Anyone can produce a marketable product. But most people don’t believe they can.
If you want to create a product, you need to change your mindset to a can-do attitude. That’s sometimes easier said than done.
Luckily, however, there is a mindset that is neither in the ‘cannot do’ nor in the ‘can do’ basket: it’s the mindset of discovery.
The mindset of discovery is one of experimentation.
The interesting thing about using the mindset of experimentation is that there is no winning or losing. Even if you ‘fail’ and your experiment doesn’t work – you’ve learned something new that you can use for a new experiment.
The mindset of discovery is all about pushing the envelope and seeing what happens.
I’m not good enough.
This is a very popular mindset! Unfortunately, it’s very destructive because the self-doubts this mindset generates can sap your energy and stifle your creativity. A way to modify this mindset is to replace it with the thought, “Let’s see if I can do this.”
What if I fail?
When fear of failure has you in its grip, you tend to imagine a future where you’ve failed miserably, and people laugh behind your back. A way to overcome this paralyzing fear is to change the thought to: “This is an interesting experiment!”
What if they don’t like it?
The imagining behind this fear is that people will reject whatever you create. A way to overcome this mindset is to replace it with the thought, “This is a good way to find out what my potential customers really want. I will get valuable feedback no matter what.”
I can’t do it.
This thought is a project-stopper. It’s quite normal to have some doubts, and there are always moments during the creation of a product when you’ll be faced with a challenge. But if you succumb to this negative mindset, it’s hard to complete the project.
There are some magic words that will banish change this negative mindset immediately. Here they are: “… and the way forward is …”
Even if you don’t immediately know what the next step is, saying these words in your mind will change your mindset to a more constructive one and your brain will be busy looking for solutions, instead of focusing on ‘poor me’.
Remember the great adage “Feel the fear and do it anyway”? This is a great way to approach creating products.
Author: A-List Team