Everyone has the possibility to grow. Abraham Maslow once said, “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”

It’s essential to recognize that growth is not measured solely on sales. In fact, from a monetary measure, it’s more about overall profit rather than sales. Growth ultimately begins with you and your people and is measured by well-being and happiness.

Happy people generate growth. Satisfied customers are more frequent return customers, and return customers who fall in love with your product become raving fans which, in turn, attracts more of the same customers.

However, to achieve this, you often have to face the treacherous path of disruption and change, and we all know that for many people, these two words cause a significant amount of anxiety.  Anxiety and discomfort caused by disruption and change can lead to a crisis and in many cases, can result in failure rather than growth. 

Growth sounds fun and for the most part, entrepreneurs are continuously in search of the magic pill that will create a constant and significant rise in sales. When we sell more, we feel accomplished, but often this leads to burnout, stress, a lack of control and exhaustion.  These outcomes of growth can lead to a drop in morale, operational dysfunctionality and pain points for customers. All that results in adverse consequences for you and your firm.

The human pain points, such as exhaustion and burnout, are significant considerations for entrepreneurs. They are often overlooked because of the need to generate sales and growth. Often this leads to a lone wolf approach, and people begin to isolate themselves from their team, family and friends. For many entrepreneurs, this can lead to depression and business failure.

The primary casualty of growth often starts with critical people. To avoid the pitfalls of growth, you need to make sure you and your team are mentally prepared. This comes in the form of developing and practicing growth mindset principles.

One of my favorite quotes from professor Carol Dweck is “the path to a growth mindset is a journey, not a proclamation.”

Growth rarely happens overnight, and it most certainly isn’t linear.  Success is a messy scribble and bound with failure experiences that force learning and improvement. Having the right mindset — a growth mindset — will help you grow and flourish throughout your journey.

Adopting a growth mindset is not an easy task because we all have fixed mindsets; however, the following seven growth mindset principles will help you supercharge growth and wellbeing for you and your business.

1. Welcome chaos

As Bob Dylan famously sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Welcoming chaos can help with creativity and the ability to adapt to change. Crisis spawns innovation, effectiveness and success. Distribution is innovation, so come to terms with chaos and embrace reality. As a result, you can sacrifice efficiency for speed and lower the resistance to change as well as minimize the impact of disruption.

2. Hire doers

Hire right for now and make sure any hire is an instant action taker. Don’t waste your time hiring the next big thing. You need people that can get you from A to B then B to C not A to Z. These are different people, and you will need them at different intervals of your journey.

Hiring doers is a mindset formed from many steps and a process that you must act upon. Having this mindset during all your recruitment stages will help you develop a growth team.

3. Embrace a lack of management

There is no substitute for speed, and with that comes poor management from time to time. The team needs to understand it’s not personal but a requirement to take action quickly.

Rapid growth does not form many friendships; it breaks even the best. Set the tone and the rules at the start. This doesn’t mean hate on people or do the wrong thing; it means establishing a culture of action takers driven by purpose and outcomes.

To combat the risk, develop a culture of empowerment. This will accelerate learning and improvement because of accountability. People who are empowered perform much better than those who are oppressed or fear failure.

4. Get your product to market fast

Don’t worry about perfection. The market will dictate changes and navigate your innovation. Testing your product and service market fit is critical; this won’t happen in your head or a workshop. Get it out to market and let the market tell you what it needs and why.

So many people and organizations fail to understand this principle. Often, the fear of failure causes paralysis, and products and services take too long to be deployed in the market. This burdens a company and impacts profit. 

Break the fixed mindset cycle that speed is your enemy. Work yourself towards freedom and adventure.

5. Laser focus

Too often, entrepreneurs get distracted by new shiny objects or unforeseen challenges. Not every new idea is worth pursuing and not every fire needs putting out. 

Don’t overthink it. Sometimes things need to burn so you can get on with it and not lose focus on your destination. Too often, I see entrepreneurs worrying about little things and spending too much trying to appease everyone.

The most successful entrepreneurs, business owners and executives I have worked with are those who get on with achieving their goals; they are purpose-driven and have laser focus.

6. Hack away

Find the fastest way to get from 0 to hero. This is for everything you do! Realize that getting things done fast is critical to your business and progress is better than perfection.

Perfection is actually a detrimental mindset. Developing a growth hacking mindset is powerful, and I recommend the “high tempo testing” concept coined by Sean Ellis. With this method, you learn from insight, create a hypothesis, test, measure, and go again.

You will be amazed when you develop this mindset. You’ll solve problems by creating problems, and you will grow from cutting corners, improving and learning along the way.

J.K. Rowling famously said, “It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.” 

7. Solve a massive market problem

For new ventures, the key to success and impact is to solve a massive problem: the bigger the problem, the more excellent the opportunity. To combat the risk of failure, solve these problems by breaking them down into manageable and actionable tasks.

In an established business, don’t gravitate to bold moves but rather seek out small wins. If you are navigating disruption such as a pandemic, recognize that when leading change, less is more.

By following these seven business growth mindset principles for growth, you will develop success in more ways than you could’ve imagined. It will help your self-confidence, improve your social proof and increase your knowledge base. These factors will help you empower others and get them into action. More importantly, you will become more fulfilled because when you are taking action every day on things that matter, you immediately feel accomplished. 

The post 7 Growth-Mindset Principles appeared first on Entrepreneur and is written by Kristian Livolsi

Original source: Entrepreneur