
These are trying times. It seems there are more obstacles than ever between you and a prospective customer impacting your motivation to succeed. So, how do you motivate yourself to do what’s necessary to succeed in spite of the obstacles?
In his book Flow – the Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly says that the correlation between the level of difficulty of a task and the talent or ability of the person involved is important: if the task is too easy the person gets bored; if it’s too difficult they tend to get discouraged and give up. Flow happens at the intersection where the challenge is difficult enough to stretch the person and they are confident in their ability to complete it. Think of it as two evenly matched tennis players. When you’re in flow time stands still. You’re fully engaged and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.
Motivation to Succeed
To achieve flow you should:
- Understand the challenge and how to succeed. What are the steps and abilities required?
- Understand yourself. Do you have what it takes? If it’s difficult, that’s ok. If it’s too difficult you may lose heart.
- Have a coach who will encourage and support you when you stumble or begin to question yourself.
Ensure you understand the steps that lead to success in your work:
- If you don’t know, ask someone who is already successful.
- Read books and articles that will give you theoretical knowledge and then test it.
- Make a list of the six activities that will lead to success when you have turned them into daily habits.
- Track your activities daily to avoid lying to yourself.
Success requires practice. You can’t do something five times and then decide you’re no good at it. Do it a hundred times. You’ll get better.
If you don’t believe you have what it takes, get a second opinion. Others may see your potential more clearly than you do. Is someone else in your office doing well? Find out what they are doing that you are not. Make a commitment. Either you’re going to do the activities and be successful or you aren’t. If not, find a job to which you can commit.
Ultimately it comes down to a goal – your goal, not necessarily your boss’s. So, is the outcome or the result worth the effort? If it isn’t, find another job. If it is, you’ll motivate yourself.
The Pure Selling Skills survey helps you measure how well you know a skill, how well you do it, and how important you believe it is to you your success. Click on the link above to learn more.