I have definitely said this a few times now but, in my opinion, business is so much more of a personal growth journey than anything else. Some days are great and others are really hard. We’ve all had those days.

But if there’s one thing that I can recommend to entrepreneurs out there, and it doesn’t matter what stage you’re at, you must adapt a growth mindset in order to grow your business. It’s especially important to grow your business past a plateau. In this episode, I’ll tell you what I recommend in order to develop that mindset.

When you shift your mindset and implement these five things in your business, you will get through your plateau.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The five steps to adapt the growth mindset that you need to make to get through a plateau in your business
• Why focusing on the negatives is not getting you anywhere and what you should do instead
• Why you should feel the fear and do it anyway (no matter what the fear is)
• Why you should never take business advice from family and friends who have never grown a business
• Why you need to always take massive action, even when you’re still learning
• Why planning will not get you to your goals
• And what the one thing that leads to failure is

Tune in to the episode here:

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I have definitely said this a few times now, but in my opinion, business is much more of a personal growth journey than it is anything else. 

There’s ups, there’s downs, there’s twists, there’s turns, and everything in between, right? 

It’s such a personal growth journey. Some days are great. Others are hard. Some days you feel like you’re on top of the world and like you can do anything with Beyonce vibes. 

Then some days, you’re ready to pack it all in and just go back to a day job. Then you’ll never have to worry about being a business owner again, right? 

I know you can agree with me, we have all had those days. 

But but but but but… 

If there is one thing that I can highly recommend to you and to every entrepreneur on the entire planet (I know that’s a bold statement but I want to say this to every single entrepreneur listening right now), it doesn’t matter what stage of business you’re at, whether you are just getting into business, or maybe you’re already side hustling and getting ready to go full-time, or maybe already full-time. 

The thing that I’m going to recommend to you is to adapt a growth mindset. 

I mean, we all know how extremely overwhelming and also super deflating it can be when you hit a plateau in your growth in your business, right? This also applies to life. 

It sucks. It’s so deflating when you hit that plateau. And, of course, when you don’t know why it’s happening. That’s the worst part of it, right? 

Because you’re like, “What’s going wrong? Why can’t I grow? Why have I hit another plateau? I’m doing all the things. I’m doing #allthethings. I’m doing my best. I’m trying my hardest. I’m working long hours. I’m sacrificing Friday nights out with friends,” you know? 

But the thing is, it’s not because you haven’t found this magic formula yet or anything like that. 

The reason why you’ve hit that plateau, that growth plateau, and why you aren’t growing any further than you already have, is because as humans we get stuck in our limiting belief-filled mindsets and limiting belief systems that we’ve grown up with our whole entire lives. And it’s getting us nowhere fast. 

So, basically, in this episode, I want to give you five actionable, simple steps that you can take to adopt a growth mindset. These steps will help you for the rest of your business journey. And, of course, this will help you in your life, as well. I can promise you that. 

Because I don’t want you to hit these plateaus. I don’t want you to feel like it’s an uphill battle, where you’re constantly trying to improve and do more and find those magic formulas and where you have to sacrifice everything. Yes, the sacrifices have to be made. 

But I want to talk about these five actionable steps to adapt a growth mindset. So success can come a lot more naturally to you. I’m not going to say it’s going to come easily. I’m going to say that it’s going to come way more naturally to you. 

So, let’s dive into the first one. 

Step #1 –  Always Look for the Lesson 

The thing is that focusing on the negatives in life or all the negatives in business is not getting you anywhere. 

Have a look at your past. Have a look at all the negative things that have happened. Where you’ve dwelled on the negatives and when you’ve really focused on them. When you’ve let those negatives get you down or let them boil up inside of you and where you’ve fussed over them. 

All of that negative thinking didn’t help you improve your life. Did you learn a lesson by only focusing on the negatives? Probably not. 

So, from now on, what I want you to do is I want you to always look for the lesson. Because focusing on the negatives in every situation isn’t going to get you anywhere. Look for the lessons and the areas of improvement. Look for the places that you can potentially improve and do better next time. The areas that you can tweak and do it a different way next time. Whatever that is, that will definitely help get you to somewhere, wherever that is you want to go. 

So, anytime something doesn’t go to plan, look for the lesson. For example, maybe there’s something you’re working on in your business right now. And you’re like “Shit, this isn’t going the way that I wanted it to. This is frustrating.” What I want you to do is feel that energy that’s typically negative. Then I want you to ask yourself, “What is the lesson in this? What is this situation trying to teach me?”

I would highly recommend journaling on this. 

This is something I do anytime that I don’t get a result that I want to get in business. I will ask myself the following:

• Why didn’t I get the result I wanted? 
• What could I do better next time? 
• What is this situation trying to teach me? 
• What is the lesson in this? 

