Donna owns and operates a very successful business-to-business consulting practice. For the first 12 years of her business, clients were abundant. Somehow, someway new clients always seemed to find her and life was great. Then, of course, our economy took a significant shift and Donna (like most of us) found herself having to put more time and energy into finding new clients.
Donna came to me because she knew she was procrastinating doing the sales and marketing behaviors that would attract new clients and create more revenue for her company.
Donna shared with me that the sales and marketing tasks she needed to complete were not difficult things to do. In fact, she actually enjoyed them once she got started, but something constantly caused her to divert her attention to other so-called “important” activities that would take her time away from what she knew she really needed to be doing – sales behaviors.
She found it a bit easier to get herself to do the marketing behaviors of writing articles and sending out ezines because they felt somehow safer, however they did not produce the results she needed and wanted. She knew she was going to have to develop a stronger, more proactive “Sales Mentality”, yet the very thought of being a “salesperson” made her feel queasy.
As Donna and I started our work together I asked her a series of questions to uncover her thought process around doing the sales and marketing tasks and activities.
I was able to uncover that Donna spent her entire work day with a tape running in the back of her mind of all the sales and marketing activities she “should” be doing.
Her thought-process always started with an image of doing a specific sales behavior; for example, making sales phone calls. She would see herself being successful and having a great conversation with a prospective new client and she would feel happy and motivated.
Then, very quickly, the happy feelings would morph into an awful feeling of dread and anxiety as she began to run through her mind “worse case scenarios” and “What if…?” images of the prospective client being mean or rude to her.
To the outside world Donna always appeared to be enormously self-confident – even fearless, however Donna’s “worst case scenarios” and “what if” questions triggered significant feelings of the fear of rejection that sent her “down for the count” with one punch to the gut.
Donna wanted immediate relief from this awful feeling so she would spontaneously distract herself by checking her email, checking her FB page, or some other equally comfortable non-sales task.
Fear of rejection is the poster-child for sales failure.
And scary “what if” (“worse case”) scenarios are the poster-child for self sabotage.
It is a healthy part of life to consider both the “best case scenarios” AND the “worst case scenarios”of any action you are about to take. The intention of a “worse case scenario” is to help you be prepared in case things don’t go as planned and to help you stay SAFE in the event that the worst does happen. Unfortunately, many people process “worst case scenarios” in such a way that they end up scaring the bejeebers out of themselves and pushing themselves AWAY from DOING what they WANT and NEED to do. This internal strategy for safety actually causes feelings of being UNsafe and then pushes you AWAY from doing what you want.
Far too many perfectly capable business professionals have sabotaged themselves right into the crapper by habitually asking themselves internal “worse case scenario” questions such as, “What if they ask something I don’t know how to respond to?”, “What if I say something that makes me look stupid?”, “OMG, what if they hang up on me?” …You get the idea.
Scaring yourself with “worse case scenarios” in an effort to protect yourself will NEVER motivate you to take action TOWARD what you want.
Donna and I used the
Break Free from Self Sabotage Behaviors Step-by-Step process to uncover her ineffective internal strategies. Then we developed and installed new, more effective internal strategies that cause her to feel SAFE and to motivate her TOWARD doing the things she needs to do.
We replaced her “What if…” thought-process with a healthier “What can I do…?” thought-process that allows her to feel a sense of control, keeps her motivated AND provides her with helpful resources for dealing with rejection when and if it actually does happens.
Now that Donna has fully integrated her new internal strategy for protecting herself, she is easily and naturally doing the sales and marketing behaviors that are allowing her to make her business more prosperous than ever.
Important Notice: I share my clients’ success stories with you in an effort to help you see the ways in which you may be sabotaging your own success AND to help you to see that there are ways of permanently changing your internal strategies and putting them into alignment with helping you to move toward the success you want to create! I use a special set of customized NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) skills to find your ineffective internal strategies (thought-processes) and turn them into effective internal strategies (thought-processes). This is nothing like any traditional therapy or self help work you have done before.
Use this link to learn more about my Break Free Intensive Sessions, the Break Free Step-by-Step process, or to request a complimentary consultation conversation with me. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic! My question to you: What activities do you procrastinate and what internal scare tactics do you think you may be using to cause your procrastination?
Thanks! Very interesting reading. I really like your articles and I continually come back here to learn more.
This gave me quite the awakening. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to write this up! You are very much a saint!
[...] Procrastination is OFTEN the result of your mind being overwhelmed by either too many choices or the inability to see any choices (what I refer to as the "black screen of nothingness in my mind"). [...]