For your business to be successful you have to take action to grow it. Another way of putting that would be…your ability to take the required action has a direct impact on the amount of money in your business bank account. So how easy do you find it to take that required action?
We all will put up barriers to completing certain tasks as we all have some things which we prefer to do and some that we prefer to avoid. Now our individual ability to know which things we like to avoid (those that we naturally put barriers up to) and understanding the best way to still get them done becomes very key to pushing your business through your current financial position and into the one you would rather be in.
Basically I’m talking about procrastination. We all procrastinate about something but do you realise you are doing it? Think about your list of things to do. Which things never seem to get done? I’m going to share with you the task I dread most on my things to do list that I will happily procrastinate about for ages. Plus I’ll tell you how I still manage to push through it. I’m going to be vulnerable with you to help you appreciate that everyone has something that can hold them back if they let it.
Here goes…I really do not like phoning people. I know it’s a silly one but I just don’t like doing it. I’m fine with people I know well, phoning them isn’t a problem but I really don’t like phoning people I may only have met a few times. In a business context this can be quite challenging as in a lot of cases I may only have had one interaction with a prospect and I will then need to phone them to close the sale. I get passed some lovely referrals which mean I need to phone people who I’ve never had any interaction with which pushes me right out of my comfort zone. Cold calling is definitely something that I currently wouldn’t do. When I share this with close colleagues they think I’m joking as I’m quite naturally outgoing so how can I possibly have an issue with phoning people!
So when it comes to having to phone someone I will procrastinate loads! The action is likely to stay on my things to do list for a little while. I will convince myself that it’s not worth phoning them right now as it’s lunch time or they are bound to be busy so I’ll do it later and so on. Does that sound familiar? Do you do something similar?
So how do I break the cycle? I read an excellent book about 3 years ago called SUMO Shut Up and Move On by Paul McGee. It had a whole chapter on how to stop yourself procrastinating. I eagerly read the book and got to the chapter which I felt would transform me. The take home message in the chapter was “just do it!” and that’s exactly what I do. I simply get to a point where I have to make the phone calls. I tend to cluster them so I do several in one go (I figure if I’m going to be brave I might as well be brave several times!). I have to say I can’t remember an occasion when I’ve had a negative outcome on the phone so the “thing” I had convinced myself would be the outcome hasn’t happened. I pushed myself to make several calls last week and they all resulted in moving the prospects along the sales process. I have to say it feels great when I’ve ticked the calls off my list of things to do, so the thing that I was procrastinating about becomes a great motivator which is pretty cool.
I know I procrastinate about phone calls. Do you know what you procrastinate over? What excuses do you give yourself for not having to take the action? How is that impacting on your business? How much easier/better could things be if you got a positive outcome from doing the thing you are avoiding? How can you motivate yourself to “just do it”?
Don’t let your belief system stop you from achieving your business growth goals. Take action today to push through those self-imposed barriers!