Have you ever wondered what a business mindset actually is and what it means to have one?

Well, here’s a practical breakdown of what a business mindset is.

See how many of these characteristics you already possess yourself.

Aim to work on the ones where you feel you fall short…

Having a Business Mindset Means Knowing What You Want From Your Business

A business should serve a specific purpose and before you create yours you need to know what you want from it.

To achieve this, start with the lifestyle you’d ultimately like to live, then work backwards and make sure any businesses you create can give you the money, freedom and fulfillment you require to live this lifestyle.

With a Business Mindset You’ll Never Quit Even When Things Get Tough

Creating and running your own business is tough, especially in the early days. Anyone who tells you any different is only telling you what you want to hear.

There will be many challenges before you succeed and you must accept this. However, if you absolutely refuse to quit you will eventually succeed and with the correct business mindset things will get much easier.

A Business Mindset Enables You to Accept Failures and Learn From Them

Following on from not quitting, you’ll inevitably follow some paths which will blatantly fail. Whether it’s ideas you have and try out or entire businesses, unless you’re extremely lucky then you will experience failures.

Pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes and try again. Failing isn’t the same as quitting, as long as you try again. If it becomes obvious that you’re going to fail, don’t be afraid to fail fast and move on to the next idea quickly.

Having a Business Mindset is Setting Goals, Tracking and Achieving Them

Sometimes the work involved in starting a new business or project can seem overwhelming. Setting yourself goals which are achievable and tracking your progress will help you keep on the right track.

Once you’ve achieved your goals, set yourself some new more ambitious goals and follow the same process. Repeat until you’re where you ultimately want to be, living that lifestyle we talked about earlier.

If You Possess a Business Mindset You’ll Focus 100% on What’s Important

It’s easy to set yourself lots of goals and then try to achieve them all, but you may find yourself overwhelmed again. Use the 80:20 rule and identify those 20% of goals which will give you 80% of the benefits.

Focus on these goals one at a time and you’ll cut through the overwhelm and ultimately achieve more with the same effort.

Possessing a Business Mindset will Enable You to Ignore Criticism

Whatever goals you try to achieve, you’ll see criticism from all directions. Either ignore it, disassociate with those people who criticise you or do what I do and have fun with it.

I enjoy people’s criticism because I know they either don’t understand what I’m doing or they’re jealous because I’m doing something that they never dare do. I have fun listening to the “what if…”, “I wouldn’t do that because…”, “now’s not the right time to…”. I’ve heard it all before.

A Business Mindset Enables You to Streamline, Automate and Outsource

Create checklist for all of your regular tasks which are either complex or important. This improves both consistency and quality. Look at your processes and strip out anything that you don’t really need to be doing.

Create systems to automate whatever you can and then finally outsource the rest of tasks you don’t want to do. This process promotes the freedom and fulfillment parts of the lifestyle you’re aiming for.

To Possess a Business Mindset You Must Become an Expert Marketer

Out of all the tasks you chose to do yourself, either because they’re extremely important or you simply enjoy them, I’d highly recommend you put “marketing” into the extremely important category. You don’t have to do all the marketing yourself, I don’t expect you to be handing out flyers unless you really want to.

However, marketing is such a vital component of any business you do need to learn how to do it really well yourself. Never lose sight of what’s going on in your marketing, it could cost you dearly.

Having a Business Mindset Means Creating Money Making Machines

What you should be aiming for is to create businesses which are money making machines, so they can support the lifestyle you want to live. When you own a business or businesses which run with very little input from yourself you should be pretty close to having the freedom and wealth you need to finally do what you want to do with your life.

If a business requires your constant input, it’s more of a job than a business. Aim to build largely autonomous businesses and you won’t go far wrong.

Possessing a Business Mindset Means Being Passionate About Your Niche

Creating and running any business can be tough at times but it’s much easier if you’re passionate about what you’re doing. If you enjoy and truly believe in what you do your journey will be made much easier. Don’t just chase the money. If we all did that I’d be selling weight loss products now, but I’m not remotely passionate about that niche so it’s never going to happen for me.

You’re customers will spot from a mile whether or not you’re really passionate about what you do. Choosing a niche you’re passionate about drastically increases your chances of success and fulfillment.