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By Geoffrey James

How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

By Geoffrey James

April 1st, 2009 @ 5:30 am

14 Comments

| Permalink

Categories: Career Development, Motivation, Sales Skills

Tags: Explanation, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Sales, Geoffrey James

Economy got you down?  Making quota looks unlikely?  Don’t despair.  If you’re not at the top of your game, you can re-motivate and re-energize by asking yourself the following five questions:

QUESTION #1: Do I have an unrealistic timetable?
Explanation: Success is usually achieved one step at a time and big successes usually take longer than small successes.
Fix: Be patient with yourself and resist the temptation to compare your progress to that of others.

QUESTION #2: Am I truly committed?
Explanation: if you’re going to be successful, you need to be willing to do whatever it takes (within legal and ethical bounds, of course!).
Fix: Banish any thought of giving up before you accomplish your objective.  Just do it.

QUESTION #3: Do I have too many discouraging influences?
Explanation: If you hang around with people who are highly critical or who are doing very little in their own lives, your energy and enthusiasm will be drained.
Fix: Decide to surround yourself with people who support and believe in you.  Then do it.

QUESTION #4: Am I preparing to succeed?
Explanation: If you’re not improving your sales skills and business acumen, you’re gradually losing your edge.
Fix: Take a step to learn something that will help you accomplish your goal.  Buy a book or a tape, or set yourself up to network with highly successful people in your field.

QUESTION #5: Am I truly willing to fail?
Explanation: In most cases, you will encounter setbacks before you finally succeed.
Fix: Decide that failure is an unavoidable yet vital component in your quest for success.

The above is based upon a conversation with Jeff Keller, author of the bestselling book Attitude is Everything.

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  •  
    1

    steven.ng

    04/02/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    Well written

  •  
    2

    YourVirtualAssistant

    04/02/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    Geoffrey:

    It was a delight to see your blog in my inbox tonight via Bnet!

    Very useful advice and so logical that although we are probably all aware of the things you mention - we all sometimes need to be reminded.

    Thank you and I look forward to reading more of your blogs.

    Michelle Mangen

  •  
    3

    akalekye@...

    04/02/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    Quite motivating. Thanks I needed to be reminded.

  •  
    4

    gonca.telli@...

    04/02/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    QUESTION #2 is a hard one to answer truly.

  •  
    5

    faith12ipsofacto

    04/03/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    simple yet the message is very clear.

  •  
    6

    Q N Q

    04/03/09 | Report as spam

    Self motivation is one of the key factor

    Hey Geoffrey,
    Thank you for reminding it, but difficult to perform Q2 on stage. I preferred to quit when I had been asked to report a senior staff who is less qualified and not from our domain, but organization just wanted to streamline their hierarchy and they were confused where to put me up. I got, would be promotional letter in the beginning of the year which I deserved and got the news of change in the hierarchy in the beginning of the subsequent month. I considered it as a demotion. Ceo tried to retain me by alluring a support of a year in another option, but I quit within 3 days of notice. In the period of recession, a dynamic personality sitting at home, is quite hard to believe. I am hoping best to come. Anyway, I felt like to sharing this experience with you, though Q1 n Q5 solves it partially. Kind regards, Sangeeta

  •  
    7

    tylermoon

    04/03/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    Simple and clear..yet we forget these things and make our life complicated. Nice post.
    Thanks for the reminder!

  •  
    8

    Bob Wileman

    04/03/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    We are at the bitter edge of this recession and most executives have to throw out the rule book and do what works.For the moment there are few signs that anything works, so I would take issue with you on the last line of item one because comparing with the progress of other can also be a source of ideas and inspiration.

  •  
    9

    munna_live

    04/03/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    nice...very well told

  •  
    10

    smackintosh

    04/06/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    I've been looking at www.unleashthepowerofme.com to motivate myself and my employees - it is a great message for tough times.

  •  
    11

    e1wood

    04/06/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    FYI....since you posted I'm reading it the first thing every morning, even weekends....sometimes we simply lose sight!

    L'wood

  •  
    12

    disruption

    06/10/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    Thanks, it really helps me to motivate myself and my team.

  •  
    13

    karamos

    07/15/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    It's not what happens to us in life, it is how we recat to the situation. I agree, attitude is everything!
    Geoffrey, what are doing up at 5:30am? lol

  •  
    14

    Geoffrey James, Sales Machine

    07/15/09 | Report as spam

    RE: How To Motivate Yourself in 60 Seconds

    Re Note 13:
    Well, I could claim it's because I'm motivated but, in fact, BNET's time clock is Pacific zone, and I live in the Eastern zone. In any case, I always post 2-3 days ahead anyway, although I'll interrupt and reschedule about-to-hit posts if I need to cover breaking news.

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