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For many of us, summer is the most cherished, least stressful
season of the year. It is an opportune time to relax, enjoy a
warm evening, take inventory of your successes and reflect upon
the positive aspects of your daily life. It is also the ideal
time to reassess your short-term goals and aspirations.
Start by revisiting one of the keys to success for any sales
entrepreneur: Acknowledge your responsibility to remain
competitive and embrace self-mentoring (positive inputs) and
self-motivation (positive outputs).
Self-mentoring is the prerequisite to self-motivation, because
self-motivation is not something you do when you’re up; It’s what
you need to do when you’re down, personally or professionally.
It is the antidote against the barrage of negativity and
adversities you experience in a typical day. If untreated, this
barrage escalates into an emotional oil spill that impacts all
areas of your life.
By practicing a program of self-mentoring, you accumulate an
inventory of healthy confidence and esteem to draw upon when the
need for self motivation arises. I compare self-mentoring to
your bank account … in order to make withdrawals you must make
timely deposits. If you don’t, the resulting overdraft only
fuels feelings of anxiety, uncertainly, and high stress. Your
sales will experience a gradual slump. Know this: In you lie the
major causes and the major solutions of everything you are.
Success has its price tag. Hold yourself responsible for
building, growing and nurturing your inventory of positive
perceptions. Invest in yourself and feed your mind with the
wisdom of others. When you need to make the inevitable
withdrawals, your positive outlook will help offset the
adversities life tends to deliver. No one is immune to “poop
happens”. Successful people refuse to surrender to adversity.
They have the ability to cope with misfortune and the resiliency
to bounce back and regenerate themselves.
To build your bank account of healthy perceptions, I offer you
seven strategies of self-mentoring.
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SEVEN STRATEGIES OF SELF-MENTORING;
BUILD YOUR “MOTIVATIONAL ACCOUNT”
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1) Read motivational, self-help material. Business topics and/or
specific skill areas also make for an excellent read. Sadly,
only 15 per cent of Canadians purchase self-help books and of
that 15 per cent, only 10 per cent actually read them. A good
target is to read a minimum of one book per month. So take
action and purchase your book for August / September!
Recommended Resources:
1. Life is an Attitude!
~ Elwood Chapman
2. Take this Job and Love it! The Joys of Professional Selling
(book or audio)
~ Tim Breithaupt
3. The Power of Focus
~ Canfield/Hanson/Hewitt
4. Think and Grow Rich
~ Napoleon Hill
5. How to Win Friends & Influence People (book or audio)
~ Dale Carnegie
6. Man's Search for Meaning
~ Viktor E. Frankl
7. The Six Pillars of Self Esteem
~ Nathaniel Branden
8. Jim Rohn Audio Programs
9. Who Moved My Cheese?
~ Spencer Johnson, M.D
10.Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff at Work (book or audio)
~ Richard Carlson PH.D
11.Adversity Quotient
~ Paul Stoltz
2) Listen to educational CD’s in your car or at home. Turn car
time into productive learning time. Feed your mind with positive
stuff. Begin by pushing the “power” button on your cell phone
and pager. You’ll enjoy the break! Even having some quiet,
uninterrupted “think” time is refreshing.
3) Enroll in a continuing education program and/or attend
seminars during the day. Most companies will pay for such an
initiative, but less than two per cent of employees take
advantage of this opportunity. Treat yourself to the gift of
knowledge.
4) Join a breakfast club or a networking group and hang out with
upbeat, like-minded people. It’s a great way to kick start your
day.
5) Banish the “toxic” people and the chronic whiners in your
life. These are the people who think “balance” means having a
chip on each shoulder. You choose those with whom you hang
out, so perhaps it’s time to reassess your circle of influencers.
Only invite the fun people into your sandbox.
6) Reward yourself. Catch yourself doing something right, feel
good about it, then reward yourself…nobody else will! Refocus on
the many successes within your day and quit beating yourself up,
expecting life to be a perfect performance.
7) Invite mentors into your life. Approach people whom you
respect for their opinion and accomplishments and ask them if
they would make themselves available to you for questions and
answers. Have more than one. Build a fortress of go-to people.
Resort to your mentors often as these are the people who will:
- acknowledge and reinforce your positive attributes.
- act as a catalyst to help you focus on positive vs. negative
thinking.
- support you when you find yourself in a downward spiral.
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Success is not a solo flight
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Your attitude makes all the difference in any strategy you
pursue. As I discussed in my book, attitude forms the
cornerstone of success. Attitude means “choice”. Nurture a
positive outlook and see your life from the plus side of the
ledger. We have an abundance of opportunities so choose to “Make
it a great day”.
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Success is a Matter of Choice, not Chance
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WARNING:
Use of these strategies may result in positive changes to your
behavior. Use at your own discretion.
Footnote: These strategies are not exclusive to summer. Apply
them as often as necessary, regardless of the season.
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