If you find it hard to complete things because they are “not good enough” yet, then you’re letting ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good.’
I mean that sometimes we have this idea of what something should be like, the perfect, and we strive to reach it.
But you never will because perfection is impossible.
Right now, I want you to permit yourself not tobe perfect. None of us are perfect, and none of us ever achieve perfection. And that’s okay.
And this idea of perfection and reaching perfection is holding people back, it’s incredibly paralyzing, but if something isn’t perfect, then that automatically means you’ll have failed.
You are Good enough
You need to adopt an attitude of “good enough” or even “bad but finished.” That way, there’s so much more scope to be successful, and there’ll be less fear of failure.
If your business Facebook page isn’t perfect, that’s fine, as long as it’s good enough.
If your emails aren’t perfect, that’s okay if they’re good enough and you get your message out.
Your exercise routine probably isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t matter. As long as you get yourself moving regularly, it’s good enough.
Buying a new car is fraught with decisions and, for many people, causes anxiety. But you don’t need to find the perfect vehicle! Instead, you need to find one good enough for your purposes.
Pareto Principle
Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It’s also known as the 80-20 rule, which usually takes 20 percent of the time to complete 80 percent of a task. However, completing the last 20 percent of the task takes 80 percent of the effort.
So at 80 percent completion, can you perhaps declare it “good enough”? What else do you need to do to finish right now? Knowing that the last 20 percent takes 80 percent of the effort and that perfection is impossible, it makes no sense to continue working away at something already good enough.
Experience the freedom of doing it badly.
Perfection is especially detrimental to creativity. Let me give you a quick experience of this. Grab a piece of paper and a pen. I want you to come up with five great ideas for booking games. They must be new ideas, creative, innovative, and perfect. You have 5 minutes….start now!
Do you have any ideas yet?
Okay. Grab a new piece of paper and write down five bad ideas for sponsoring people in your organization. These are just five terrible recruiting ideas. You have 5 minutes again….go now!
Do you have ideas now?
What happened? If you’re like most people, you had many more ideas in the second activity because you permitted yourself to come up with any ideas. Most people find it easier and more fun than the first activity, where you were looking for great ideas. Trying to be great or perfect stifles creativity. It paralyzes you.
What would happen if you put on a timer for ten minutes and wrote down every terrible idea for sponsoring games, recruiting seeds, conversation starters, etc., that you could think of? Then, of course, you would write down plenty of bad ideas and some good enough ideas that could work.
Letting go of perfection is freeing.
Permitting yourself to do it “badly” lets you get on with the job and get things done. And by getting things done, you keep the momentum going.
So how do you ensure that what you do is good enough? By focusing on the process. Try to improve the process, and don’t focus too much on the result. For example, you will increase sales, bookings, and recruiting leads by making your parties and events more enjoyable for you, the host, and the guests.
By doing the process well, the result will be better. So that’s where you want to focus your improvements, not on the outcome.
Because focusing too much on the result makes you needy, locks you up, takes the joy out of the process, and leads to perfectionism.
And perfection is the enemy of good and the enemy of done.
Several years ago, I came across a concept by Jim Rohn that you are the average of the five people with who you spend the most time. And I’ve kept that in mind as I’ve built a $20 million global direct sales business.
More recent research suggests it spans more expansive than just your five closest contacts. Scientists now believe that you’re the average of ALL the people surrounding you.
Positive Psychologist Shawn Achor believes that positive people provide energy. So surrounding yourself with positive people is like giving yourself a flu shot against negativity and apathy. Positive people help to empower you and move you forward.
It’s crucial to find positive influences in your life who help push you out of your comfort zone and help you grow. If you don’t currently have that in your life, you’ll want to look for it. Think about joining a new club, starting a volunteer role, or taking up a new hobby to surround yourself with new positive influences.
Twenty years ago, at the start of my career, I was anxious and lacked confidence. I joined a local Toastmasters club where I was supported, encouraged and surrounded by other people wanting to improve themselves too. The ‘norm’ in the club differed from friends spending their time in pubs. My influences shifted, and the trajectory of my whole life changed!
