The Pain in Change By Tom Hopkins

We've all heard the phrase "no pain, no gain." It's been used mostly in the area of physical fitness as a motivator. If your body is comfortable where it is today, it's bound to take some effort (spelled P.A.I.N.) to get it in the shape you desire. Hopefully, your physical efforts don't bring about any type of real pain, rather discomfort. Unfortunately, the use of the word "pain" probably keeps many people from ever starting an exercise program.

As we enter a new year, we choose to make resolutions to change our lives for the better. However, there are some changes that are forced upon us that cause some discomfort. For example, how many times does it take you to write "2009" successfully and automatically? For most of us it's not more than a few days. Then, we have a new habit formed and it's easy to do it correctly every time thereafter. The "pain" of remembering to make the change to the new year is quickly forgotten.

The pain of change is one of the four de-motivators I teach people to overcome. This may surprise you but all you need to do to overcome any painful change in your life is to look at the reason you chose to make the change. What are you trying to accomplish? How will you feel once you have done it? If the end result of the change, your goal, excites you to own it, it becomes something you have to have. When you have to have something, not having it becomes the painful thing. The pain of change has shifted to being a pain of staying the same.

You've just learned how to change a demotivator into a motivator! You will now gladly move toward the change to become more comfortable.

One of the biggest challenges faced by most salespeople is that of prospecting. When I bring up the subject in my seminars you can almost hear the crowd groan in pain. In an ideal salesperson's world, there would be such demand for our products that clients would be standing in line to seek us out. Since that's not likely to happen more than once in a lifetime (if at all), we need to come up with something more painful to avoid. Let's say it's a smaller paycheck. Don't you hate getting your paycheck and seeing that it's less than last month's check? Isn't that painful? Keep that pain in mind every time you try to procrastinate prospecting. The pain of the small paycheck should outweigh the pain of prospecting enough that you'll pick up the phone and seek out more new clients.

Once you start receiving larger checks because you've grown your client list by prospecting, finding new clients becomes something you look forward to. Rather than stalling your prospecting efforts you'll soon find yourself looking forward, backward and all around you for your next new client. Prospecting will become a fun game and your larger paycheck the reward for winning.