photo credit: »Philo

What makes you push on placing one foot ahead of the other?  Kelly McLean recently shared a quote

“It’s better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret”

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Sometimes you get in a pattern of making your life really hard.  Hey, I do it too.  Sometimes it seems like my personal motto is if there’s a hard way and an easy way by all means do it the hard way first.  At least I can laugh at myself about it, and because I know I tend to bend that direction I can be on the lookout and catch myself at it.

I have absolutely no tolerance or patience for people who are simply to afraid to take action or make a decision.  It drives me nuts.  I want to shake them and shout, “can’t you see your fears are keeping you from getting what you want ever!”

Your ability to succeed is directly proportional to the actions you take.  Wishing, intending, and dreaming won’t get you anywhere.  Action is the only road to success.

“Aim small, miss small, and fail forward fast.”

Cheryl A. Clausen

I own this statement deep down throughout my very being.  I know as long as I’m taking actions I’m headed in the right direction.  Even if I’m taking a wrong action I’m still better off because it’s far easier to make a correction when you’re in motion than it is when your dead still.

Aim small speaks to knowing exactly who you’re targeting.  One of the quickest ways to waste your resources is to cast a wide net.  Your wide net will come back empty.  When you cast a net for a very specific target you’ll get at least a few in your net, and you’ll learn how to get more.

Miss small so you don’t bet the farm on any one thing.  If you can’t afford to lose your entire investment on something don’t make it.  The easiest way to make an investment affordable is right size it to a size you can’t lose on.  Make it so affordable that if you get even one response the effort will pay for itself.

Fail forward fast by getting right back in the saddle of the horse that bucked you off.  When I was about 8 years old I begged my Dad for a horse.  One day he brought home this little black Shetland pony named Poncho.  I thought he was great until I got on to ride him.  Every time I got on Poncho he would ever so nicely walk over to the nearest sand burr patch and sit down causing me to fall off into the sand burrs.  He knew he had my number and he won every time.  This is a classic reminder that if you keep doing the same things you’ll keep getting the same results.

So what if what you tried failed.  You now know one more thing that doesn’t work and you’re one step closer to what does work.  Just keep at it until you get it right.  Be like the winner of the race.  Just keep taking one more step and pushing ahead until you cross the victory line.  As long as you aim small, miss small, and fail forward fast you’ll be headed in the right direction.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under sales coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.