We are all impressed to hear how much money the latest internet entrepreneur has made this year, and how they have made their business a success. The numbers are often staggering, not to mention the enticement of being your own boss. However, being an entrepreneur isn’t as glamorous as it may seem.

What is an entrepreneur?

If you look up the definition of entrepreneur, your dictionary may tell you it means “a business owner carrying out an enterprise.” To most people the term means much more than that. Here are a few of the associations we make with entrepreneurs today:

1. An entrepreneur is someone that goes for a business opportunity even though they do not have the necessary resources.

How many people do you know that would like to run their own business but don’t have the capital to set it up, or can’t afford to lose the regular salary of their current job?

We see entrepreneurs as people that seize an opportunity regardless of whether they can afford to do so or not. Entrepreneurs are creative about raising capital and make use of resources in an unusual way.
2. An entrepreneur is someone that takes educated and calculated risks.

We often see entrepreneurs in a similar way to professional gamblers. The higher the risk they take, the higher the prize if they are successful.

True entrepreneurs don’t gamble unnecessarily, they weigh the risks and determine whether the outcome will be worth the possibility of failure.

3. An entrepreneur is someone that jumps into a venture without the necessary skills or capital, and quickly fails.

In recent years a very negative aspect has been attached to the word ‘entrepreneur’. Many people have been burned by so called entrepreneurs that have quickly gone bankrupt, leaving their customers, vendors and associates in serious trouble.

4. An entrepreneur is someone that starts one business, after another, after another.

Another recent development is the concept of the professional or serial entrepreneur. These are people that take what they have learned in setting up one business and use it to start the next business. They may keep a whole portfolio of businesses, or sell one business to raise capital for the next. No matter how successful they become they are always looking for the next good opportunity.

For the purposes of this report, we will use these various aspects to make our own powerful definition of an entrepreneur.

We will assume that an entrepreneur is someone that has the motivation to start their own business, as well as the vision to do so. They believe that working for themselves will, in the long run, be more fulfilling and secure than working for someone else. They want to be in control of their own financial destiny, and are willing to take a few calculated risks to get there.

In this chapter you will discover:

* Common characteristics of entrepreneurs. Do you have what it takes?

* Learning lessons from entrepreneurs

* The importance of positive thinking to your business – Including how to think positively

* Facing your business fears head on

* How to keep going when you face tough times

* Motivating yourself to work from home. Establishing a structure that works for you.

Let’s first take a look at l look at common characteristics of entrepreneur.
Do you have what it takes? Common characteristics of entrepreneurs.

If you are considering starting your own business online, you may be asking yourself “Am I an entrepreneur?”

The idea of working on your own can be daunting. After all, you don’t have the comfort of that paycheck at the end of the month and if things are not going as planned, you may not have anything to fall back on.

Listed below are some common characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. If you can recognize these traits in yourself then you are on the way to running your own business.

Do you know your strengths and weaknesses?

Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses
-Marilyn vos Savant

Being aware of what you are good at and being able to admit where your weaknesses lie is a real attribute of successful entrepreneurs. Focusing on what you do well is one way to ensure success, but how do you deal with the tasks you are not so good at?

If your weakness is merely a lack of knowledge, a training course can be the answer. If your weakness is due to a lack of skill, you may want to consider outsourcing.

In business there is a very helpful tool called the SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Taking a look at your own SWOT can be extremely helpful. Why? We each have our own strengths. When you’re able to focus your time and energy on your strengths success is right around the corner and it is a much more enjoyable path to success. So what do you do about the weaknesses? Acknowledge them, and then find a way to get them taken care of.

For example, if you’re an excellent sales person and it takes you a day to balance your checkbook then find someone to help you with the accounting tasks and spend your time selling and doing what you do best.

Consider the training habits of world class athletes. In order to be the best, they train very specifically and focus on their strengths. For example, Lance Armstrong the seven time winner of the Tour deFrance, trained specifically for the tour. He didn’t train or compete in any other race. Lance, and his teammates focused on their unique strengths and put them together to win the tour year after year.

