Getting up and getting things done on a daily basis—making your mark on this world—only happens when you commit to clearing the thousand hurdles that rise up to greet you from the time you roll out of bed in the morning until your head hits the pillow at night. Even the little things—no, especially the little things—conspire against our victories. So, how do we business owners improve our odds? What steps can we take to limit those stumbling blocks called losses that eat into our hard-won winnings?
Because we are winners.
Before getting into the what-to-do, it’s important for you to understand that, when it comes to winning, your brain has the home field advantage. What you feed it and how you treat it will directly affect your win-loss ratio.
“Your aim should be to work on yourself and your thinking until you reach the point where you absolutely, positively believe yourself to be a total winner in anything you sincerely want to accomplish,” writes Brian Tracy, who has been studying the success habits of successful people for over four decades.
Tracy adds: “When you feel unshakable confidence in yourself and your abilities, nothing will be able to stop you. This state of self-confidence comes from (1) understanding the functioning of your remarkable mind, and (2) practicing the techniques of mental fitness over and over, until you become a completely optimistic, cheerful, and positive person.”
You’ve seen this in action: the effect a rousing half-time speech can have on the outcome of a game; or, that top sales rep you know who enters every sales presentation assuming the close. Somehow she always exceeds her monthly quota, doesn’t she?
Other experts who study human performance agree that it’s the mental aspect that largely determines the quality of our performance, often coming down to a question of confidence, composure and focus.
According to an article in The Washington Post, which drew on the insights of Chris Carr, an Indianapolis sports psychologist who has worked with many Olympians and professional athletes over the past 20+ years, there are a few key strategies you can implement to boost your wins and perform your best:
1. Set Attainable Goal
By setting a reachable goal, you can quickly determine what must happen each day in order to achieve it. A sales rep, for example, might say, “I want to increase my sales 50% by the end of this quarter.” He would then break it down to the number of sales required on a daily basis to achieve that objective. From there, he would determine specifically what needs to be done in terms of generating leads, setting appointments, making presentations, asking for referrals, etc. to reach his goal. Sticking with a workable plan will make you more confident in the outcome.
2. See Your Success
To continue with the sales rep example, if your goal is to increase sales 50% by the end of the quarter, you should imagine yourself going through the various stages of the process: cheerfully increasing your canvassing efforts, successfully scheduling more appointments, giving stellar presentations, effortlessly attracting referral business, seeing your name at the top of sales rankings for the quarter, basking in the admiration of management and your fellow reps. Re-playing this movie over and over in your head will make it real in your mind, and success will seem within reach.
3. Create a Mental Checklist
Know what you need to do ahead of time in order to perform your best. Maybe before you start cold calling, you clear your desk of everything but the phone and your calendar. Or, maybe before you begin your presentation you say to yourself, “This is my best presentation. I will articulate my product’s value to my client, and I will upsell this account three times over the next year.” By repeating this statement to yourself prior to every sales presentation, you will internalize its message and it will automatically focus you in the moment.
4. Overcome Nervous Energy
The best way to relax on command is to practice relaxing. It may sound silly, but activities like meditation, deep breathing and listening to soothing music can help offset the rush of adrenaline we experience before an important event, such as a key sales presentation. If you learn to anticipate the surge—and have established techniques that enable you to relax on command—you can manage nervous energy to your advantage by channeling it into things like increased focus, more controlled pacing, etc.
5. Be the Voice inside Your Head
The idea here is to develop your own trigger words or phrases, things you can say to yourself during your performance that will instantly focus your mind on the task at hand. A sales rep, for example, might say, “Problem solver,” or “Consultative approach” to reinforce and focus her mindset in the moment. You don’t need to overthink it. Any word or short phrase that eliminates distractions will do the trick.
By implementing these strategies you can vastly improve your performance in any area of your life, converting losses into wins in the process.
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