There are many activities that people look forward to. They envision it in their mind, see then themselves succeeding in the environment, are often familiar with it, and happily anticipate and act. However, there are activities that we choose to despise. We assign negative emotional energy towards these events. We envision the task as a painful chore, see ourselves failing our on quest, are not familiar with the activity and dread its arrival with every ounce of our existence. Notice, we choose the direction of our vision, positivity, familiarity and enjoyment. It is time to choose a different path.
Many people do not enjoy cold calling. Society seems to echo that sentiment with underlying themes of its difficulty. As a business owner, an individual will have to learn to cold call at some point. That “point” is not one of eager anticipation for most people. They try to shun it from their checklist as long as possible. Until they need it, they do not learn it. When business owners or employees need it, their mindset will determine their effort and enthusiasm.
Six steps to get yourself to do something that you do not want to do are:
1. Write down the positives. You must find a positive meaning behind what you do. If you do not, you have decided that this is a task to dread. List out the positives.
2. Find fault with the fears. Write down the exact reasons for your anxiety. Target these self-made demons. Slay them by proving why they are wrong. Mentally beat up your fears (amping yourself up in the process).
3. Physically beat them down with the sledge hammer of action. Enjoy stepping on your fears, and accomplishment will follow. Take a cue from Mark Twain, “Do something every day that you don’t want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain” (1). Incredible advice from a better man. Apply it, and watch your life success soar.
4. Research your topic. This tremendously helps individuals gather certainty around a topic. If you do not enjoy cold-calling, search the top strategies to successful cold-calling. Go through all the articles on the front page of your search engine’s results. Synthesize them by recording them on paper.
5. Act incrementally. For example, make one phone call. Stand up and walk around. Come sit back down, and begin again. This is similar to a video editing strategy. Edit one video, stand up, walk around, look around the house or environment, and then return.
6. Adapt to successes and failures. Notice what works for you. The success validates your brilliance, and the failures get you closer to it. The father of Spanx founder Sara Blakely celebrated her failures every night at the dinner table. “If there were no failures, Dad would be disappointed.” This taught Blakely to enjoy trying new things. Her willingness to try fostered phenomenal success since the fear of failure lost its potency.
As always, it is my hope that these strategies elevate your life. Please comment below describing how you complete the tasks that are a “bear”, and to join our community of conscious motivators and entrepreneurial achievers.
As always,
Dream Big.
Achieve Greatness.
Unlock Your Potential TODAY!
Works Cited
1. Jones, Dennis Merritt. “There Is Great Power to Be Found in Doing the Thing You Don’t Want to Do.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 07 Jan. 2015.
2. “10 Lessons I Learned from Sara Blakely That You Won’t Hear in Business School.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 07 Jan. 2015.
