The most important question you will ever ask yourself is, what do I really, really, really want? Most people, probably 98 percent, walking around, do not have an answer to that question. They have a vague answer, they have an idea, but they don’t have it written with any degree of clarity or specificity.
I admit that’s a hard question to answer. And I understand why people don’t have an answer to it.
Before I Became a Sales Trainer
Thirty years ago – before I became a sales trainer – I used tractor feed paper with the little holes in it in my printer. On my old compact printer, I printed out a banner 11-1/2 inches high by about eight feet long. On that banner was the question, “what do I really, really, really want?
After printing that banner, I tore it out of that printer, colored it with a red magic marker and taped it on the wall of my office. It took up one entire wall of my home office. That banner remained on that wall for the entire fourteen years I lived in that house. It was a subconscious reminder to me to think about what I really, really wanted which was to become a sales trainer who made a six figure income.
I would encourage you to do the same sort of thing. Additionally, it would be a good practice for you to get a composition book or one of those nice diaries with gilded pages – something other than a yellow legal pad that you’re going to misplace – and get up every morning 15 minutes earlier than you normally get up; grab a cup of coffee and sit down in a place where no one can bother you and write down on a blank page, what do I really, really, really want?
If you’re like most people, the entire 15 minutes will be spent staring at a blank sheet of paper. If you discipline yourself to do this day after day after week after month, and you start to write your answer down, you will begin to develop a clear answer to this question.
As you write and review your answer, you’ll say; nah, that’s not what I really want. Nah, I don’t want that. Six months ago, I said that but that’s not really what I want. Eventually, if you are consistent, you will develop a clear picture of what you want.
This process will help you program your subconscious mind whose job is to go out into the universe and find people, circumstances and opportunities that are consistent with what it is that you say you want.
If you are undisciplined and lack the proper self-management to do this, you will achieve very little and your life will in essence will become an accident.
Life is not a practice game. You get no do overs, so you better get it right or you will end up with much sorrow and regret about what coulda or shoulda been.
After I Became a Sales Trainer
As a sales trainer, who has trained thousands of sales people and business owners over the last twenty years, I have seen the magic of this simple exercise.
Ultimately, you only have two choices: take control of your life and live an intentional life that results in the achievement of your dreams or abdicate that responsibility and take what accidentally comes.
I understand this is somewhat radical. I also know that you probably don’t know anybody in your life that does this. Doing this will make you very unique and different.