Changing Your Thinking and Accepting Transitions

Ways to Shift Your Mindset and Embrace Change

Change is inevitable. Accepting and learning to anticipate it is not, and understanding that is a major mental hurdle for entrepreneurs as their businesses, customers, and market shift over time.

But you can train your brain to get better at handling change through simple mental exercises, from imagining your corporation’s demise to learning how to meditate. It's not always pleasant, but it is possible.

1. Learn to meditate.

Your mindset is a muscle that can be strengthened and improved upon. One way to improve your mindset and embrace transformation in your life is to learn meditation.

2. Make personal development a priority for yourself.

Taking the time to work on your development can be incredibly challenging as an entrepreneur. But it is the only way to embrace change and manage the inevitable stress and ups and downs that come with growing a business. Whether mediating, yoga, spiritual practice or self-inquiry, your intention about your growth and path will let you learn to embrace change.

3. Retrain your brain by noticing three positive changes per day.

Create a practice of noticing three daily changes that have positively affected people's ability to do business: email vs. mailing correspondence, rotary phones vs. Skype calls with your remote employee in another country, etc. By making an effort to recognize the positive effects of business change, you'll retrain your brain to see change as an opportunity for growth.

4. Write your post-mortem.

There's nothing more effective to making change than thinking about your company's eventual demise. Take a look at your business and think about what would happen in six months or one year if you were stagnant. Put on your competitors' hats and think about what they would do to beat you. Once you realize your company's mortality, you'll quickly embrace change.

5. Focus on your long-term vision.

Change is often uncomfortable, but it's essential if you want your business to grow. You must embrace this fact and look beyond the present conditions for your long-term goals and vision.

6. Imagine the inevitable.

Remember that almost every product in history is eventually obsolete, at least in its original form. As a thought experiment, imagine how and why your business will become outdated. Who or what is likely to make it obsolete?

By coming up with answers to this question, you can position yourself to make these innovations rather than having your competitors do it at your expense.

7. Do the dirty work yourself.

Work other positions at your business. Specifically, take on the job everyone in the company hates doing. That will prepare your mind to approach the industry from a different point of view. Then you will be set to start changing your company for the better.

8. Accept that change will happen with or without you.

Accept three things: life is short, time is precious, and your ego always needs a shot of humility. Every idea has a life and an evolution. Change is a natural and necessary part of that evolutionary cycle. The change will happen with or without you, so don't get in your way.

9. Make yourself vulnerable to others.

As our business evolves, it is the path of least resistance, but sometimes the best, to form anything new based only on our current empathy and skill sets. Being in a position of power, others get dragged into our processes. But if we make ourselves vulnerable to accepting the thoughts of others, we may not only positively shift our mindset but also become better leaders.

10. Eliminate your 'sunk costs' mindset.

The more time and effort you've invested in something, the more likely you are to stay attached to it--even if pivoting or walking away is the sounder choice. Refrain from letting the fear of losing your investment guide your decision-making. Reason about the rewards of ongoing down a path or forging a new one.