To have a positive mind means to have a mind that believes in possibilities, a mind that remains focused on what it wants to achieve, to believe that regardless of your circumstances, things will work out eventually; and this is the kind of the mindset each entrepreneur must possess. The life of an entrepreneur is hard, full of challenges, you can make one step ahead today but because of an unforeseen circumstance you will find yourself three steps backwards tomorrow, anyone can achieve anything as long as you are willing to work extra hard towards your goals. Just like anything else in life, running and managing a successful business is not an easy task, it involves challenges, downfalls, and disappointments. Some people lose all their investments in one night, some never succeed in the first couple of months, or years.

Positive Thinking and Goal Setting

James Allen the author of “As a man thinketh”, said and I quote,” as a man thinketh in his heart so is he, not only embraces the whole of a man’s being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstances of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts,” end of quote. So already this clearly proves to us that we are who we think or say we are, your thinking has a lot to do with whether you will succeed or not in life and as an entrepreneur, know what to feed your mind and know how to train your mind with positive thoughts. Positive thinking is the process of creating thoughts that turn into favorable or beneficial results.

Goal setting is the process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve (action plan) designed to guide a person towards a goal. Every entrepreneur needs to grow from a startup to an established company; from a sole proprietor to a limited company.

Characteristics / Traits of a Positive Mindset

1. Optimism: A willingness to make an effort and take a chance instead of assuming your efforts won’t pay off. Believe that your efforts and sacrifices will not be in vein, sooner or later your hard work will definitely pay off.
2. Acceptance: Acknowledging that things don’t always turn out how you want them to be, but learning from your mistakes. They say experience is the greatest teacher, your failures are not there to discourage and make you give up on your goals; instead learn from your failures because that’s where your success lies, your greatest lesson you need to learn.
3. Resilience: Bouncing back from adversity, disappointment, and failure instead of giving up. Don’t let your disappointments and failures keep you down. Use your failures as fuel to keep you going until you achieve your goals, failure is part of success it only means you are trying.
4. Success knows success: Surround yourself with people who have already made it, people who have already walked the same path you intend to walk through; this is one of the greatest motivation, you will learn a lot from them and get the best advice.

Goal Setting

Setting short-term goals and long-term goals will help you to make SMART decisions towards your business as an entrepreneur. Setting SMART goals means you can clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, use your time and resources productively, and increase your chances of achieving what you want in your business. To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, each one of them should be;

S – Specific, Simple, Sensible, Significant

M – Measurable, Meaning, Motivating

A – Achievable, Agreed, Attainable

R – Relevant, Reasonable, Realistic, Resourced, Result-based

T – Time bound, Time-based, Time limited, Timely, Time-sensitive

Developing Positive Ambition 

Ambition is the drive that causes people to see a purpose into setting goals and see the need of achieving them. Sometimes ambition gets to be seen as a negative attribute rather than a positive one. But it’s actually ambition that drives people to accomplish great things and without it, nothing great would ever be done. Ambition is much more positive than negative. According to Ines Temple who is a Peruvian businesswoman and President of Lee Hecht Harrison Peru and Lee Hecht Harrison Chile, it is more enjoyable when you work with an ambition, because you intend to know what you want, you will have clear goals and work very hard to accomplish them.

In order to achieve your life goals or be successful, one has to develop a constructive ambition. Often referred to as the fire in your gut, ambition is a priceless, timeless and highly valuable characteristic that every entrepreneur must possess. It is something that you can create within yourself. It is the raw desire to achieve or succeed in a goal. Ambition can be used as the fuel for motivation. It can be combined with determination to achieve success in literally anything you want. People who are successful in life are described as ambitious. They attract attention and get the best out of life at every turn.

Below are some of the ways one can develop a constructive ambition:

1. Do not be scared to take risks: One of the things to do so as to become more ambitious is to take risks. You have to be comfortable in risk. Sometimes, you may have to take a leap of faith or bet everything on one decision. In most cases, you will find that the situation you are most afraid of will actually not happen.
2. Be willing to invest time into your goal: Time is the most important resource. When invested wisely, it has the best returns. The more time you invest in a project, the faster it grows and becomes better. To become more ambitious, identify a project and work for long hours so as to complete it.
3. Expose yourself to new methods of thought: One of the main killers of ambition is group thinking. This is where you must accept popular opinion as your own. Group thinking collects the fears and anxieties of the masses and instills them in members. Therefore, you should break away from this method of thinking so as to become more ambitious.
4. Stay Committed: Commitment is the willingness to do an activity when you had rather not. It is the stubborn willingness to stick to a particular beneficial activity no matter what. Commitment is painful when conditions are challenging. However, it is an essential activity to perform so as to become ambitious.