What if your environment is quite negative?
What if you don’t have enough positive energizers in your life or if some of the people closest to you are negative influences or energy drainers?
The good news is that you can impact your average through the books you read, the podcasts you listen to and the videos you watch. Spending time-consuming quality content from positive influences can make a massive difference.
So who do you want to spend more time with this week? I encourage you to find a club to join, a podcast to listen to, or a YouTube channel to follow that feeds your positivity and makes you feel energized and empowered.
The people around us shape our traits – so this is a crucial aspect of the success of your direct sales business!
Want all the tools for a positive mindset?
Take the next step towards setting and achieving your goals!
Did you know you can train your brain for success?
Having success leads to more success. It’s not just progress and triumph that move you towards more success. It’s what happens inside your brain that propels you forward.
“success breeds success”
So what happens in your brain when you succeed in a task or accomplish something? First, your body releases dopamine, the pleasure and reward chemical. Then, it tells certain parts of your brain to pay close attention to what you just did because it wants to do it again in the future.
Also, the dopamine feels good in your brain and gives you feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. Your brain wants to experience that feeling again and again.
And this is exactly what you want to train your brain to do: repeat success.
This means that it’s essential to reinforce each small win to motivate yourself from one small success to the next and towards a larger goal.
How to train your brain for success
When you take time and effort to acknowledge and celebrate your achievements, it helps you and your brain make a strong connection between the accomplishment you’re celebrating and the actions that got you there.
It’s also a great way to stay motivated on the way to a larger goal. It’s fun and it feels good!
If you tick off a box after completing your goal without taking time to celebrate, you tell your brain that what you did wasn’t that important. You tell your brain it was just a thing to tick off your list, like vacuuming or picking up the dry cleaning.
So instead of teaching your brain that what you accomplish is not essential, train your brain to remember that achieving your goals is exactly what you want to keep doing.
Now when I say “celebrate” or talk about rewards, I don’t mean you have to throw a party every time you achieve something or buy yourself a diamond necklace. But you must do something special just for you that feels like a reward that you earned.
How to make the most of rewards & celebrations
When you plan your next goal, make sure you not only break it down into tinier achievements but also set rewards for each of those smaller wins.
Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says that immediate and frequent rewards work better than delayed rewards only given out at the end of a long project. This is why you want to break your goals down into smaller actions or milestones with associated rewards.
It’s also important to set those rewards in advance because it’s not just receiving the prize that gets the dopamine in your brain going. It’s also the anticipation of the reward!
So I encourage you to take the time to celebrate your small wins on the journey towards your big hairy goals to make sure that your brain and neuropathways are helping you to achieve success.
Takeaways:
Acknowledgment and rewards encourage your brain to release dopamine
Dopamine helps your brain to steer you towards repeating the experience of success
Rewards don’t have to be elaborate or expensive, but they do have to feel special to you
Break your goals into smaller goals or milestones and set rewards for each of those smaller goals in advance
The anticipation of the reward already sets off chemical changes in your brain
Ready to Master Your Mindset?
Lessons from this course run over 5 weeks and are backed by the latest research in Positive Psychology and Neuroscience, leaving you addicted to taking action and achieving your goals!
It almost feels like the ability to concentrate is a lost art in today’s digital world. Constant interruptions by notifications from our multitude of apps can be catastrophic for productivity and focus.
A recent study reported that we experience around 60 interruptions in an average 8-hour workday. And a study at London’s Institute of Psychiatry found that constant interruptions can have the same effect as losing a night’s sleep.
No wonder so many people feel tired all the time!
But the good news is that focus is a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it gets! If you feel – like so many of us – that you can’t concentrate as much as you used to when you were younger, you can build it back up!
So let’s look at some strategies to improve focus so you can sit down and get some work done in your direct sales business!
Use notifications sparingly
First of all, if you haven’t done so yet, make sure you turn off as many notifications as possible to reduce the number of distractions you experience in your day.