And if you think that you can get away without learning the lesson, I can pinky, pinky, pinky promise you that it will 110% show up for you again and again. And again, and again, and again, and again. It will show up over and over until you finally learned the lesson. Okay?

Because that’s the way that the world works. That’s the way that the universe operates. If you are served a lesson and you don’t learn the lesson, that lesson will continue to present itself to you in one way or another. It will keep happening until you finally go, “Holy shit. I know why this is happening. I have learned the lesson.” It’s going to keep showing up until you learn the lesson. 

So, like I said, grab out a journal and then ask yourself, “What is the lesson in this? What is this situation trying to teach me?” And of course from there, you don’t just want to find the lesson. You want to learn from the lesson. That’s just a little caveat; learn from the lesson. 

Don’t just look at it and be like, “Okay, cool. I didn’t show up enough.” For example, if you were launching and maybe you didn’t get as many people in your program or to join your coaching or social media management package, or whatever it is. Maybe you didn’t get as many people as you wanted. Maybe the lesson is that you need to show up more. There’s no point in learning that lesson if the next time you go to launch that service or that product then you don’t take the action that’s necessary. So, make sure that you learn the lesson and then use the lesson, utilize it. 

Step #2 – Never Let Your Fear Stop You

You know what? So what if you’re scared of going live on social media for fear of judgment. That’s okay that you’re scared. Do it anyway. 

Or maybe you’re scared of hiring that coach that you’ve been stalking on Instagram, because you’ve got a fear around letting go of money or investing money. That’s okay. Do it anyway. 

I love, love, love that saying, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” 

Feel that emotion. Be scared, you know, freak out, be nervous, and feel that fear. But then do the scary thing anyway. You are an entrepreneur, not a hobbyist. 

If you’re a hobbyist, go ahead, feel the fear. Shit your bricks and don’t do the scary thing. That’s fine. You’ll stay a hobbyist. But if you want to be a business owner, you’ve got to feel the fear and you’ve got to do it anyway. 

The only place you grow is outside your comfort zone. Okay? Never let your fear stop you. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s going live. It doesn’t matter if it’s investing. It doesn’t matter if it’s changing your niche or launching a program. It doesn’t matter if it’s reaching out to someone or speaking up for yourself. Or creating a boundary and telling someone no. 

It doesn’t matter what it is, the only place that you are going to grow is outside your comfort zone. Nothing good comes from inside that comfort zone. Unless you want to stay safe or to stay boring. Not unless you want to stay where it’s okay to show up a little bit, but not really get visible. If you want to stay in that place, go for it. But, in my opinion, as an entrepreneur and not a hobbyist, you will feel the fear and do it anyway. That’s the second step. 

Never let your fear stop you, ever. 

Doesn’t matter what it is, whether big or small. Never, ever, ever let it stop you. 

Step #3 – Model Successful People 

Did you notice that I didn’t say model your family, your friends, and people who have no clue what they’re doing. Right? 

I said model successful people. Because tell me this—and this is such a rhetorical question, but tell me this—why in the world would you take business advice from someone who has never grown a business or has never done what you’re wanting to do. Right? What help are they going to give you? None.

Would you take personal training advice from someone who’s maybe not happy with their own weight and eats McDonald’s every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? Probably not. You would take it from someone who eats healthy and exercises every day. From someone who prioritizes self-care and all of that. So, why would you take advice from someone who has never done what you’re wanting to do? That’s why I said I’m not telling you to model your friends, family, and people who have no clue what they’re doing. I’m telling you to model successful people, right? 

So, for example, if you want to go full-time in business then it’s important to find someone who’s done it before. If you want to lose five kilos, then it’s important to find someone who’s done it before. If you want to learn how to solo travel and be safe, then find someone who’s done it before. If you want to hit six figures in your first year in business, again, find someone who’s done it before. Am I getting my point across here? 

Whatever you do, whether it’s in life or in business, model successful people. Model the people who have done what you’re wanting to do, and can help to get you there. 

Whether that’s directly through, for example, business coaching, a program, or through consulting services. Or if it is more indirectly through listening to their podcast episodes, bingeing all of their emails, and looking at all of their social media content. Model the successful people who know what needs to be done to get you to where you want to go. Listening to anyone else and taking anyone else’s opinions when they don’t understand it is one like, it’s literally a one way ticket to not succeeding. So, model the successful people who can get you there. I promise, pinky, pinky, pinky promise you will see much better results and much quicker too.

Step #4 – Study AND Take Massive Action 

So, let me just say that again, study everything and take massive action. 

It’s one thing to take all the courses, read all the books, hire all the coaches, and do all the things. But if you aren’t taking massive action, then you will never hit your goals. I pinky promise you that. There’s a lot of pinky-promising going on in this episode. I’m clearly very passionate about this, right? 