Personal Exercise: What are your strengths? What are you good at? What areas do you feel strong and confident about?

What are your weaknesses? What areas or tasks do you find frustrating? What do you struggle with?

Loving what you do, or doing what you love, is the only real way to ensure success in business. If you have a real passion for what you are doing you won’t mind putting in those extra hours, you will positively enjoy it.

When you are considering setting up your own business, how do you feel about the subject you have chosen? Are you excited and looking forward to immersing yourself in the business, or are you indifferent about the subject, just thinking of it as a money spinner?

Personal Exercise: Start thinking about what you’re passionate about. At the end of this report you’ll be asked to write them down. Start brainstorming now. Think about the things that excite you in life. Don’t worry about whether there is a business in it; just think about what makes you happy. What makes you jump out of bed in the morning with a smile on your face?

Do you plan?

Visualize, plan, take action. That is the process to success. Planning is where many get hung up. While it is great to be able to visualize what you want to achieve with your business, you also have to be able to identify the individual steps you are going to take to get there. Being able to set yourself realistic, achievable goals that build a tangible pathway to your dreams is a sure characteristic of a successful entrepreneur.

Everything you do for your business should take you one step closer to your next goal and your final vision. However, things rarely fall perfectly into place. A successful entrepreneur is flexible enough to rewrite their plan when things do not go exactly according to plan.
Are you prepared to work hard?

Very few successful entrepreneurs will tell you that they achieved success without having to work hard. Success does not come simply from a good idea or a love of what you do.

To begin with you will undoubtedly be putting in long hours at unsociable times. This can be hard if you have family commitments, such as young children that require your time and attention.

Be realistic about how much time you can dedicate to your business. Can you rearrange other commitments so that you can work while your children are at school and still have time for them at weekend?
Do you have a willingness to learn?

When you set up your own business you don’t necessarily have all the answers, and you don’t need them. What you do need, however, is the drive and motivation to find out new information.

Successful entrepreneurs ask questions, keep up with the latest developments and are prepared to thoroughly research their field of expertise. In a time of rapid development, innovation and change, being open to learning can make the difference between a successful business and a failure.
Are you able to visualize success?

Entrepreneurs have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and they can vividly imagine what it will be like when they have reached their goals. Having faith that you can accomplish your dreams and feeling that success is within reach is a major step towards attaining a profitable business.

Visualization exercise: Athletes are exceptional at visualizing success. They can hear the crowd, smell the air, and see the finish line. They feel the experience in their muscles, lungs, and with every beat of their heart. The really talented visualizers actually increase their heart rate as they imagine themselves competing.

Take a few minutes, close your eyes, and visualize your ideal day. Start from the moment you wake up. How do you feel? What does success look like? Feel like? What is going on around you in your perfect day? Visualizing success is the first step to seeing it become a reality.

Have you considered the possibility of failure?

Acknowledging that your business might fail is a bit like giving up before you even start. Very often you hear people who are starting their own business saying, “well it probably won’t come to anything but I’ll give it a go.”

Entrepreneurs won’t give themselves this get-out clause. They will identify possible risks, and work hard to manage and minimize these, but they will never consider the prospect of failure.

Are you disciplined?

If you are starting your own business, you will be your own boss and the flexibility and freedom this provides can be difficult for some people to cope with. It is sometimes hard to remember that the only person who will suffer if you don’t get enough work done is you.

A successful entrepreneur will do what they need to do, or planned to do, each day whether they feel like it or not. In all likelihood they will do a little extra knowing that the effort will pay off in the long term.

Are you motivated to build a network?

In business you are frequently rated not for what you do, or even what you know, but for the other people that you do business with. Entrepreneurs dedicate some time to building up their network.

If you are launching an online business, contributing to forums or commenting on blogs can be a great way to do this. Help out other people, even when you don’t want to; you never know when they will be able to help you.

It is a mistake to believe that people who work for themselves always work alone. Most have a valuable network that they can use to their advantage. If you are unwilling to network and build up valuable contacts, you may not be cut out to be an entrepreneur.

Do you have perseverance and persistence?

