Developing a Warrior Mindset

You cannot have a wounded “poor me” mindset and become successful.

I have always been drawn to the word “Warrior” ever since I became an entrepreneur. If you look up the definition of the word, you’ll find several variations but in general they all define “warrior” as “a person engaged or experienced in warfare” or “a person who fights in battles and is known for having courage and skill.”

To me, warrior has a positive connotation to it. Even though a warrior fights battles and may lose, they don’t just stop and accept the loss. They move forward even when they have been stripped down to bare bones and are bloody, mangled, and defeated. They continue their fight holding their shield up against whatever is being thrown at them and they put one foot in front of the other until they reach their destination or become victorious.

A warrior mindset then becomes its own entity. It is something that takes on a life of its own. It’s something that must be continually worked on and strengthened. A warrior mindset continues to fight battles even after it’s been stripped down to bare bones, left bloody, managed and defeated.

In a world of entrepreneurship, social media marketing, podcasting, speaking, self-employment, direct sales, or however you define what you do – your mindset will make you or break you. It’s really that simple. You cannot have a wounded “poor me” mindset and become successful. You cannot continually focus on the losses, on what broke your spirit, on past defeats and move forward at the same time. You can, however, take a moment to learn from what took you off your feet and landed you on your ass. You can then apply those lessons to your next battle. But if you wallow in the defeat and keep replaying it over and over in your mind – how will you perpetuate success and victory in your life?

It will take practice and self-restraint not to throw pity parties every time someone says “no” to your product or pitch. It will take some serious mental armor to put yourself out there and follow your own path while people around you are casting stones that carry their own personal traumas and defeats. You must develop a strong mindset to keep moving forward even on the days when you want to give up.

When someone slams you on social media and it feels like you just had your legs blown off, you must find a way to drag those bloody stumps of yours forward anyway. Yes, that sounds very dramatic, but isn’t that exactly how we feel when we get a negative review or someone publicly bashes your business on Facebook or criticizes your physical appearance on Instagram? We feel like someone took our legs right out from under us and generally we’d prefer to dig a hole and bury our heads and live in that miserable moment analyzing it over and over and over again. However, a warrior mindset will pull you back up, brush it off, replace the missing leg with a machine gun and take out everything negative in your path while continuing your course to success (yes, that’s a reference to Rose McGowan in Planet Terror).

When we develop a warrior mindset, we do very specific things such as creating a strict schedule for ourselves. We decide what tools we need to keep us moving forward to become successful. We decide what boundaries we need to hold for ourselves. Those boundaries become our mental and emotional armor. We try. We fail. We try again. We fail again. But we keep getting back up, inspecting what took out us and implementing new tools to keep it from happening again. A warrior mindset allows failure and defeat but never dwells or gives up.

You build a warrior mindset by focusing on the success you want to see and feel.

You lean on your strongest qualities and assets while at the same time, learning and building up the weaker ones. You develop a shield or boundaries that help protect you when stones are cast in your direction. You learn to let fear guide you instead of taking you out of the game altogether. You create passion from the courage it takes to step outside the norm and reach incredible heights. If you want to feel the success, the victory, the championships of a warrior, then you start with your mindset. Your battle for success is won first in your mind.

Wendy Babcock is a motivational speaker & author. Having left domestic abuse in 2006, Wendy set out on a path to rediscover who she is. Her journey led her from a 20-year career at a local hospital to discovering her passion for speaking. She is now 1 of 7 Certified Complaint Free Speakers in the world. Wendy also is the creator of The Kindness Bucket Brigade to help stop online bullying. She has built a community of over 6000+ Kindness Warriors to help those affected by bullying. She is also the founder of Warrior Unchained: Live a 2-day event for women that combines personal and professional development to create focus, confidence and growth.