Change Your Mindset : Change Your Future by Uzair Kharawala

Staying positive is one of the most important (and difficult) things to do, specially when things aren’t going your way and you may be going through a rough time either in your personal or business life. One cannot and should not give up when things start to go down. Giving up would be the easy way and all your hard work is wasted. I’ve seen some very tough times when giving up would have been the easy way out. My dad used to tell me that when problems come, they come all at once and from all directions, but they don’t go all at once, they go one by one. I’ve never forgotten this and never will.

Being photographer in this economic climate is not easy. Its tough. Lots of competition, more photographers less work. So what should you do to keep going, having a roof over your head and food on the table.

Firstly, you just can’t keep on doing the same stuff as you were doing, say last year or the year before. You’ve got to think outside the box and market new & innovative products or services. Last year, I did something very different which no one was doing as far as I know. Offering portraits to customers at a price which they couldn’t refuse. After the session, all the images were edited & supplied on a CD to the client. There was no up-selling, cross selling or even down selling! No viewing appointments for the clients to come back to. A very simple ‘no frills’ portrait experience which anyone can afford, perhaps 2-3 times a year if they had kids. I’ll discuss this later in a separate post regarding portraits in detail. The point I’m trying to make is, I dared to be different. Don’t be scared of trying new things. If it doesn’t work, move on to the next one, until something clicks. Try, try, try till you succeed.

If your bookings are low and not much work is coming through, think differently, do something different, something controversial or even something outrageous! But do something and not just sit and keep on thinking as to why you aren’t getting work. A great example of this is of a sports person. Every super star goes through a lean patch in their careers, sometimes its a fitness problem or loss of form. When a player is dropped from the team, the self-confidence is at its lowest. This does not mean that the player has become a bad player overnight. They’ll start to train even more harder, practice more and sooner or later they’ll find the form and be back in the team. This only happens when you are mentally strong and have a very strong mindset. We always hear this phrase ‘its all in the mind’, couldn’t agree more.

Take little steps to being positive, stop saying ‘I can’t', ‘I don’t have time’ – positive thinking starts with little things you say and has a huge impact on you in the long run. Do something good or give something to someone. Giving is truly one of the most positive thinking exercises that can help you attract more positive things in return. Stay away from ‘negative thinking’ people who are always moaning about something or the other. Keep company with those who are very positive and want to encourage you to achieve more in life. Never look at your past, but your future. Whats gone is gone, you can’t change it. But you CAN change the future. Don’t think about how little work you have, how much debt you’re in, etc. Thinking this is going to attract more debt and more problems. its the Laws of Attraction. However, thinking that you WILL get more work and you will get out of this mess will make things better. Obviously just thinking about it won’t make things happen, being in this positive mindset will make you do things which you didn’t do before and once you start radiating positive energy, things do happen. You will soon be on the way to reaching your goals and be successful. To be successful you need to:

Set Your Goals

Set achievable & realistic goals. Divide them further into smaller tasks or goals so you can achieve them one by one. Be patient, success doesn’t come overnight. Every successful person will tell you how much pain they’ve been through to achieve their ambitions.

Your Weakness & Strengths

Don’t work to your weakness i.e I can’t do this or I don’t know how to do that. Work to your strengths. Do things which you know you can. If my car goes up to 100mph, I’ll make sure that I’ll drive it to 99.99mph and not moan about my car not being able to do 105mph.

PS. I’m not advocating you go and drive your car at 99.99mph!!!

Take Action

Your aims, ambitions & goals will be nothing if you don’t take action. We all go to seminars & workshops, hear someone speak and come back home buzzing with a new lease of life and ideas exploding from your mind. The next day, its back to the same old routines & life. What you saw & heard is put on a back burner and telling yourself I dont’ have time right now and I’ll start on this idea or action soon! Things won’t happen just by going to seminars & workshops, you need to take action.

Most importantly, you’ve got to believe in yourself.

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Tags: Business & Beyond, Mindset, Seminar