When you are launching your own business, there will be inevitable set backs and teething problems. A true entrepreneur will bounce back from these stumbling blocks and learn valuable lessons from them.

We will look further at positive thinking and how to keep going when the going gets tough later. Your ability to recover from problems shows the faith you have in yourself and your business. This faith is crucial to the success of any entrepreneur.
Successful Entrepreneurship 101

A business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all of its forms.
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Amazing business success comes from the ability to learn from others. When we learn from others, we avoid costly and time consuming mistakes. We reach our goals faster and achieve even greater success. Fortunately there are many strong, smart, and successful people to learn from.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the story of Chris Gardner. He’s the gentleman who went from living on the streets to be the founder of the first minority owned brokerage firm. Here are some words of wisdom from Chris…

Find something that you love. Something that gets you so excited you can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning. Forget about money. Be happy.
Chris Gardner

Here are a few of the wonderful lessons top notch entrepreneurs have taught us:

1. Bring together the right people for the job

This does not necessarily mean permanently employing a team of people to run your business. If you are just starting out online, you may decide to outsource the tasks you can’t complete yourself to freelancers.

Choosing the right people is a skill possessed by true entrepreneurs. They are not necessarily highly educated or skilled themselves, but by selecting skilled people to work for them and leading that team towards success they can still run highly profitable businesses.

If you are starting an online business, here are a few of the people you might want to work with, or outsource some tasks to:

* Copywriters
* Web designers
* Programmers
* JV partners
* Affiliates
* Proof readers
* Accountants

Business Planning Exercise: Taking your own strengths into account, what areas might you first outsource? Think about the areas where you are not strong. These might be the first people you hire. It is important to begin thinking about this in the very early stages of starting a business because it will help you plan, strategize, and set goals with future needs in mind.

2. Experiment intelligently

Seeing every business move as ‘make or break’ can lead to a very unstable business. When you have a profitable business, maintain those elements that are working well, whilst venturing into small experiments with other possibilities.

Be open to new opportunities, but don’t be tempted to sacrifice what you already have for every prospect you come across.

You may feel that you could make more profit by moving from promoting affiliate products, to selling your own products. Rather than making the switch overnight, maintain both income streams side by side and compare the long term profitability of each.

3. Start small and learn on the job

You likely have several business ideas. Trying to launch them all in one go can lead to disaster. The larger the project you start with, and the more capital you have to invest in it, the higher the risk you are taking.

Begin with a simple, small scale project and make a success of that before you begin to expand, or tackle a new scheme. You can take the lessons you learned and experience you gained, as well as any profit you have made, into your next, more ambitious venture.
4. Accept that perfection doesn’t exist.

You will never be able to give all of your customers exactly what they want, as the chances are they will all be looking for different things. Even if you do follow the wishes of one specific customer, your translation of their wishes into your product will never be exact.

Have your own vision and goals in mind, but again do not be too worried if the end result is not exactly as you imagined. You have to be flexible enough to make concessions to practicality and profitability, as well as your customers’ demands.

5. Limit the number of projects you work on

Jumping at every opportunity that comes along will mean you never really achieve anything. It is better to have one website or small business that works, than three or four that don’t.

If you are working alone you have very limited resources. When you are deciding whether to take on a project, be realistic about the number of man hours you can dedicate to it. Be ruthless about not getting involved in projects you can’t dedicate enough time to.

6. Plan contingencies

While you don’t want to contemplate the possibility of failure, you can plan alternatives if your primary idea doesn’t quite work out. A good contingency plan will use many of the same resources as your first idea so that all the work you have put in has not been wasted.

Dwelling on a project that hasn’t been a huge success is never helpful. Moving straight onto plan B is a great way to maintain momentum.

7. Benchmark your performance

When you start your business, set yourself specific goals and targets and measure your success regularly. Your goals can be as simple as making a certain level of profit, attracting a certain number of visitors to your website, or achieving a set percentage of conversions.

Having measurable results, rather than just a general idea that you are doing well or not, will show you where you need to improve your business.

SMART Goals.

