5 things I learnt from a psychology degree that can be applied to life and business!

For those of you who don’t know, over the last six and a half years, I’ve been studying a psychology degree part-time with the Open University (yes in addition to running a full-time business, plus writing 3 books), and last week I handed in my last assignment, which was a psychological research report on entrepreneurs, but more on that later.

Like most goals, I started with a different intention than the position I find myself in today…

And, like most journeys, I learned lots! Some of what I have already shared with readers in both Successful Business Minds and The Magical Mix of Money & Tax and there is still so much more to share with you.

For this blog, I’ve compiled 5 things that sum up the most important things I didn’t know before I started the psychology degree, which we can apply to our life and our business:

1. You must NEVER make assumptions on any data, facts or information – there is a lot of nonsense about psychology (plus other stuff too!) out there.

2. You must ALWAYS support your statements with some sort of ‘evidence’ (whether that be theory, research results or statistics).

3. Your ‘evidence’ must be CREDIBLE. That means straight from the original source, nothing from news reports, social media or 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th hand websites…

4. You CAN make the data fit if you want (but that’s why there is a branch of psychology called critical psychology!)

5. There are lots of NUMBERS to understand and get your head around, which meant I was in heaven being a numbers geek, although it freaked quite a lot of others out until they learnt what the data was trying to tell them.

I’m sure you can see the similarities in business, especially no 5! 🙂

However, as I mentioned above, the last assignment I did was a study into the life and experiences of entrepreneurs by interviewing business owners who had run a business for over 5 years. I wanting to know what key aspects they considered crucial to their success/ business longevity. After transcribing the conversations I then analysed the responses to assess similarities and differences. As a business owner myself, I did struggle to stand back from the data – and my examiners will soon let me know how well I did that 😉 – but whilst I heard about experiences that resonated with my own journey, I learnt something truly amazing which I hope to share with you soon.

Until then, take care and stay safe. Hx

Helen Monaghan

Chartered Management Accountant and Author of Successful Business Minds, The Magical Mix of Money & Tax and 12 Steps to Improve Your Cashflow.

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