š§ Change Your Mindset
Thereās usually a narrow gap separating winners from those who give up. We call that gap mindsetāand itās crucial when building your platform.
Michael Hyatt, founder of Michael Hyatt & Company, was in ninth grade when he broke his right elbow. To make matters worse, it happened just as he started taking guitar lessons. Memorizing chords and running scales is challenging enough, but he had to do it with a chunk of plaster hindering his arm.
He found the mental battle was tougher than the physical challenge, requiring a mindset of focus and determination to succeed.
Likewise, building a platform can be daunting. The competition is tough, the field is packed, and finding an audience sometimes feels impossible. But when things are stacked against us, the right mindset makes all the difference.
When building your own platformāthis usually plays out in at least one of these three mental battles.
āI Donāt Have Time For Thisā
Youāre probably building your platform while working a full-time job, which means finding time is a real issue. The solution is found in developing:
- Creativity in your approach
- Clarity about the essentials
Getting clear about the essential issues within our challenges will trigger creative problem-solving. The main obstacle most of us face in building our platforms isnāt too little time, itās doing too much of the wrong things. The combination of creativity and clarity can turn that around.
āI Donāt Know How to Do Thisā
Todayās technology makes platform building easier, but itās still hard work, with a steep learning curve that can foster self-doubt and frustration.
Itās especially challenging when you have a full-time job and a family to take care of, with no team to rely on. How will you master it all? But like Michael learning guitar with a cast on his arm, you can succeed.
The key to winning this mental battle was reminding myself I didnāt have to learn everything at once. When we intentionally and incrementally build on our learning over time, weāll have what we need to win.
Itās important to find people whoāve been there and done it already. We can learn a lot from someone elseās mistakes and successes while getting the encouragement we need to keep plugging away.
āI Donāt Have What it Takesā
Inevitably weāll experience times when our message falls flat, traffic or subscriptions go down, and criticism appears in the comments. Because our platform matters so much, our tendency is to magnify our setbacks, which can really shake our confidence.
The key to this mental battle is persistence. Quitting before the whistle blows just cheats ourselves and others.
Effective persistence requires creativity, clarity about our essentials, and belief in incremental progress, but it also requires courage. Find people who believe in you and speak encouragement into your life when the doubts come.
You Can Succeed
Michael had every reason to quit trying to learn guitar. He sat on his stool with his instrument and broken elbow, butut he really wanted to play the guitar. His determination drove a mindset which overcame his physical limitations.
Most people who set out to build a platform donāt succeed because they donāt learn or apply the basics of platform building, and the remainder usually lose one of these three mental battles.
Donāt let that stop you.
What do you really want?
Success isnāt guaranteed, but you can improve your odds. Winning these three mental battles will give you the best chance possible.