SMART stands for Simple, Measurable, Accessible, Realistic, and Timely. Goals that are broad in scope, like I want to make $100,000, are difficult to achieve. Goals that are specific are much easier to achieve and to know when you’ve accomplished your goal.

SMART Goal Exercise: Having a business idea in mind, what are some potential goals? For example, I want to have my business research completed by the end of the month.

How will you go about achieving your goals? It helps to get into this mindset in the early planning stages of a business. It gets the wheels turning, planning and action follow later.

As children we were all naturally positive thinkers, believing that anything was possible and we could achieve everything we wanted in life. The stresses and strains of adult life tend to cloud our minds and many people get stuck into a rut of negativity. We believe we don’t have the ability to do anything worthwhile; we live for the weekends and holidays, and spend our days in the office just passing time.

Regaining a positive attitude can change all that. By learning to think positively, all your dreams and goals will suddenly seem attainable once more. Making a success of your own business is much easier if you are able to get rid of your negativity and think positively.

How to think positively – 7 tips for success.

Thinking positively is not a temporary way to make a specific achievement; it is a total change in the way you think and act. Here are a few practical ways to introduce positive thinking into your every day life and business.

1. Develop a positive attitude

If you expect success you have a good chance of achieving it. You should never be blind to the things that could go wrong, but finding a positive way to manage your risks will help you to believe that your project is going to do well.

2. Think and talk in positive terms

The language you use will have an enormous impact on your own subconscious as well as the people around you. Use positive terms to gain confidence and convince yourself and other people that you will achieve your goals.

Positive terms to use

Negative and uncertain terms to avoid

I will
I’ll try
I can
I can’t
It is possible
I’m not sure
It will be ready
It might be ready
I am able to do that
I don’t know

3. Surround yourself with positive people

Positive thoughts and expressions can be as contagious as negativity, although we are not usually so aware of it. If other people around you are expecting success and happiness then this will improve your general outlook as well.

4. Substitute negative thoughts for positive ones.

When something has not gone as planned don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on it and worrying about it. Do focus on the lessons you have learned and visualize how well it will go next time, using the experience you have gained.

As Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, once said;

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”

5. Balance negative images with positive ones

We are bombarded with negative images all day without being aware of it. Reading the paper, or watching the news will inevitable bring the world’s problems to your attention, and watching sad or violent films can fill our minds with negative thoughts.

Balance this onslaught of negativity by listening to music that makes you happy, watching inspirational films or reading a positive book that you really enjoy. Balancing the negative images in your mind with positive ones will improve your overall outlook dramatically.

6. Be physically positive

Your posture can contribute greatly to your disposition. Walking tall and taking long strides, keeping your head up and making eye contact can all dispel those negative thoughts.

Some people find it helps to sing an upbeat song in their head as they are going about every day tasks. This is a great way to put a swing in your step and a smile on your face.

You can go as far as imagining yourself in a positive situation. I once had to approach a group of managers sitting around a table in an open plan office. I was the new office junior and scared stiff.

Instead of shuffling up to them with my eyes down, I though to myself “You might be my superiors now but I will be your boss one day.” This gave me the confidence to approach the group positively with a knowing smile on my face, and get exactly what I wanted.

Physical exercise can be another great way to increase your positive mental state. Regularly walking, swimming, cycling or playing sport can help to lift negative thoughts and worries by increasing endorphins that promote happiness and wellbeing.

7. Find your happy trigger.

What makes you happy no matter what? Maybe it is a song, a joke, a pet, or even simply being outside in the sunshine. When the going gets tough, and it will, have a trigger to keep you thinking positively.

Exercise:

List 10 things that make you happy. It can be a song, a smell, an activity, anything. Write them down. Print them out, put the list somewhere you can access it. When you need it, when the going gets tough or negative thoughts start to slip into your mind, pull the list out and refer to it.

Stomping the hurdle that’s holding you back.

Phillip Knight, the founder of Nike, has a history of “just doing it” and long the way he’ll confess to his share of mistakes. His motto? “The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, says Knight, but that we are making too few.”

