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So you’re interested in dropshipping and making money online…
You’re taking steps towards launching an online store…
You’re excited about the prospect of building a business and being your own boss…
But you’re afraid of failure and consumed by doubt?
I know the feeling because I’ve been where you are.
I’ve built several successful eCommerce businesses, I’m an adviser to several others, and I work with successful online sellers and dropshippers every day.
I can tell you that everyone who tries to start an online business faces the same fear and resistance that you’re probably feeling now.
It’s natural. It’s part of it.
But I’ve developed a bulletproof mindset that helps me to overcome fear and achieve success no matter what comes my way.
I’ve learned from many other people on a similar journey and I’ve condensed their advice (and my personal experiences) into three core mindset hacks that you need to succeed in online business.
If you can master your mindset, you can achieve anything you put your mind to.
So what are the secrets to winning with dropshipping (or any online business)?
1. Self-belief
Success starts with believing in yourself.
You have to believe that you can do it. You have to believe that you’ve got what it takes.
Without self-belief, nothing else will work.
As soon as you run face-first into fear or doubt, you’ll give up.
As soon as you hit a major technical issue with your Shopify store, no responses from suppliers, or a week without sales, you’ll call it quits.
I’ve seen it happen time and time again.
With self-belief, you’ll always find a way to keep going.
Ecommerce success isn’t as easy as the social media “gurus” tell you.
Dropshipping has its challenges.
But you can be successful with the right attitude.
So decide today, right at the beginning of your journey, to believe in yourself.
How to develop self-belief
1. Have a plan
When you have a plan, you can see your future laid out before you step by step. When you hit a roadblock, a clear plan will help you to get
2. Visualization
Many highly successful entrepreneurs and athletes practice visualization. It might sound a bit woo woo, but imagining the life you desire and meditating on it seems to increase the chances of it becoming your reality.
3. Set small goals
It might sound counterintuitive, but breaking your plan down into small goals can help you to develop self-belief. When you achieve a small goal, it reinforces the belief that you can achieve the next one. It creates a snowball effect.
2. Know your why
When you’re starting an online business, you need to know why you’re doing it.
A lot of people start selling online because they want to make money quickly with minimal effort.
For those people their why is simply “to make money”.
So when they discover that making money takes more work than they realised, it’s easy for them to give up and move on to the next trendy money-making scheme.
Your why has to run deeper than that.
For me, I have three core whys:
- The freedom and flexibility of being my own boss
- Helping others achieve their business dreams
- Providing a stable and fulfilling life for my family
Do you know what it’s like getting up in the morning with that level of purpose?
It’s invigorating. I can’t think of anything that can break through all three whys and make me want to give up.
There might be days when being my own boss is stressful, or days when I hear customer complaints that get me down.
But there’s no way anything will stop me from providing a good life for my family.
When you know your why, you’ll have all the motivation you need to keep going and be successful.
How to know your why
- Write down all the reasons why you want to start an online business (you can have surface level reasons like “making money” and “quitting my 9-5” and deeper ones like “supporting my children through college”)
- Narrow them down to 3-5 core reasons and create a poster with them using Canva
- Print off the poster and put it somewhere you’ll see it everyday (maybe in your office or on the fridge). Prepare to be unbreakable
3. Take action (and destroy procrastination!)
Procrastination is one of the biggest obstacles for online sellers.
We typically procrastinate because we’re afraid of what might happen when we take action. We’re afraid of failure.
So we tell ourselves that we need more information before we can take action.
We need to make our Shopify store “perfect” before we can launch it.
We need to create the “perfect” dropshipping ad before we can start promoting it.
Perfection is the enemy of action. If you don’t develop the ability to take action, you won’t get anything done.
If you want to be a successful online seller or dropshipper, you must develop an action mindset.
That means letting go of perfection and overcoming procrastination.
That sometimes means taking action when you don’t feel 100% ready, or 100% certain of the outcome.
In the early days of Facebook they had the internal motto: “Move fast and break things.”
At its core, it means that it’s better to execute on ideas quickly and sometimes fail than to take forever making decisions and never actually try anything innovative.
That’s the mindset you need to have to be a successful online entrepreneur.
Online business moves incredibly quickly and you need to learn to move quickly with it.
With an action mindset, you’ll always have an edge on your competitors.
How to develop an action mindset
- Be honest with yourself about what’s holding you back, why you’re procrastinating, and what you’re afraid of
- Understand that perfection is impossible. Be content with “good enough”
- Realize that you can improve and refine as you go
- Accept that making mistakes is part of the learning process
- Commit to taking small actions every day
The mind’s the limit
You can have all of the things you think you need for dropshipping success: A hot product, reliable supplier, well-designed Shopify store, and all the other bells and whistles.
But if you don’t develop a winning mindset, you’ll really struggle to cope with all of the ups and downs of online business.
On the other hand, if you put in the work to develop a success mindset, you’ll be able to weather any storm and overcome any obstacle that comes your way.
It’s not as simple as flicking a switch, or downloading a plugin (although those Matrix-like abilities might not be too far away), but you’ll see much better results in your business if you implement these three mindset hacks.
If you have any questions, or you’d like me to provide any additional information on this subject, please leave a comment below.
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