By Steve Jensen
4 min read
It’s the Little Things
Being a legendary sales leader isn’t easy. In fact, just getting by and making your number can seem very hard or impossible at times. When you are ready to make a change, here are 5 suggestions to get you started and on your way to greatness.
The first place to start the process of performance improvement is to remove negative habits and practices.
If you can shift from reverse to neutral…that’s an improvement.
A few things to stop immediately:
– Stop watching, reading, or listening to things that don’t fuel a positive mindset. You can’t do anything unless you think about it first. So be careful what you’re putting in your head. Surround yourself with positive people and things. Their positivity will become yours. You are what you think.
“Life is how you see it. The only way to change your life is to change your perception of it. – Kevin Friend
“Beware of those who are bored and not passionate about life, for they will bore you with reasons for not living.”― Suzy Kassem
“Your thoughts carry you wherever you want to go. Weak thoughts don’t have the energy to carry you far!”― Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders’ Watchwords
– Get enough sleep. So many studies show that sleep…and sleep debt…are massive drivers of happiness, satisfaction, and productivity. Everyone is different. But set a target for the # of hours of sleep and plan your day backward from there. Avoid electronic devices starting 30 minutes before bedtime and don’t charge your phone next to your bed. “Our phone is the repository of every problem; every project,” Arianna Huffington explained. “We need to separate ourselves from that in order to sleep.”
Arianna Huffington, founder of Thrive Global and author of The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time, believes the problem is that that we don’t prioritize the activity. “We think sleep is optional,” she told Newsweek.
– Create Objectives. Don’t just get through a day. Set an objective for the day. Start with just 1. Otherwise, as Alice told the Cheshire Cat told Alice…”If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do.”
Objectives are the specific measurable results of the initiative. Objectives specify how much of what will be accomplished by when.
Community Toolbox says there are three basic types of objectives. They are:
Process objectives. These are the objectives that provide the groundwork or implementation necessary to achieve your other objectives.
Behavioral objectives. These objectives look at changing the behaviors of people (what they are doing and saying) and the products (or results) of their behaviors.
Community-level outcome objectives. These are often the product or result of behavior change in many people. They are focused on change at the community level instead of on an individual level.
No matter the level of your objective, the key is to define it and write it down. It could be as simple as making your bed today. US Navy Admiral, William H. McRaven says “If you are going to change the world, start off by making your bed.” He even wrote a book about it: Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World.
Moving from reverse to neutral is an improvement.
– Chase small improvements on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Small things done over time yield massive change. “You need to be content with small steps. That’s all life is. Small steps you take every day so when you look back down the road it all adds up and you know you’ve covered some distance.” – Katie Kacvinsky
Don’t get so focused on a big hairy goal that you stop yourself from improving. When taken as a whole, many changes seem impossible and overbearing. Yet when broken down into small, component steps, they seem entirely doable, and in fact, they are easy to accomplish.
Remember: time is going to pass whether you make the change or not. In a year from now, when you look back, you will wish you had taken that first, small step today. Any progress is an accomplishment and you will find that you gain a certain momentum as you go. “When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them.“ – Andy Warhol
– Don’t take “No” for an answer. Not everyone will share your vision or your positivity. But that is their issue, not yours. If you feel that an objective will lead you in a positive direction, don’t be dissuaded. Define it, do it, own it.
. . .
At least remove the things that have you taking 2 steps back. A month from now you’ll have a completely different outlook.
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
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Steve Jensen is VP of Marketing at Xvoyant. You can follow him here.