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Be afraid of not making them. Or to quote a more popular Nike saying, “JUST DO IT”

The major factor that prevents people from starting their own business is fear. This is not usually a general fear of failure, but a specific fear of something they feel they can’t do or don’t know.

Some of the business elements that people can be afraid of are:

* Figures
* Accounts
* Technology
* Customer contact
* Deadlines
* Tax issues
* Decision making

Avoiding your fears only serves to strengthen them. The best way to overcome your fears, enabling you launch a successful business, is to face them head on.

When we confront a fear, the physical exertion can be exhausting. Your body is not designed to stay afraid for long, and if you expose yourself to a fear for long enough, your body will naturally relax and you will cease to be afraid. If this works with fears of heights or spiders, why can’t it work for business fears?

Conquering you business fears.

The most practical way of facing your business related fears is to take a training course that covers that particular area of business. A short course in accounting might not give you the skills you need to do your own accounts, but if it gives you a general understanding and reduces your fear of accounts, it will enable you to start a business and work easily with an accountant.

One of the most common fears today is using new technologies, particularly computer programs. People see computer programs as overly complicated, and are afraid to do anything in case they press a wrong button or change something they can’t undo.

There are a couple of ways to face your fear of technology:

1. Don’t be afraid to ‘play. Thinking of it as playing rather than learning or experimenting suddenly makes it feel much less intimidating.
2. Remember that you are unlikely to do something really wrong. If you do you can always reload the software and start again.
3. Keep in mind that a real live person programmed the software, so it can’t be that complex, right?
4. Check online for a simple guide or cheat sheet. The manual that comes with software can be very complex and confusing, whereas cheat sheets can help you to learn small sections of the software at a time.
5. Ask for help. You wouldn’t go rock climbing for the first time without a guide would you? If you’re struggling with something, hire a guide to walk you through it. From software to accounting, many people are happy to help – often free of charge.

Overcoming Fear Exercise: Write down what might stop you from starting a business. What are your fears? What can you do to overcome them? What tools can you use to face your fears?

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My first six years in the business were hopeless. There are a lot of times when you sit and you say “Why am I doing this? I’ll never make it. It’s just not going to happen. I should go out and get a real job, and try to survive.
-George Lucas

How to power on when the going gets tough.

Did you read the quote above? If not, take a few seconds and read it. Where would we be today if George had gotten a real job?

It would mean no Star Wars!

Star Wars aside, being an entrepreneur is never 100% easy. Few things are perfect all of the time. When your plans don’t go well, and your new business faces delays or obstacles, it can be tempting to throw in the towel and give up. After all, you gave it a shot which is more than most people can say. This is a common trap.

Here are a few tips to stay strong when things go wrong:

1. Stay optimistic

Before you begin your business venture write a list of reasons you have to be optimistic that it will work. Include the advantages you have over your competitors and anything that sets you apart from them. Make sure you have more than one item on your list, or you will be left with nothing if that particular reason falls through.

Whenever things go wrong and you are tempted to give up, reread your list and remind yourself why your business is going to be successful.

2. Maintain your enthusiasm

You might find yourself working long into the night, doing difficult or mundane tasks that don’t fit at all with your idea of being a successful entrepreneur. Before you start to think about giving up, try to attach a positive meaningful outcome to the task in hand. Think of every task you do as a step towards a successful business.

Take the example of nursing mothers. To hear them talking about the pain, frustration and exhaustion of breastfeeding, people may wonder why they bother. Well the answer is they know that that tiresome task will give their child a happy, healthy start in life, and what could be more meaningful than that?

3. Establish your integrity

Throughout the process of setting up your own business, you will undoubtedly come across ways in which you can make a quick profit or take a few short cuts that you are not sure are entirely ethical.

Discovering elements of corruption or deceit in your field can be disheartening at best, and a deal breaker at worst. As long as you make a personal commitment to doing the right thing, you shouldn’t give up just because you come across dishonesty amongst the people you work with. Before you make any decision, ask yourself three questions:

* Is it legal?
* Is it fair to everybody affected?
* How will I feel about myself if I do it?

