Focus: Use your WHY to do this ONE thing
Alright, so you’ve done the work and found a compelling WHY to motivate you. That’s awesome, and you’re well on your way to being able to harness the focus you need to truly excel at your job, become an amazing top-tier sales professional, and steer your life in the direction of your dreams. Today we’re zero-ing in on that WHY and training ourselves to use it effectively.
Once you begin using your WHY to focus, you build your self esteem and begin to foster a strong belief that you’re smart enough, talented enough, deserving enough to move forward NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.
Let’s use my why as an example to see this play out. My mom. I want to buy her a house and help her retire comfortably. Ok awesome, clear and achievable goal. Next I need to break down that goal into smaller, more bite-sized pieces. We’ll say (for ease of math’s sake) that I’d like to have 24K together for a down-payment on a $240,000 house within a year. I look at my numbers and see how much more I need to make each month (after my own financial goals, bills, payments, etc) to make that happen. I need an additional two thousand a month in revenue to put aside for her down payment, plus I want to start a nest egg to boost her current retirement savings. So I’m looking at an additional $4,000/month. That may sound like a lot, but instead of focusing on WHAT the number is, I choose to focus again on my WHY, my mom.
When big or small issues threaten to shake your resolution and throw you off your game, refocus on your WHY. Don’t get frustrated by the numbers but instead use them to motivate you to focus. One thing at a time, one moment at a time, solve issues as they come instead of losing your resolve by worrying about the enormity of the goal all at once.
Solving one issue at a time, staying in the moment and resolving yourself to stay on task helps build confidence -- you CAN do this! Even more than that, a blog I love, A Life of Productivity, puts it this way, saying that “doing just one thing at a time helps you remember more, get more done in less time, de-stress, bring more attention to your work, and work smarter, instead of just harder. It’s worth the struggle a hundred times over.”
Humans are not multi-taskers. Not really anyway. Even when we think we’re doing more than one thing at a time, it usually means both tasks will take us longer and not necessarily be done well.
Taking this lesson back to harnessing our WHY helps us stay mindful, do one thing at a time, and when overwhelm threatens to overtake us, we remind ourselves WHY we do what we do. Provide for our families, take them on a wonderful vacation, pay for our kids’ college tuition, pay off our medical bills or WHATEVER your strong and motivating WHY happens to be.
Building confidence one tiny task at a time will help you to solve the bigger issues when they arise. Think of them as small problems to solve, taking them one step at a time and focusing in each moment.
Back to harnessing your WHY to help you excel and your sales position. First up, you’ll make a plan like the example outlined above (increase earnings by $4,000 each month for down payment on house and boost retirement nest egg).
Next, break down that plan into even smaller bites. How many more calls do you need to make weekly to increase by this amount? Let’s say your commission on a typical package is $1,000 and your typical sale to pitch rate is one in four. You’ll need to make 12 more calls each month to achieve this goal. Starting to sound pretty achievable right? Only 12 more calls! You’ll need maybe some more time to find those leads and, of course, still have to do everything your job regularly requires of you.
After you’ve got an easily measurable monthly goal, you must COMMIT TO YOUR TASK REPEATEDLY. Continue to channel your WHY whenever you’re losing motivation. Again and again you’ll need to refocus. You’ll need to block off time weekly to achieve the goal.
Treat this time as sacred, not letting anything pull you away from it.
Maybe a picture of your WHY somewhere visible will help you stay focused. A picture of the retirement home you’re buying, the beach you’re ready to jet off to for vacation, the brand new kitchen you’ve always dreamed of -- whatever it is, keep it in sight. Remind yourself of it daily.
The more you practice this, the better you’ll be. You’ll build confidence, learn quickly to do one thing at a time, honor the time you’ve committed to your goal, channel that WHY and chase your dreams until they’re reality.
Have you joined our mailing list yet?
No?! Don’t worry, we’ll get you caught up on all the latest posts, advice, and personal tales from Keril by joining our weekly newsletter below.
PLUS, we’ll send you Keril’s FREE streamlined checklist when you sign up!
Becoming the most successful sales professional you can be certainly doesn’t happen overnight.