Is Your Mindset Limiting You as an Entrepreneur?

What type of mindset do you have?

In a ground-breaking research study conducted by John-Erik Mathisen and Jan Ketil Arnulf at BI Norwegian Business School, there are two mindsets that most aspiring entrepreneurs have, one of which is likely limiting your potential as an entrepreneur.

In this study of 242 bachelor students at BI Norwegian Business School and finance students at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Mathisen and Arnulf discovered that students with implemental mindsets were behind most of the new companies than those with elaborative mindsets.

According to Mathisen and Arnulf, an elaborative mindset concentrates more on “assessing a situation and obtaining information". People who are influenced by this elaborative mindset are open to new information and tend to be more thoughtful.

While on surface this looks like an ideal mindset to have, the downside is that this type of mindset is more likely to lead to doubts about your business idea. The more elaborative you are, the more doubts you are going to have about your business. And the more doubtful you are, the more indecisive and stagnate you become. In their research, John and Jan refer to this as “the cost of doubt”.

Mathisen and Arnulf discovered another type of mindset, implemental (implementation) mindset. People with this mindset tend to take more action based on the information they have or the patterns they have developed. This is consistent with most entrepreneurship literature which has concluded that too much thinking can be bad for you as an entrepreneur and that action trumps everything when it comes to building a successful business.

In other words, “entrepreneurs who use a lot of their mental powers to obtain as much information as possible (elaborative mindsets), have less success transforming their idea into a new business than those who automatically think implementation”. This does not mean that an elaborative mindset is necessarily bad for you, but that too much of it leads to paralysis. The more you think about your idea, the less likely you are going to implement it. This research is not against planning or thinking, but merely suggesting that planning or thinking is severely over-rated and that too much of it is bad for you.

So, what should you do if you have an elaborative mindset?

This research is a call to stop over-thinking your business and take action. If you have a business idea, just start. Start small. Start badly. And keep learning and improving as you go. You don't learn by thinking. You learn by doing. The quicker you can get into the marketplace and engage your target audience, the better are your chances of turning your idea into something influential.

It doesn’t mean if you have an elaborative mindset you have to quit entrepreneurship. Mathisen and Arnulf suggest that the most important thing is “awareness”. You have to be aware of the fact that your elaborative mindset can create obstacles in launching your business. The more awareness you have, the more power and freedom you have to change your mindset when it starts working against you.

Are you struggling to grow your business as an entrepreneur?

If you answered yes, I would love to help. I invite you to join me in my coaching program. The Becoming a Willing Student Entrepreneur Program is a business coaching program for entrepreneurs who want to build sustainable businesses. You’ll receive help finding out who you truly are as an entrepreneur, what you really want out of your business, and how you’ll get there. You’ll know how it feels to build your business differently and pursue the right goals. You’ll stop wasting your time on people who don’t value you or people you can’t make a difference to.