Answering these questions will allow you to retain the integrity of your business and yourself personally.

4. Have courage

When you need to make a decision that involves taking risks, it can be tempting to play it safe, or to quit while you are ahead. Having the courage to take calculated risks is an essential part of moving on with your business.

The best way to find the courage to take a risk is to imagine the worst case scenario, and plan how you would deal with it. Suddenly all other scenarios will seem much less scary. Risks seem much worse when you try to ignore them or don’t identify what they are.

5. Apply patience

When you experience setbacks and delays, it is easy to overreact and take issues personally. Impulsive responses to problems you encounter are rarely positive, so take some time to assess the situation before you react. Here are some things to remember when your business encounters problems:

* There is nothing you can do about delays that are not your fault. Try to build time into your plans for possible delays, but if you have not done so you will just have to alter your plans.

* Take time to think before you respond to an issue. Write a draft e-mail if you wish, or write down how you would like to respond. Then take a half hour break, go for a walk or get something to eat. The chances are that when you return you will want to react in a much milder way.

* You will probably have to wait some time for your business to start achieving good results. Set your targets high but your expectations low for the first few months.

6. Stay calm

Eliminating stress and worry from your business life is never easy, but there are ways to avoid it.

Try to tackle the task you are dreading most at the beginning of the day. This will prevent you worrying about them for the rest of the day, and will give you a positive lift as you feel you have achieved something.

Learn to recognize your own particular signs of stress. Do your muscles become tense? Do you get a stiff neck or shoulders? Employ relaxation techniques and take a short break as soon as you begin to notice these symptoms of stress.

7. Remain focused

As your business begins to take off, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the tasks ahead of you. The key is to focus on one priority at a time. Make sure you finish one task before you start on another. Empty your mind of thought that do not relate to that task. Write these thoughts down if you are worried you will forget them by the time you need them.

8. Remind yourself of your belief

Belief is a crucial part of positive thinking, and it helps to remind yourself what you believe in when you are tempted to give up on your business venture. Your beliefs can take a variety of forms:

* Belief in your own ability
* Belief in the quality of your business plan
* Belief in your original business idea
* Belief in the lifestyle that your business can give you
* Belief that your dreams can come true
* Belief that there is more to life than a monthly paycheck

They say a year in the Internet business is like a dog year…equivalent to seven years in a regular person’s life. In other words, it’s evolving fast and faster.
-Vinton Cerf

Staying on your toes is imperative to succeeding in internet business. The final section of this report will look at motivating yourself to work from home, something that most people have to do when they start their own online business.

I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
-Zig Ziglar

Motivating yourself to work from home

Kids are fighting, pets are hungry, your phone is ringing, the house is dirty and you still have work to do.

Julie Aigner-Clark, founder of Baby Einstein, knows first hand the difficulties of balancing life and family. “When my company started really growing, I didn’t have any help in my house at all. I had the upkeep of my daily life, I had a one year old and a three year old, and I had my house. So I had to prioritize.”

What did Aigner-Clark do? She hired someone to help out around the house. Imagine how much time you spend every day on household chores? That’s time you could be spending on realizing your dream of becoming a business owner.

Starting your own business often requires you to set up an office in your house, and online businesses are particularly well suited to working from home. It can be hard to stay motivated when you don’t have the structure of a day at the office to base your tasks around, so here are some tips to ensure you don’t let all that freedom go to your head:

1. Structure. Build some structure into your day. Each evening make a realistic to-do list for the next day and make sure all tasks are accomplished. Make sure you sign in and sign out each day. You may return to your computer to do some extra work once you have signed out, but do not answer the phone or check your e-mail during this time.

2. Set goals. When you plan your day, do so in terms of tasks rather than time. It is better to set a goal of completing three articles, than a goal of spending two hours on article writing. If you finish your task early then that is a bonus, you can either get some extra work done or knock off early.

3. Family matters. Consider the needs of your family; just because you are working they can’t act as if you are not there at all. Set some rules as to when they can disturb you while you are working and when they can not. Your son needing transport to the emergency room is of course a good time to interrupt, but if he has kicked his football over next door then he can wait until dinnertime.

