How To Eliminate Mental Blocks As An Entrepreneur On Road To Success? To stay ahead of the competition, it's essential to continually remap and rewire our trades and ourselves, and simple way to achieve this is by encompassing an entrepreneurial mindset.

It's a well-known fact that about 50 per cent of all small businesses fail within the opening 5 years. For the many walking down the path of entrepreneurship, this titbit of information can prove to be daunting but it can also be a lesson in learning to ensure that your business ideas or projects find success. Time and money are valuable commodities in the field of business and a lack of business knowledge can result in the loss of both, however, success as an entrepreneur can boil down to more than just business insight. Sometimes, it comes down to the right frame of mind and overcoming subconscious blocks.

Anthony Robbins, who conducts Business Mastery and Life Mastery courses, spoke about the process of reprogramming the subconscious mind and the blueprints that form over the years. During his course, I realized that my decisions which I always thought were made by my logical conscious mind using the power of reasoning were actually programmed by my subconscious mind 90 per cent of the time.

To illustrate the workings of the subconscious mind, let us consider this well-known story of two salesmen who were sent to Africa to assess the opportunity of setting up a shoe factory. After they had made their assessments, one salesman telegraphed back to say: "No opportunity. No one wears shoes." However, the second salesman telegraphed: "Great opportunity. No one wears shoes."

Our subconscious mind influences this disparity in perception; it determines our conscious thoughts, the actions we take and the decisions we make. Both salesmen although looking at exactly the same thing, had a different perceptive as at a subconscious level, one was tuned to gratification and the other to take risks and see opportunities. People who visualize success adapt their neurocircuitry to maximize their potential so that they can reach their goals. They do this by changing how they visualize the world around them.

What we say and think will give meaning to a situation. And based on this, you can actually fool yourself and others into becoming more successful and happier. The phrase "fake it till you make it' has some truth to it; studies have found that acting a certain way allows your brain to rehearse a new way of thinking and create programming for future use.

There is a story about a famous entrepreneur who, when he was ten years old, decided to set up a makeshift stall outside his house to sell lemonade. He waited for his first customer, but no one dropped by for hours until his father came out, acted like a customer and enjoyed his glass of lemonade. This experience helped create the entrepreneur within the child. This story is used in many business study discussions and literature as the lemonade stand business model. We need to take risks to create opportunities and more than anything we need to remain confident in our aptitude for success. The child's determination to wait for a customer was gratified by his father acting like one. This experience paved the way for him to be confident and patient for success.

Our subconscious mind, based on past experiences, influences our thoughts. If we have grown up unhappy with what we have, then we will hoard to make sure we have more than enough. If we have grown up fearing failure, we will neglect to even try to achieve success. And if we have grown up believing that "Money is the root of all evil', then we will subconsciously evade financial abundance.

Attributes like curiosity, confidence and robust self-esteem that help one to fall and rise to the next challenge are all essential for the aspiring entrepreneur. Additionally, persistence and determination are necessary to transform the entrepreneurial journey. However, certain subconscious blocks or parental programming can deter these attributes or qualities from flourishing. Entrepreneurs need to develop appropriate strategies to change their vision into reality and many times, overcoming these blocks help in the fulfilment of these strategies.

The fact of the matter is that the subconscious mind has a key role in what we experience than the conscious mind and if the two are in conflict with each other, then the outcome will mostly see subconscious programming as the winner. However, it is possible to reprogram your brain and subconscious mind. We must slowly start to change our way of seeing things, even if we initially perceived them as something else. To elaborate, if our subconscious brain believes that we don't deserve success, love or happiness, we will keep sabotaging our conscious efforts to achieve any of these. However, if we take the time to reprogram our thoughts and subconscious, we can create a chance for a change.

Behaviour patterns that have grown through experiences can be altered or modified if we are aware of these patterns and how they affect our experiences and outcomes. By knowing about these patterns, we can rewire our subconscious minds to maximize our potential for success.

The world we perceive is generated by the brain and how we choose to generate it depends as much on how we perceive through our senses as it does from how we feel internally, i.e., expectations and beliefs from experiences. Therefore, the world we experience comes as much, if not more, from the inside out as from the outside in. Our programmed beliefs act like filters, altering how we see the world.

We need to carve our own paths and make use of our own interests and talents. More importantly, we will never learn from our experiences while staying positive and looking for opportunity. As we grow to become independent, we begin feeling a sense of mastery and understand the concept of "value', which will help enable our success as entrepreneurs.