How often do you think about the way you think?
I remember how busy my thought process was in the earliest days of starting WordStream. At the time, I was bootstrapping my start-up with consulting fees while building the software side of the business. Everything seems urgent, all the time, when you're in high-gear entrepreneur mode.
There are snap decisions to make, investors to please, products to build, and, overriding all of that, the constant worry and negative self-talk so many entrepreneurs inflict on themselves.
Who has time to think?
My first crack at consciously rethinking and analyzing my thought process came after a string of VC rejection letters. My initial reaction was that they must be wrong. All of them.
After a while, I didn't even want to read them. My way of thinking was to default to "But I know best about my business!"
Eventually, I realized that wasn't working for me and I had to sit down and start reading them over. Especially the most critical ones. Trust me: When you get enough of them, you start to realize it's really not them--you have to do something differently.
This infographic from Funders & Founders lays out a "line of thinking" map that can help remind you what to always remember, what to learn to think, what to never think, and what you should just unlearn from school.
Understanding your line of thinking can help you recognize where you might get stopped up and how your train of thought influences your decision-making process.
Check it out and see if your line of thinking is driving you to entrepreneurial success, or if you might have become a little lost along the way.
Originally published on Medium.