How to Clear Your Mind as a Small Pet Business Owner
Are you struggling with negative thoughts? You’re not alone! We all experience this struggle at one time or another as small pet business owners. Success doesn’t mean never facing this challenge – instead, the secret to overcoming negative thinking is to find ways to clear your mind and put these unwanted thoughts to rest.
Why is Mindset Important to Your Business?
Working as a solopreneur or small business owner can be challenging. You are required to wear many hats, keep yourself focused, maintain your own schedule, and be your own cheerleader. Fighting through the struggles that come with owning a business is never easy but doing it on your own can feel impossible.
This is where your mindset plays a vital role in your business growth and success.
If you allow the negative thoughts to creep in, they can directly affect your ability to achieve your goals and succeed in your business efforts. They can chip away at your confidence and create limiting beliefs that prevent you from reaching your full potential. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Most people can only handle being told that they can’t accomplish something a limited number of times before they start believing it. It’s even more challenging when the person tearing you down is YOU!
In addition to negative thinking, there are also many thoughts that can occupy your mind, taking away resources from your business including your time, focus, and energy. These innocent thoughts may not be negative or harmful, but they can add up fast!
On the other end of the spectrum, if you clear your mind of negative and limiting thoughts and focus on things that are positive and actionable, you can improve your chances of success. Not only does this shift in thinking increase motivation and help to move you forward in your business, but positive thinking has also been proven to improve your health.
Now that we’ve established that your mindset is important, let’s look at how to clear your mind when you’re feeling down or overwhelmed.
10 Ways to Clear Your Mind and Focus on Your Business
When you take the time to clear your mind, you can improve productivity, break through a creative block, tackle overwhelm, and set yourself up for success.
Take a moment to read through each of these mind-clearing exercises, taking note of which ones you feel may work for you. Give yourself time to try different approaches and find the ways that work best for you. After all, no two people are the same.
Take a Break
Sometimes the best thing you can do is to step away from your business and take a much-needed break. There are many ways you can take a moment for yourself including puppy cuddle time, a cup of tea and your favorite TV show, a weekend completely unplugged, or taking a nap. Taking a break is arguably one of the best things you can do if you are feeling overwhelmed.
Exercise
Not only does exercise encourage you to take a break from the demands of your business, but it has also been found to improve memory, enhance thinking skills, reduce stress, and boost mood. Take your dog for a walk (or jog), hit the gym, do some yoga in your living room, or crank the tunes for an upbeat dance party. The type of exercise you choose doesn’t matter as long as you are getting up and moving.
Clear Mind Meditation
Meditation is a mind-body exercise that dates back to as early as 5000 BCE. But don’t let the fact that it has been around for so long discourage you from leveraging its benefits for today’s modern problems. It involves focusing your attention on a state of relaxation and your breathing, allowing you to let go of the many thoughts that are making you feel overwhelmed.
If you have already been practicing meditation, you may already have a meditation in mind. If not, there are smartphone apps that will walk you through the practice such as Calm or Headspace. There are also many great guided meditations available on YouTube.
Get Outside
Studies have found that spending time in nature can improve your mental health by encouraging calmness, reducing stress, boosting your mood, and inspiring creativity. It doesn’t have to be anything major or complicated. Take a walk in your favorite local park with your dog or adventure cat, kick back in your hammock in the backyard, or plan a weekend camping trip.
Put It on Paper
Sit down and allow yourself to write everything down on paper – the tasks you need to complete, the thoughts or ideas you have been ruminating on, and anything else that is occupying space in your mind. This will allow you to organize your thoughts in a way you can work with moving forward. Group similar thoughts into categories such as:
- Tasks that must be completed
- Inspiration for future projects
- Ideas for accomplishing your current business goals
- Random thoughts that have no connection to your business
You can take this a step further by assigning priority levels to each item to help you identify what you should address first. A task with a looming deadline is going to demand your attention sooner than an idea for a project you may consider next year.
Reorganize Your Workspace
Take a moment to consider what could be holding you back from completing some of the tasks that are occupying your thoughts. For some people, it could be as simple as not having a work environment that encourages productivity. Look for opportunities to make it easier to get things done. This could mean making sure that the tools you need are close at hand or removing distractions. You may also find that small changes can make your workspace feel new and fresh, offering inspiration and motivation.
Reach Out to a Support Person
Even as a solopreneur, you’re never completely alone on your business journey. But you may have to take a moment to identify the people that you have around you for support. This could include your partner, a close friend, a coach or mentor, an accountability partner, or an encouraging and helpful community like we have in the BlogPaws Facebook Group.
Sometimes talking through your struggles will open your eyes to new solutions. Or you may find the answer you need by listening to an outsider’s opinion. Is there something on your mind that could be taken care of by someone else? Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Turn Up the Tunes
Music is a powerful force that can influence our physical, mental, and emotional health. For this reason, many offices and workplaces will turn on the radio or create productivity-focused playlists to motivate their employees. You can use this same approach to clear your mind and improve your focus. To do so, you will need to start by finding what style of music helps you work. This could take some experimentation, but have fun with it! When you find something that works, create a playlist that you can turn on anytime you need that extra boost.
Create An Accomplishment List
If your struggle revolves around negative thinking, you can try overcoming this by reminding yourself of all the great things that you have already accomplished. Sit down and make a list of all your “wins” in life both in your business and in your life as a whole. Keep this list somewhere close at hand so that you can read through it anytime you find yourself experiencing negative mindsets like self-doubt or imposter syndrome.
Remind Yourself of Your “Why”
One of the most powerful things in your life is your “why” – the reason why you started your business to begin with. This is the emotional driving force behind your decision to be a small business owner and it can provide you with the fuel needed to keep moving forward in even the most challenging situations.
Take a moment to reflect on the start of your business. Was it a specific cause that spoke to your heart? Were you inspired to start a small pet business by a special pet in your life?
Focusing on this motivating factor will help you to put everything else into perspective. It makes it easier to let go of the things that aren’t going to move you in the direction that you need to go to reach your goals. It will also help you find the balance between making logical choices and passion-based business decisions – a balance that will help you grow your business.
Do you have any go-to solutions to clear your mind and help you refocus? Share your tips and tricks in the comments and check out what’s working for other members of the BlogPaws community.
About the Author: Britt Kascjak, BlogPaws Director of Content & SEO, is an award winning freelance writer whose background in digital and social media marketing spans 15+ years. She’s been a content creator in the pet industry for 9+ years with her own blogs: Shed Happens and The Kas Pack, where she shares her outdoor adventures with her 2 dogs and 2 cats. Read more…
