Entrepreneur -- Entrepreneurship demands effective leadership. You need to be able to make solid decisions, organize plans, hire teammates and provide direction -- all under the steady pressure of being accountable for all those decisions and actions. To add even more heat, as an entrepreneur, your personal success is often tied directly to the success of your business, meaning every little decision you make could have significant consequences.

Under such pressure, it’s natural to have worries and fears. But fears can intimidate you and obscure your judgment, rendering your decisions less logical and your approach less systematic. If you want to be an effective leader, there are five fears in particular that you’ll need to overcome.

1. Making the wrong decision

As a leader, you’ll be facing decisions on a nearly constant basis. You’ll make major decisions, like choosing your initial partners, and small ones, like whether to continue a proven promotional campaign. Being faced with so many decisions can lead to decision fatigue, a well-known psychological phenomenon that can interfere with your mental health and your ability to make good decisions.

Adding to this is a potentially growing fear that the next decision you make will be the wrong one -- your new hire won’t work out, your marketing campaign won’t be effective, or possibly even bigger, more significant fallout will occur. This fear can make you postpone or delegate your decisions, but don’t let it -- remember that even the best leaders make bad decisions sometimes. Avoiding a decision is always a worse move.

2. Being criticized for your approach

As a leader, you’re going to have your own signature style. You’re going to value some things more than others. For example, you might appreciate a rigid, formal dress code, or you could completely disregard what the people around you are wearing. You could prefer a hands-on style of management or a much more relaxed approach.

There’s no one right or wrong way to lead. If you’re afraid of being criticized for your approach, it could lead you to become the leader you think people might want rather than the leader you naturally are. You’re going to be criticized no matter what by some, and accepted no matter what by others, so pick the style that suits you best, and don’t let the haters interfere with your vision.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254107

Find your groove with these habits that build courage and personal strength.

3-22-2017, Entrepreneur -- Anyone who has ever started a business has faced fear. A little bit actually can be a very positive catalyst. But when fear overwhelms your ability to make decisions, it can become paralyzing and leave you feeling stuck. That’s a sign you need to take action and restore the sense of confidence you once had.

When we're young, we think we're invincible. We can do anything (just ask my teenagers!). Yet for many of us, that confidence and self-assurance erodes over time as we get older. We wake up one day confronted by thoughts we can't shake: “I can’t. I shouldn’t. I couldn’t possibly.” We start to question our choices and ourselves. We second-guess our gut instincts and overthink things.

The stories we tell ourselves limit or enhance potential.

Fear and self-limiting beliefs create imaginary boundaries that can keep us from acting in our own best interests. There's a reason: Our brains are wired to resist change. They will process anything we repeatedly think, say or do and formalize it into a habit. It’s easier for our brains to depend on habits because they don’t have to work as hard. It’s comfortable. But if those habits aren’t serving you, where does that leave you?

We don’t get stuck overnight. We slowly dig a rut that gets deeper every time we think or behave the same way. It doesn't take much imagination to get complacent and content with the status quo. If we stay in a rut long enough, it can feel as if we'll never climb out.

Singer/songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard urges us to "get out of your rut and get in a groove." But how do you shock yourself back into that wonderful state where creativity, courage and passion seem to flow effortlessly? 

Creating new habits takes courage.

Know that hitting the reset button requires courage and determination. You'll need to take risks to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and go after what you really want. 

If you don’t feel particularly courageous, there’s good news: Courage is a moral habit we can develop with practice. How? By choosing new habits. When we think and behave in new ways, we create new neural pathways in our brains. The more we think that way, the stronger those pathways become. This is why it's so important to push beyond what seems comfortable, familiar and safe.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

Entrepreneur -- When it comes to success, it’s easy to think that people blessed with brains are inevitably going to leave the rest of us in the dust. But new research from Stanford University will change your mind (and your attitude).

Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ.

Dweck found that people’s core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

With a fixed mindset, you believe you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you’re challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253095