4. Regular working hours. Make sure your neighbors and friends are aware of your working hours and respect them. Many people equate ‘always at home’ with ‘always available’ and if you are not careful you will lose a lot of work hours to drinking coffee and doing favors for well meaning neighbors.

5. Realistic commitments. Motivate yourself with realistic commitments. When you first start out with your own business you may not have many actual deadlines, so it is a good idea to set your own. Committing to a weekly newsletter or daily blog posting can help you to add structure to your working week. Once you get established the deadlines will begin rolling in so make the most of it.

6. Regular breaks. Plan regular breaks outside of the house. Working and living in the same building can give you cabin fever if you are not careful. Without the enforced lunch break you might get in an office you could find you have been at the computer without a pause for the whole day. Finding an excuse to get our each day, even if it is just to go the store to buy fresh vegetables for dinner, will save your sanity and keep you from getting obsessed with work.

7. Trial period. Give yourself a trial period. Working from home is not for everybody, you may find you prefer the structure and the social aspects of working in an office and that may mean you choose to eventually set up an office away from home. If you try working from home for say six months, that should be enough time to make sure it is right for you.

One thing may work for others and not for you. Take your personality and needs into account when you’re setting up your day to day business life. Some people choose to sleep during part of their day and take care of work in the evening when the house is quiet and the family is asleep. Obviously that won’t work for everyone. The point is to find a structure and process that works for you. This way, when the going gets tough, you have a structure to fall back on.

There’s nothing more challenging or rewarding than being an entrepreneur. It is a life faced with fantastic dreams and goals and filled with the inevitable disappointments, challenges, and occasional failures. Successful entrepreneurs press on despite the tough times. Pressing on, maintaining a positive attitude is the key to achieving real success both as an entrepreneur and in your life. You know that you have what it takes to reach your dreams.

Take some time to answer the following questions honestly. This is the beginning of your internet marketing adventure and an extremely important part of getting started on the right foot and in the right frame of mind.
Success Mindset Worksheet:

Now that you’ve worked through this report you may have a different perspective on what you’ve learned. This is a great place to stop and regroup. This worksheet is something you can take with you.

1. Do you have a passion for something? It can be anything from baby food to skateboarding. Write down 5-10 subjects you’re passionate about. Rank them in order from one to 10. One being what you’re most interested in and 10 the least.
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2. Are you a good planner? List some aspects of your life where you have to use planning and organization skills.

4. How much time do you have to devote to your new business? Write down your current daily schedule to realistically assess how much time you will have each day to conduct business.

If you’re realizing you might be short on time, what can you do to modify your schedule?
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Blueprint for Success: Steps to developing a success mindset.

1. Assess your skills
Make a mental list or jot down on paper what your best qualities are. It’s important to be honest with yourself about this. You need to know these things, not only so you’ll feel confident but also so you can plan when tasks are required that don’t cater to your skills. If you’re not sure where to start, ask a trusted friend who knows you well to suggest what they think your strongest points are.

2. Be prepared and get organized
Good organization is so important. If you’re struggling to find papers or information you need, it can start a day off badly and tear down your confidence. Establish structures and systems for every aspect of your business, starting today with the very first steps.

3. Keep a positive state of mind
Remember, you can have your dream life. You can have the business you’ve always wanted.

4. Re-program yourself
Sometimes the only thing getting in our way is ourselves. Your frame of mind has a lot to do with the way you see things and how you get things done. When you have bad moment, and they will happen, it is how you handle these down moments that sets the tone for your business. If you can turn a setback into an opportunity or a learning moment, you’re golden.

5. Visualize and achieve
The most important thing about positive thinking, is seeing yourself achieving your goal. You know you can do it, so start by telling yourself that. You are your best motivator, so act as if. Visualize yourself succeeding as an online marketer and you will start to believe. Visualize by imagining or seeing a picture of what you want in your mind. Believing in yourself is the best thing you can do to get closer to your dream.

Achieve Personal Excellence

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