Achieving Meaningful Change

Welcome back to the 17th issue of Disrupting Conversations!

How are your new year's resolutions coming along?

I routinely see efforts to change wane come late January or early February. The sacrifices, effort, and challenges in breaking old routines and thinking aren’t producing enough to justify the struggle. This is when I see many make decisions and choices to let themselves off the hook.  

Why does this happen?

It can often come down to two things: 

• A need for immediate results and/or

• Passive negativity from those who surround you

These are two powerful forces working against your ability to change. 

Without recognizing how these are impacting the pursuit of your resolutions, you’re likely to sell yourself short on what you can accomplish.  

It’s time to recognize these patterns—and adjust.

In this issue, I’m going to show you what it looks like to avoid a finish line mentality and how to be prepared for the naysayers. 

🎙 Tune into our latest podcast episode. Join me and Chris Scembra, a gratitude expert and the author of Gratitude and Pasta, along with his latest book, Gratitude Through Hard Times. We discuss how practicing gratitude can help you work through performance ruts, and build a mindset that fosters resilience.

Enjoy this issue…

–Dan

Breaking Sales is my podcast to connect with those who are ready to break free from the chains of old sales methodologies that don’t work.

🎙 Cultivate Gratitude

My exploration of how we can change ourselves begins with a conversation between me and Chris Scehmbra on the Breaking Sales podcast. 

In this episode, we explore how you can change your mindset to become more resilient by cultivating gratitude. 

Want to learn more? 

Listen in to our insightful conversation, and be sure to subscribe to hear more from the Breaking Sales podcast.

Make your resolutions last through the new year

Right about now is when I start seeing new year’s resolutions start to fade away. 

Maybe you made a resolution to improve yourself by exercising more. Maybe you’re seeking to be a better leader, or up your sales numbers. 

But you’re not seeing enough results to make the change and sacrifices worth it.

This is the trap of immediate gratification, one of the biggest barriers to change. I often call it a finish line mentality. You’ve just started the marathon, and you’re already thinking about the finish. 

You have to get out of that mindset. 

The finish line mentality is a quick trip to discouragement. In this marathon, you’ve been running hard for a few weeks, but your efforts don’t seem to be producing any tangible results. You’ve anticipated that a certain unit of effort should equal a congruent level of results. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. 

Rather than focusing on the end goal, you’ve got to switch to a milestone mentality. Break up the actions required into manageable pieces that you can produce along the way. 

If your goal is to improve your sales. Identify the top three or four actions that will contribute to what you want to accomplish, and place a time and quantity on them. These become your weekly milestones.  

For example, you know you need to make new prospect connections to hit your sales goal:  identify how many hours a week you will invest in outreach and how many intro emails you want to send out. Make that 100% of your focus. 8 hours and 25 emails will be your milestones to measure.

I’ve also found that goals and resolutions can be knocked off track by another, unexpected source: your friends and family. 

Remember: your effort to make changes not only impacts you, but those around you. 

Some of your friends will encourage and support you. Others will view your efforts with skepticism, jealousy, and even agitation.

I remember when I first started my business. The more I struggled, the more people around me told me to stop and go back to corporate America. They emphasized how I was being irresponsible and short sighted.

Your pursuit reminds others that they are not evolving or advancing, and often magnifies their need to make changes and inability to do so.

Taking on a new project to advance your career will require time away from friends at night or on the weekend. 

Implementing a new workout strategy and diet will demand that you change your lunch and Happy Hour decisions. 

Any one of these changes creates a shift in where you spend your time, how you allocate effort, and who you surround yourself with.

It’s important to remind yourself that your journey might involve less time with some people, but will also connect you with others who are on a similar path.  

Achieving something new and different in 2024 is right there in front of all of us. Avoiding the temptation of immediate gratification and discouragement of others is vital.

Remember the one thing you can control in your pursuits is your mindset.

All your decisions and choices come from how you filter and decode what’s happening in the world around you. 

Thanks for reading!

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