The Cause, Cost, and Cure for Discouragement

[tconnor]

Increase Sales Tips #258
The Cause, Cost, and Cure for Discouragement

Ever lost a sale? I mean a sale that you were really counting on? I mean a really big sale, one that could make your entire year? If you haven’t, then you might find it difficult to relate to the pain that other people who have had just an experience feel. Then again, you might have been discouraged for other reasons and know the tremendous doubt, feat, uncertainty and often hopelessness from another life experience.

Discouragement is right up there along with fear when it comes to negatively impacting your actions, decisions, attitudes and life and career outcomes. I have been discouraged on a number of occasions during my life and career and I know the pain and despondency one can experience when no matter what you do or try it seems doomed from the start. I am not talking here about clinical depression, but temporary emotional despair.

Got the picture? I am talking here about the temporary inability to lift yourself out of the mud and back into the sunshine.

What’s the cause of this temporary malaise?

There are many, but the common ones are:

• Unrealistic life and or career expectations.
• Living in the future rather than in the present.
• Turing the responsibility of your life and circumstances to others or outside circumstances.
• The tendency towards pessimism.
• A negative mental focus.
• Not having clear goals and a path toward them.
• Not spending adequate routine time in self-development activities like reading great books and listening to motivational CD’s
• Surrounding yourself with negative, pessimistic people who enjoy whining and complaining.

What’s the cost staying in this gloom and doom for an extended period of time?

• It will impact every area of your life in a negative way.
• It can damage your business and personal relationships.
• It can contribute to a greater tendency to be physically ill.
• If it is not dealt with over time it can lead to a more serious depression state of mind.
• It will cause more lost sales.

What can you do to get out of this funk?

• Start reading and listening to personal development messages every morning just after you arise and just before you go to bed at night. I have a number of new CD products now available.
• Keep a good stuff jar.
• Keep a daily journal and refer it in times of need, when you feel discouraged.
• Have a “Count My Blessings” page in your journal and read it every day.
• Surround yourself with positive optimistic people.
• Start or join a Mastermind Group that shares positive and creative ideas and methods for improving.
• Purchase my popular manual - Life Questions. I guarantee it will help you.
• Take time to visit a local nursing home for a few hours and talk with any of the residents who are willing and able to talk with you. If you have never done this I guarantee it will be a wakeup call for you.
• Spend some time this week visiting your local cemetery or attending the funerals of some total strangers.
• Spend a few hours wandering the halls of the local hospital.
• Go to lunch every day for a week with a really successful salesperson either in your organization or a non-competitive business in your market area for the purpose of sharing and learning. (no whining aloud.)

Any or all of this will help you rid yourself of this funk sooner rather than later.