What many people are only just starting to realize is that your profitability directly reflects your thinking and approach. Your balance sheets tell you very clearly what you have been thinking during the year. More than anything else they are tangible evidence of what you mentally believe your worth to be.

What do I mean? Well, what you focus your thoughts on determines what actions you take. If you focus on people shoplifting in your store, guess what you get, a lot of inventory unaccounted for. If you focus on lack of clients and having to always chase them,you get an ongoing lack of clients. If you focus on how you are always running to get everything done so never have time to focus on planning or administration, you get less apparent time and more chaos.

So, as you review your profit and loss statements this year, take a step outside yourself. Pretend you are an archeologist trying to make sense of some fragments of bone. Ask yourself "from these figures, what sort of beliefs would a person be carrying? What would they be thinking about, what decisions would they be taking or making? What would they be expecting to happen? What actions would they have taken over the year to create these results?"

"Do they believe that they are a $50,000 per year person or a $150 000 per year person. What do they believe is the way to wealth, a regular wage or payment by results? Do they believe they are not delivering fantastic results for their clients?"

Many small business owners find that when they start their business, they manage to create almost identical wealth as they earned through their previous wages through their work. This tells me that their expectation of their worth is set to a certain level.

But then something interesting happens. As they discover the greater difference they make to people and their businesses and they allow themselves to experience that feeling of value adding, they find themselves attracting even more clients who need and value the service they provide and pay them accordingly.

Some business owners find when reviewing their profit and loss statement a few not so helpful beliefs such as "clients don't pay on time". What unhelpful beliefs are you carrying?

So, have a look at your personal profit and loss statement. Work out the beliefs you are carrying and consider if these beliefs are serving your best interest now. If they aren't - do something about it.

Start by making a clear decision of what your beliefs will be. There are only 2 proven ways to shift beliefs - repetition or impact. Affirmations or goals work on the repetition approach and NLP or other behavioural techniques work on the impact approach.

Applying this to businesses, start with planning exercises, to help gain your team gain clarity in their mind about what they do want. Over a number of meetings refine the goals and targets and then work with the business leaders to shake their thinking of what they are capable of.

To some extent it doesn't matter the topic of the planning - it could be a marketing plan, a human resources plan or a strategic plan. It is all about getting a clear desired future focus and moving into that space.

Move with certainty and conviction and you will be surprised at what will fall into place around you to achieve what you are searching for.