Think of your focus as a spotlight; you want to turn it to the important things and not scatter the light uselessly on every notification your phone throws at you.
You can also think of notifications as the privilege to interrupt you. Who or which apps get to have that privilege?
Retraining your brain
I found it helpful to retrain my brain to focus with this exercise from neuropsychologist Kim Willment. She suggests reading for thirty minutes with a timer set to go off every 5 minutes. When it goes off, ask yourself if your mind has wandered. If it has, just re-focus on your reading and continue to the next alarm. Rinse and repeat.
Doing this exercise helps to retrain your brain to monitor if your mind is wandering and then return to focusing on a single task. This is a huge part of concentrating and focusing during your day!
After I’d had a series of strokes 3 years ago, I found this exercise helpful to retrain my brain, and perhaps it’ll help you too!
Learn to re-focus quickly after an interruption
The next strategy is to improve your mindfulness and to re-focus quickly at the moment. As it turns out, focusing attention on the present moment and practicing mindfulness rewires the brain so that your ability to focus is stronger in everyday life!
You can use numerous mindfulness apps, but one quick strategy I use is ‘box breathing’. It’s a great stress reliever and helps you to develop yourself quickly.
When I notice that my focus has slipped off, if I need to get my concentration back after an interruption, I use this technique. US Navy Seals use box breathing and can certainly be calm and focused under extreme circumstances!
So here’s how you do it: Sit upright and inhale slowly while you count to 4 in your head. Then hold your breath for a count of four, exhale through your mouth to a count of four, and then hold your breath for four seconds. Repeat this a few times.
I find picturing the box or square in my mind with each step helps me to focus on the activity. I used this technique as a stress reliever when my daughter was critically ill fighting leukemia, but I also noticed a huge improvement in my concentration and ability to focus, so I use it regularly now as a way to quickly recentre and refocus.
I encourage you to try these strategies this week. It’ll be easier to get work in your direct sales business done when you can concentrate and focus for blocks at a time!
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Get the tools you need for the success of your direct sales with Mindset Mastery.
It’s rare that I’m genuinely excited by an app and that my mind is (almost) blown. But this app is the best tool I’ve ever used to accelerate my success.
My direct sales business increased from $4 million to over $17 million over the last year, and it’s partly due to this app.
It’s called ‘Positive Prime,’ and it’s all about transforming your mind, habits, and routines that work towards your goals. The latest research backs it in neuroscience and positive psychology, and it works.
It works.
Move over vision boards – this app is so much more effective!
With Positive Prime, you can fuel your business goals, personal or fitness goals, and mindset, uplift your mood, and inspire creative or innovative thinking. With the app, you prime your mind for change, success, and peak performance.
The app allows you to bypass your critical mind and let the messages sink into your subconscious, helping you to achieve faster change. Positive Prime offers different sessions to train your brain and create powerfully self-fulfilling prophesies around your goals.
You can get started for free, but I highly recommend you upgrade to a paid plan as soon as possible because you can then significantly amplify the effect of each session by personalizing it to you with images and personal statements for your specific goals.
When you personalize a session, you include your photos that are relevant and other images that resonate with that goal or make you feel good and inspire you. Adding that personalization increases your emotional response and engagement with the session.
It’s like watching a movie, and suddenly you’re given the starring role!
I’m wondering what direct sales goal you might want to achieve. Qualifying for a retreat or trip? Reaching the next career rank? Growing your team? Winning an award? Whatever your business goals are, Positive Prime can help you stay motivated, work smarter and more complexly, be creative and innovative in achieving your goals, and enjoy the journey as you go.
Bonus: you can use it for personal goals too! Do you have fitness goals? Does the Pandemic have you down or feeling anxious? There are sessions for you to work with this too!
I’m currently using the app to help me focus on my fitness goals and to inspire peak performance before competing in Karate. I’m also using it to stay motivated in my business and encourage me to think outside the box.
