CEO Mindset
Failure is the Way
When successful CEOs are faced with a problem, they go after it like a dog chasing a rabbit. It doesn’t matter if they’re not 100% sure that the solution they have is the right one. If it’s the best they can come up with, they pull the trigger and watch what happens.
100% SURE ISN’T THE BEST APPROACH
Does that sound strange? I used to believe we need to be close to 100% sure of a decision before making it. But that’s not the best approach. 100% doesn’t exist and pursuing it slows us down. As CEOs we need to be active decision machines. We make the best decision we can at the time and move on. Decisions on life or death matters take more time but, even then, there’s a point when we need to move forward and good is good enough. And when something doesn’t come out as we expected, we simply learn from it and make another, better, decision.
Life is messy and we don’t have to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. We can choose to believe that the fastest path to success is to make decisions, learn from the results and then keep making decisions until we get to where we want to be.
GROWTH MINDSET
In the book Growth Mindset, the author explains how people with a “fixed mindset” believe their achievement potential is fixed at where they are. And when they fail at something it means they’re going backwards. People with a “growth mindset” believe that they have an endless capacity to improve and that learning involves failing, therefore failing is part of learning.
CEOs with a growth mindset view obstacles as opportunities. They believe their goals are achievable even when they don’t know exactly how to achieve them. Every mistake teaches them something and gets them closer to their goal.
TRY THIS:
Take your best shot on something that needs doing even if you’re not exactly sure how to do it. Celebrate problems, mistakes, and failures as lessons learned and opportunities to speed ahead. You’ll see that not only will it get you to your goals faster, but you’ll feel better too!