Do distractions and negative thinking impact your productivity?

don't fall victim to the Mind Rollercoaster Phenomenon: when sales professionals are distracted by negative thinking ~ Anthony Caliendo, The Sales Assassin

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days and the Entrepreneur

What to do when Rome is burning around you

~ Inc.com

We’ve all heard the words “negativity breeds negativity.”  One of the most important things you can do to keep your flame alive is to not get drawn in to negative thoughts and especially negative people.  I always tell myself that negativity is like the devil, it will take you to hell in the blink of an eye.  You must learn that negative thoughts are your path to defeat. If you can develop that proper mindset, which includes the daily weeding out of negativity, you will be further on the path to becoming a Sales Assassin Master.

The Mind Rollercoaster Phenomenon (MRP) is how I describe the mental state of a sales professional who allows certain occurrences, distractions or obstacles and negative thinking to deflect them from productivity.

Creating an optimistic mindset means putting the negatives into perspective by clearing your mind and re-focusing on what you need to accomplish and achieve, and it begins when you go to bed at night.  It sounds like a contradiction, but you actually have to learn how to wind down and gear up at the same time!  Game plan mode essentially begins when you close your eyes at night.  You must put this principle into immediate practice and BELIEVE IT if you want to acquire the skill of controlling your mindset.

Sales people are often easily distracted, which contributes to MRP.  Perhaps too often, sales professionals are afforded the luxury of self-managing their professional lives, simply because of the nature of their jobs.  They often work remotely from a home office and/or unsupervised.  However, that flexibility sometimes easily allows for distraction.

There are way too many distractions on a daily basis that cause you not to produce.  Let’s think of them as falling into these categories:

1.  Personal distractions – getting a call from a spouse regarding the house or finances, an issue at school with one of the children, or a friend needing advice causes distraction
2.  Business distractions – a client issue, production or logistics issues, being reprimanded by a manager or long drawn out sales meetings, policy or commission changes
3.  Self-imposed distractions – iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, etc.

With this immense propensity for distractions – personal, business, self-induced, avoidable or unavoidable – what if you could train your mind to think and react differently to distractions to mitigate loss of focus on daily production goals?  It is absolutely possible and a requirement for success.

But let’s go further.  In order for you to effectively manage the distractions, you must first identify:

1.  Which types of distractions consume and plague you each day?
2.  How do you react to your distractions?
3.  Are your distractions real or are they perceived?

Exercise
For one full 5 day work week, identify write down and carefully examine any and all occurrences during your work day that could be considered a distraction taking you out of your zone. Jot down how you reacted to them. Then categorize them business, personal, self-imposed. (Be honest with yourself, otherwise you stand to gain nothing from this test).

At the end of the 5 days, examine your list. Now you have some decisions to make.

Anthony Caliendo, The Sales Assassin

The Sales Assassin by Anthony Caliendo