And I love every session; I always feel uplifted and ready to get to it! I love it so much that I want to share this with you.
It can be hard to keep yourself on track when you’re trying to qualify for an incentive trip with your direct sales company.
The qualification period for most incentive trips is usually run across several months and sometimes up to a full year. It’s easy then to lose motivation and lose track of how you’re going towards your goal.
The key to achieving major goals like that is maintaining focus in your direct sales business over a lengthy period. And that’s not always easy!
I’ve qualified for more than 18 international incentive trips, so I have some tips that I use myself and I want to share with you:
1 Break it Down How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
You need to break down that big, overwhelming target into bite-sized chunks. Start by dividing it into monthly amounts and then break it down into weekly targets. That way you’ll know exactly what you need to do each week to qualify eventually. It gives you manageable targets and from there you can plan your actions
2 Celebrate the Small Wins Once you know what your monthly and weekly targets are in your party plan business, you can celebrate your success along the way. When you’re on track for the week, make sure you plan a mini celebration or treat yourself. Because when you celebrate your successes, you train your brain to create more success. Check the Moët Moments article for more on this. This might not seem worthy to be my number 2 tip, but don’t underestimate the power of this!
3 Rocket to Your Goal It’s also important to track your progress in a visual way. I have always used a “goal rocket” printable to track my success. It’s a picture of a rocket ship that I can color in when I achieve certain amounts and see in one glance my progress towards a goal. It’s so satisfying to color in another band after a party or two! Grab the rocket ship from the Maximize Holiday Trade article.
4 Follow Your Vision There’s a remarkable amount of science and a massive volume of proof behind the importance of visual representation of our goals. Creating a goal or vision board is a vital element of your success.
Elizabeth Rider wrote in the Huffington Post: “When you create a vision board and place it in a space where you see it often, you essentially end up doing short visualisation exercises throughout the day.”
We know that visualization works. And to really boost the power of your vision board, it helps to imagine how you’ll feel when you achieve that goal, not just the goal itself.
Vision boards can be traditional cork boards in your study or a digital version which you then set-up as your screensaver or wallpaper so you see it regularly. With a free collage app you can quickly create a fab vision board for yourself and do those mini-visualizations throughout your day.
Vision boards are great – I have one in my office and I encourage you to create one too – but Positive Prime is taking the idea of vision boards to the next level!
It’s an app that’s based on the latest research into neuroscience and positive psychology and is a powerful tool to help you focus on your goals and stay motivated. So it’s the perfect app to help you strive for that big goal!
Positive Prime offers a selection of ‘mind movies’….it’s like Netflix for your brain. You can start for free but I recommend getting the paid subscription because you can personalize the content – making you star of the show! That massively amplifies the effectiveness and your emotional engagement with the sessions.
BONUS TIP: Accountability Buddy Here’s a bonus tip: pair up with someone who is at a similar stage in their business as you are. When you work with someone who is also striving for the same incentive trip, you can keep each other accountable, be there for each other when one of you isn’t feeling motivated, and share progress.
You want to touch base regularly, perhaps fortnightly or weekly, to share progress, ideas, celebrate wins, and encourage each other. In these chats you also report the actions you’ve done to reach your goal that week.
And you’ll find that you don’t want to say you’ve done nothing that week to reach your goal, you want to report in with good news. So having that accountability buddy helps you to stay on track!
I’ve seen quite a few accountability buddies grow into great friendships!
Finally, remember to believe in yourself: you’ve got this, beautiful!
Please share your goals, your strategies and your successes in the comments or with the Facebook tribe.
Did you know there’s a way to achieve your goals faster? A way that’s backed by science?
The wonderful fact is that your brain is actually designed to help you.
Everybody’s brain has what’s called the “Reticular Activating System”. And it’s this system that you can ‘hack’ to help you achieve your goals even faster.
What is the Reticular Activating System and how can it help you grow your direct sales business?
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a small bundle of nerve fibers that sit at the back of your brain. It filters information for you, bringing to your attention what is important at any given time.
