Mindset: 4 practical principles to help dentists manage theirs

As a dental practice owner, you’re a business leader. You need to be able to adapt to change, and to handle both your own and your dental team’s challenges, all while maintaining professionalism. But in a fast-changing landscape where the future feels unpredictable, juggling the ups and downs of running a practice and managing your personal life is challenging.

To thrive in this environment, dental practice owners need to master their mindset. Your mindset influences business growth and team dynamics. Having a strong, positively geared mindset can help you home in on what you can control, work with the things you can’t control, and know what you need to adapt to.

Maintaining a strong mindset is ongoing work. It's normal to have low periods, but the more you work on your mindset, the more quickly and easily you'll overcome these low dips. Less negativity will stick with you, and you'll feel like you have a more balanced business and a more enjoyable life.

There are several principles that can help you build a positive mindset. These four best suit the life and business of dental practice owners:

1. Understand the entrepreneurial journey
2. Know the four stages of learning
3. How you respond to situations (think above and below the line)
4. Recognize unhelpful thinking styles

Understand the entrepreneurial journey

When you read about a successful business, success seems like a linear journey. Experienced dental practice owners know that this isn’t the case. The path to success isn’t a straight line—it’s a squiggly one. Working hard, facing setbacks, and feeling unsure of your progress are all part of this squiggly journey.

Overnight success is not reality, although to outsiders who haven’t witnessed the long and winding path to success may think overnight is possible. Because this nonlinear path is not often discussed, people on this path can feel lonely, discouraged, and like they’re on the wrong path. Understanding and accepting that the journey to success is not a straight line is a crucial step to mastering a mindset that will help you stay positive and focused.

Know the four stages of learning

The four stages of learning is an elegant model that shows how we learn. Understanding this model is important for anyone interested in self-mastery and skills development. The stages are:

• Unconscious incompetence: “I don't know that I don't know”
• Conscious incompetence: “I know that I don't know”
• Conscious competence: “I know that I know”
• Unconscious competence: “I don't know that I know”

Ignorance is bliss in stage one. You don’t know how difficult maxillofacial surgery can be if you’ve never studied it. Stage two is when you try, and you know that you don’t know what you’re doing. Perhaps you’ve just bought your first practice and now you need to hire a receptionist. HR and hiring are not things that are taught in dental school! This is the most difficult stage, and one where many people give up, so be aware that it’s part of the learning process. If you push through, you’ll gain new skills and move forward.

At stage three, the conscious competence stage, you’ve worked hard for a while, and you know what you’re doing. By stage four, unconscious competence, the skills and knowledge come to you so effortlessly that you’re not working at it or thinking about it anymore. This is where many dentists are with the clinical side of their work, but it takes time and dedication to get there with other facets of running a dental practice.

Being aware of these four stages of learning helps you to understand your progression and manage expectations. Understanding that learning progression isn’t as straightforward as it appears will help cultivate the right mindset to keep you moving forward on your learning journey.

How you respond to situations (think above and below the line)

Accountability is an essential part of being a business owner with a strong mindset. This principle helps you understand how to think and act with accountability in response to situations. Imagine a horizontal line drawn in the sand. This line signifies a choice between how you respond or react to a situation. Above the line means acting with openness and positivity, thinking optimistically, being curious, solving problems, and responding rather than reacting. When you’re above the line, you’re a victor of your mindset.

Someone who operates below the line is closed off, defensive, and negative. Excuses, blaming others, acting out of fear, feeling hopeless, inaction, and being problem-focused are all below-the-line behaviors. Here, you’re the victim of your mindset.

Everyone can fall below the line sometime. Being accountable and responsible for recognizing when you do fall below the line and responding accordingly to adjust your mindset will help you achieve more positive results.

Recognize unhelpful thinking styles

Unhelpful emotions and a negative mindset are typically preceded by unhelpful thinking and self-talk. There are 10 common unhelpful thinking styles:

• Mental filtering: Focusing on one (typically negative) thing
• Jumping to conclusions: Imagining you know what others are thinking, or thinking you can predict the future
• Personalization: Blaming yourself for something that wasn’t entirely your fault
• Catastrophizing: Blowing things out of proportion or inappropriately shrinking something so it can be ignored
• Disqualifying the positives: Discounting your positive traits or good things that have happened
• Internal and external labelling: Making global statements about yourself or others
• Emotional reasoning: When feelings become fact and you look for evidence to back this up
• All or nothing: Where you see only one extreme or the other
• Overgeneralizing: Seeing a pattern and becoming too broad in the conclusions you draw
• Should and must: Putting unreasonable demands on yourself and feeling guilty (This is a common one among busy parents.)

You’re not alone if you think you’ve fallen into one or several of these thinking styles. Everyone does sometimes. However, consistent unhelpful thinking habits can cloud your emotions and leave you with a negative mindset.

In a fast-changing, unpredictable world where you’re expected to lead with confidence and courage, it’s essential to master your mindset and resulting behavioral patterns. Remember, growth is not a linear journey. Dips and plateaus are normal. But with these principles, you can be the master of your mindset, helping you build a dental practice and a life you love.

Editor's note: This article appeared in the July 2025 print edition of RDH magazine. Dental hygienists in North America are eligible for a complimentary print subscription. Sign up here.