In my recent post “Ten Ways to Get Insanely Motivated“, the first of the ten ways “Condition Your Mind” may have seemed a bit mysterious.
In fact, conditioning your mind is easy, according to Jeff Keller, author of the bestselling book Attitude is Everything. Here are the five quickest way to get your brain in shape for a motivated attitude:
- Avoid negative thought patterns. Stop thinking in terms of “I can’t,” “It’s impossible,” or “This won’t work.” Negative thought patterns program you for negative results. Instead think in terms of what you can accomplish and what will work.
- Emphatically express positive emotion. Never pass up an opportunity to express a positive feeling. For example, if someone asks “How are You?” respond enthusiastically with “Terrific!” or “Fabulous!” And then decide to feel that way.
- Don’t waste your mental energy. Worrying about things over which you have no control is the most useless of all human endeavors. Most news stories deal with issues that don’t affect your daily life. So spend your driving time listening to music or inspirational speeches.
- Stop griping about problems. What good does complaining about things do? It just depresses you and everyone else in the process. Focusing on what’s lousy about the economy, your company and your customers just sets you up for failure.
- Substitute neutral words to calm wayward emotions. For example, if you’re angry, rather than saying to yourself “I’m enraged!” say “I’m a bit annoyed…” or (better yet) “I’ve got a challenge here…”
Over time, using these techniques train your brain to reject the thoughts that keep you from being successful and strengthen the thoughts that make you motivated.
Seriously, this stuff works. Even just the small change of saying “Terrific” when somebody asks “How are you?” can have a major impact on your attitude. If you say it with emotion and mean it, you start feeling terrific, even when (in the past) you might have interpreted your state as merely “so-so.” True, some people will look at you funny, but that just makes being positive that much more enjoyable!
Seriously, It works. I apply these principles all the time and they work in all aspects of business not just sales.