The RAS is like a filter between your conscious and subconscious mind (that mysterious part of your mind where emotions, memories, habits, and desires live).
For example, have you ever had the experience that you were thinking about buying a certain car and suddenly you see that particular car everywhere?
That’s the RAS in action. It’s passed on to the subconscious mind that you’re mulling over this decision. And in return, your subconscious mind helps you to focus your attention – you suddenly see this car everywhere. It’s not that there’s a sudden influx of this car on the road, but you’re noticing the car now. Your attention is on the car.
Another example of how this works is finding a place to park your car. Some people are really good at quickly finding a park. It’s almost like a spot just opens up for them.
In truth, their RAS is working for them to notice subtle clues that a park is available or becoming available shortly. They notice people walking to their car while getting their keys out, they notice a trunk lid open, they notice reversing lights, etc. And these clues guide them to an open parking spot without them being conscious of all the clues – it feels to them like they just know.
It works the same way with your direct sales business. Once you’ve tasked your RAS and pointed it towards your goal, you’ll notice the subtle clues that will help you. You’ll notice opportunities, you’ll find you are more creative in ways to achieve your goal, and you’ll notice the information that you need in that moment.
So let’s have a look at how to ‘task’ your RAS to focus that attention and filter to help you in your direct sales business.
Here are 4 actions you can do to ‘task’ your RAS
Define specific goals. I’ve talked about the importance of goal setting before and if you haven’t set any goals just yet, do it today.
Imagine yourself achieving the goals in detail. Make it a glorious mental movie in which you involve as many of your senses and as many details as you can. If it’s a big goal, you might want to break it down and see yourself achieving the first step first before moving on to the next step towards your goal.
Add images related to your goals to your vision board. Make sure that your vision board is in a place where you see it regularly.
Focus on your goals daily by writing them in your goal journal or planner. This will also help you to plan action steps.
Use a tool to hack your brain
In addition to the actions above, there’s also a fabulous tool that you can use to help you task your RAS fast. It’s called Positive Prime and it’s like an animated vision board on steroids.
The app’s mini mind-movies program your subconscious mind and your RAS in a way that’s quick, fun and makes you feel amazing! 3 Minutes on the app will increase your positivity for 8 hours – how cool is that?
Positive Prime is a new technology based on the latest research in neuroscience and positive psychology. You can read more about it here.
In whichever way you task your RAS, once you’ve set a goal and tasked your RAS, it will focus your mind. Just like finding a car park, you will suddenly become aware of things that previously you may not have paid any attention to. Things that are useful to you and your direct sales goal.
And even though this sounds too simple to be true, research shows that it works.
Let me know how you task your RAS in the comments below!
Goals. Why they matter and why you need to write them down.
Goals are everything to me.
Goals provide focus and motivation. They create energy and excitement.
If you don’t have a clearly defined goal that excites you, you’ll end up drifting along…not going anywhere. I had a significant experience with this phenomenon.
For quite some time, my big hairy goal was to reach the top of my company’s career plan. Once I achieved this goal I did not set a new goal in my direct sales business. I drifted along, not growing my business for a few years before I realized my mistake.
Then I set new goals and felt inspired and motivated to achieve those again.
But it’s not enough to have goals in your mind. You must write down your goals. It also helps to say them out loud so you can hear them, not just in your mind but with your ears.
Let me try to convince you of how important it is to actually write down your goals: A few years ago, researchers at Yale university conducted research into goal setting. They revisited a class of students 20 years after they had graduated. The researchers found that the 3% of students who had written down goals when they were studying earned more than the remaining 97% of the class combined!
If that doesn’t convince you to start writing down your direct sales goals, I don’t know what will….
I take writing down my goals so seriously that I invested in this amazing planner that helps me not only to plan my month and week, but also helps me to set goals and keep me on track. And I’m achieving them faster than ever before!
(And yes, that’s an affiliate link – I love this planner SO much I’m happy to promote it and associate my name with it!)
I firmly believe that without goals, you have no compass. Goals give your life meaning and direction and help you to get what you want.
