Motivation: we all want it and often look to others to provide it. This month our guest blogger is Mark Frentz. Mark is a consultant who can help you get unstuck, professionally and/or personally. He focuses on how people can reach much more of their potential by understanding their deepest desires. Learning motivation and moving past procrastination toward success, inspiration, and fulfillment in life.
I started working with Mark and I can’t tell you how much he’s changed my perceptions, my goals … really, my whole business plan. I feel more motivated than ever and know that I can maintain this momentum throughout the year.
Sounds like a great way to start 2019, don’t you think?
Motivation: The million dollar word!
How’s your year going so far in 2019? Are you on track for your goals? Or are you saying things like: “The start of the year is always a little slow” (otherwise known as an excuse)?
Motivating yourself is a skill. Yes a skill, rather than a gift you’re born with. The beginning of a new year is the time to build this skill into your life and business. Before I give you a few practical action items to begin working on to help your business, I want to ask, and answer, a basic question.
What is motivation?
Motivation is all about your emotions of the moment. When you are feeling drained, afraid, or frustrated, you’re most likely not motivated to do something that helps you feel better.
We tend to procrastinate with things that we don’t enjoy doing. Motivation is simply the skill of using your mind to help you move toward your goals, rather than allow your emotions to win the day. An example is lead follow up or making new connections, if you aren’t an extreme extrovert.
While everyone who you deem more successful than you, might say these things are essential for business. It’s completely different when it comes time to pick up the phone isn’t it? Even though you WANT to make more money and you KNOW how to grow your business, you struggle to take action.
Why is it important to understand this stuff?
When you begin to understand the patterns you have that are keeping you stuck, you can begin finding new ways to grow your business and create new patterns. For example, perhaps you don’t like following up on leads. You’re uncomfortable with asking people to make a decision and hire you (sales).
Start by changing these calls from ‘lead follow up’ or ‘prospect follow up’ to something more positive. Perhaps ‘connecting with others to help them’ or ‘checking in to see if someone is ready’. Even changing what we call an action with change the connotation of what we’re doing. As soon as I changed my ‘sales calls’ to a time where I can connect with someone and see what could help them in their business, I began making many more of them. I didn’t like the idea of sales, but loved the idea of helping people in their business.
The second thing you can change is building your confidence in the area you want to improve. A lot of clients, when they first come to me, tend to believe that confidence is a mystical power. Some people seem to have and others just don’t. Nothing could be further from the truth!
You can build your confidence in any area of life, including sales calls or other skills that are currently uncomfortable. Here’s the process to begin building momentum and gaining confidence:
- Write out how taking this action is DIRECTLY tied to reaching your goals. Then spend some time thinking about what it will feel like to reach your goals.
- Start small! If picking up the phone to call a prospect or past client is difficult for you, begin by picking up the phone and practice calling someone you know who isn’t as scary. If that’s even too much, make it smaller! When you’re alone in your office, pretend you are calling someone and try to answer their questions in a way that feels less uncomfortable. Once you start something and have a little momentum, you are more likely to take on the next task next time.
- Be accountable to someone else. We tend to do more for others than we are willing to do for ourselves. You can up the stakes by committing to do something and if you don’t – a consequence. For example, maybe you need to write a cheque for $100 to a charity for every week you don’t complete something.
- Do as much as you can earlier in the day. Always complete your most difficult tasks in the mornings. The reason for this is simple: You have a limited amount of will-power each and every day and when you begin to feel tired, you’re far less likely to take action in a positive way. Here’s an example of will-power: When on a diet how often do you eat chocolate or some other treat in the evening? How often do you cheat with that same food first thing in the morning?
Here are another few questions that will help you take some action today:
- Did you reach your goals last year?
- If you keep doing the same things and stay stuck in the same ways, what will the end of this year feel like?
- What will it feel like to be in the same place three or four years from now?
If you aren’t excited about that future, connect with me through my website or live presentations and I promise to work to help you out.
To check out more from Mark, visit his website and blog. If you have a chance, go to one of his seminars. You can find a listing of future events on his Facebook page.
Love the last couple questions at the end of the blog there! Great way to start my Sunday morning!
Isn’t it? Sometimes we need these reminders – if you want to reach your goals, you’re going to have to do things differently, and that might not be comfortable.