So, you can take all the courses, you can hire the coach, and you can read 50 books in a year. But if you’re doing all of this studying, and you’re never taking massive action, then I can promise you that you won’t hit your goals. Sitting in that planning phase and creating all the mind maps or doing all the brainstorming in Google Docs, Google Sheets, on your Asana boards, and filling 100 different notebooks, all of that stuff will not get you to your goals, right? Yes, it helps. But the second part to all the studying and planning is actually taking action. 

Doing the things that you’re learning about and doing all the study is not what will get you there. I love what Tony Robbins says, “Until you do it, you don’t know it.” So, until you do something and until you take action, you don’t actually know what it is that you’re saying. 

In the end, I know you want massive results. We all want massive results. Every person listening to this episode, whether in business or in life, everyone listening to this episode and listening to me speak, wants massive results. And, my friend, massive results come from massive action. 

Not massive dreams. I don’t care how big your dreams are. Unless you’re taking massive action, you aren’t going to hit your massive results. End of story, right? So, study and take massive action. 

Step #5 – Keep Trying Until You Succeed

This is probably the biggest one that I’ve had many clients come to me with. They’re like, “I don’t know, I tried everything under the sun and nothing’s working. I’ve literally tried a million things.” And I’m like, no.

I didn’t say keep trying until you’ve tried twice. I didn’t say keep trying until you give up. I didn’t say keep trying until you hit 100 times. I said, keep trying until you succeed. 

Because the only time in life that you fail, is when you stop trying. The only time you fail is when you stop trying. Write that down. Put that as your wallpaper on your phone. Write that on your mirror or stick it on a sticky note on your fridge. Tell your husband, tell your friends, imprinted it on your children, get a tattoo. 

The only time that you fail is when you stop trying. So, rather than falling into this negative pattern of “I tried it and it didn’t work. I tried a million things. I’ve tried 101 things. Nothing’s working.” Instead of that, ask yourself why it didn’t work and what you can do next.

That’s something I do in my journaling practice. Like I said earlier, journaling is fabulous. Get out your journal, write down what it is that you tried to do. Describe what it was that you took action on. What was the thing that you did that didn’t work out? Then ask yourself, why do I think it didn’t work? 

Then once you identify why you think it didn’t work, even if it’s just a total stab in the dark guess. Then ask yourself, what can I do next? 

Because having this self-awareness around why something didn’t work is great, but it’s only half the equation. You have to ask yourself what you can do next. 

I’m sick of people saying I’ve tried everything. I’ve done everything. That’s bullshit, you haven’t. There is no way that you could have done everything because guess what? If you’ve done everything, then you would have succeeded, right? 

It took Thomas Edison one thousand tries until he was successful in creating the freaking light bulb. 

That light bulb above your head right now, unless you’re laying in bed and it’s pitch black, right? That light bulb in the room that you’re in, it took one thousand tries for that man to create it. 

Imagine if he had stopped at one try, at ten tries, at one hundred tries, at two hundred tries, at five hundred tries, right? It took him one thousand tries until he got it. And what I love is that a reporter actually asked him how. He asked, “Mr. Edison, how did it feel to fail one thousand times?” And of course, being the genius that he was, Thomas Edison replied, “I didn’t fail one thousand times, but the light bulb was an invention with one thousand steps,” right? Treat your business the same as Mr. Thomas Edison did when he was creating the lightbulb. 

Don’t give up after that first go. Don’t give up after the tenth, the twentieth, the fifteenth, the hundredth, the thousandth. 

Keep trying until you’re successful. 

I guarantee that if Mr. Thomas Edison can try one thousand times to create a light bulb that you can try ten times to launch a program. You can try five times to go live before you’re comfortable. Come on, right? 

Keep taking the massive action and keep trying until you succeed. Like I said, get it tattooed on you that the only time you fail is when you give up. Maybe don’t get it tattooed. But write it down everywhere and let it become your mantra. Remember that the only time you’re going to fail is when you stop trying. 

So, keep taking massive action and keep trying until you succeed. 

Okay, I know that was a lot to take in during a short amount of time, and I absolutely loved recording this. This is obviously stuff that I’m so passionate about. If you can’t tell I totally got ramped up the whole way through, especially when I was talking about Thomas Edison. I think he’s a genius for coming up with the light bulb. 

But that is a total wrap for today’s episode. 

But don’t exit yet because I have a question to ask you. I want to continue this conversation over on Instagram. As I said, I’m super passionate, and I know that you are as well. So, jump over to Instagram right now and find me at @elleymae if we aren’t already connected. Then let me know which one of these five takeaways was your favorite. Take a screenshot and share it on stories if you want, but please send me a DM and let me know which one of these five was your favorite takeaway from this entire episode. I love you so much and I will see you in my DMs.

Have any questions after listening, head over to Instagram and ask away!

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