So, to get started today on your goal setting journey, grab the goal planning printable below!
I’d also love to hear what your goals are. Please share them in the comments…that will help you feel even more committed to achieving them
I run a successful direct sales business and I am also a Mom of 3 children.
And these two identities are not mutually exclusive. (Well, most of the time…)
I’ve been running a direct selling business for sixteen years now and I’ve built it up to a multi-million dollar turnover.
During that time I achieved my Masters Degree, I had 3 children, and I moved to a completely new area.
And I’ve only been able to do that because I work in the direct selling industry.
I believe that the direct selling industry is a perfect industry for women because you can run a successful, profitable business and be an engaged mother at the same time.
There are no glass ceilings and you can make the business as big or small as you want to.
For the past fifteen years I’ve loved my work and I’ve talked up the virtues of the direct selling industry to anybody who’d listen.
But it didn’t hit me how valuable this flexibility really is until my 6-year old daughter was diagnosed with acute leukemia nearly 2 years ago.
Running a business from a hospital room
With my direct selling business I have been able to work from my daughter’s hospital room. Other parents I’ve met on the paediatric oncology ward have had to give up their job or put their career on hold, causing further stress in the family.
But I’ve been able to keep my business going, keep my sanity by giving me an outlet for my own needs, and continue to provide an income.
All the while I can also support my daughter as she’s battling this illness, and continue to be a mother for my other two children. I don’t know of any other industry where you can do that!
As you can see I’m pretty passionate about the direct selling industry. And this passion has led me to establish Direct Sales Inspiration. I want to help as many women as possible achieve their dreams in this industry and enjoy the fabulous flexibility that I’ve been able to enjoy.
Learn to work in snatches of time
The biggest tip I have for budding business Mom’s is: Don’t expect to work 9-5.
Work when the children are asleep. Work when they are at school, pre-school, or day-care. Work when they’re with the grandparents. Find snatches of time where you can work on your business.
Here are some ideas to help you to do that:
Take multi-tasking to the next level. You can make business calls while you’re walking a little one in a pram. Make sure you’re ready to go on your business calls when you go for a walk and you’ll be working on your business, providing stimulation to your child and getting exercise. Win!
Create task folders for everything you need to do on a particular part of your business. Set it up so that you can just grab it and take it with you. You’ll be amazed how productive you can be while you’re waiting at gymnastics or swimming lessons.
If you have to do coaching-type calls with people, hold group calls or tele-conferences so you don’t have to keep covering the same ground with different people. Group the calls into topics and allow multiple people to benefit from them.
Download training materials onto your tablet or phone so that you can access them when you have a few spare minutes. Always have some training or inspirational videos or audio books ready to go.
For one or more nights a week, organize “Office Evenings”. As soon as your partner arrives home, you go to the office to get some work done. By having an agreement in place you won’t get stuck in the “could you do….while I …..” conversations. Kids will soon get used to it too.
Get up an hour before the kids so you can get the most important tasks for that day done.
Have “work toys”. These are special toys for the kids that they only get to play with while you need to do work. They’re great for those times you absolutely have to get something finished or take a call while the kids are with you. You can also use a tablet with a few games or YouTube videos that they only get access to while you’re working.
Always be ready to knock over some work
These are the things that have worked for me, they may not work for you. However, it’s the mind-set that counts.
That attitude of always being ready to work on your business, ensuring you’re always ready to knock over a task when the opportunity presents itself. If you develop that attitude, then you can develop your own practices to suit your business and family life.
Also, check these video interviews for more ideas and experiences of Mumpreneurs.
Update: I recently found this amazing direct sales planner. I it so much that I’m excited to promote it. It helps me to set goals and I can plan out my month, my week, my social media, my follow-ups….I can plan EVERYTHING in the one place. Check it out here.
Want to learn all my secrets to growing a direct sales team? This book has everything I have learned from the industry in the last 20 years. I’ve tried and tested many methods to arrive at my winning formula!