2022 And Your Beliefs
2022 is only 2 weeks away.
And how the year starts, progresses, and ends for you will have a lot to do with your beliefs.
Because your beliefs are that powerful.
A story will help you understand.
I had just completed an excellent meeting with a client. Everything in that meeting went so smoothly and the outcome was exactly what the clients and we were after.
A signed contract for us to provide training for the next year for a couple of hundred of the client’s staff.
I was floating on air as I left the office building and walked out onto the street and back to my car.
As I approached my vehicle I noticed that there was a ticket tucked under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side of the car.
As soon as I saw that ticket, my mood instantly changed.
I went from walking on air with a great big smile on my face and a feeling of excitement coursing through my veins, to anger that I had forgotten about the time and now I had a parking ticket.
Dang it!
I grabbed the ticket from under the wiper blade, opened the driver’s door, threw my computer bag onto the passenger seat so hard that I thought I might have damaged something, and with a great big HARUMPH! slid behind the wheel.
I was so ticked off!
Now I was going to have to pay for a parking ticket.
What else could go wrong today?
I unfolded the ticket to see how much the fine was going to be.
But, it was a small flyer for a hole-in-the-wall pizza joint right around the corner from where I had parked my car.
And it was advertising their lunch hour takeout special.
“Treat yourself to 2 slices of our New York-style pizza. Straight out of our woodburning stove, and all for the price of just 1 slice!”
When I realized I wasn’t looking at a parking ticket, but a small ad for a pizza special, my mood immediately changed.
And my physiology immediately changed, too.
I went from feeling complete frustration and anger over getting a parking ticket, to a feeling of relief, elation, and joy again.
In fact, I felt so happy that it wasn’t a parking ticket but an offer for pizza, that I decided to go get myself 2 slices of that pizza.
And I did.
And it was great!
But there’s an important lesson that I took away from this experience when I took the time to think about it later.
That lesson is about the immense and sometimes intense power and influence that our beliefs have over our actions, moods, and physical state.
Just the BELIEF that that piece of paper was a parking ticket instantly changed my mood, the way I acted, and my physical state.
Mood: I became angry and frustrated.
Actions: I threw my computer case onto the passenger seat so hard I thought I might have broken something.
Physical state: My heart rate and breathing increased, I turned red from anger, and even the hair on the back of my neck felt like it was bristling.
All of that because of a BELIEF I had that turned out to be completely false.
It was a figment of my imagination.
I’m sure you can think of a time or two when you’ve had a similar experience to this.
And that brings me back to the topic of 2022 and your beliefs.
Because you see, if you want to change your life and your business, or how you perform in your role if you’re working inside a company, you’ve got to change some of the things that you believe.
Because your beliefs will affect your actions, and changed actions will give you different results.
Now, I’m always looking to improve the results I get.
And to do that there are times when I MUST change my beliefs, regardless of how strong they are or how long I’ve held them, and regardless of what most of my peers believe and even teach others.
Let me give you an example that will make you think about what you believe.
Most coaches, consultants, and freelancers provide a FREE “discovery call.”
The idea is that you get onto a call with a prospect for 30 or 45 minutes and you give them a little “taste” of what it’s like to work with you.
Or they might use that FREE call to get to know a prospect, find out what their pains are, what goals they want to achieve, and then at the end of that FREE call, they usually agree, at the prospect’s request, to send them a proposal.
That sounds logical, doesn’t it?
Especially in light of the fact that 90 to 95% of coaches, consultants, and freelancers do this and they’re teaching their clients to do this, too.
And then, typically, after they’ve sent off that proposal, they have to chase down that client again through email, text messaging, voice messages, because they’re now getting ghosted.
And that often goes on for weeks, before they ever hear back from them, and often when they do hear back from them it’s to say that they still haven’t made a decision, or in many cases, they’ve gone with someone else.
But, here’s the kicker.
Unbeknownst to the coach, consultant, or freelancer, that prospect took that proposal, shopped it around, and found another person/vendor who would do the “same thing” for less money.
This type of thing happens over, and over again to coaches, consultants, and freelancers.
I know, because it used to happen to me over and over and over again.
But, not anymore.
Do you know why?
Because I asked myself a very simple question.
What if I stopped doing what 90 to 95% of coaches, consultants, and freelancers do?
What if I started charging for all the work I do?
What if I stopped doing FREE discovery calls?
What if 90 to 95% of coaches, consultants, and freelancers were wrong about this?
What if? What if? What if?
“What if” is a powerful question because it forces you to think differently, it makes you question what you believe to be true and why you believe it, and in many cases, it leads to improving the results you get.
That simple question, “WHAT IF” has completely changed things for me and the top 5 to 10% of coaches, consultants, and freelancers.
Because what I’ve found out is that the very best don’t give away FREE calls.
They charge for all of their work, and they don’t do FREE discovery calls.
The outcome: They disqualify proposal shoppers and tire kickers super fast, they completely eliminate all of the frustration that comes from wasting hours, days, and weeks, preparing proposals that end up going nowhere, and they have thriving businesses with incredible clients who really want to work with them.
Without cajoling, giving stuff away, or chasing prospects down for days, weeks, and months.
That’s how powerful a change in belief is and it all starts with asking a simple question: What if?
So, here’s a little homework for you to do as you think about your business goals for the year 2022.
What if you changed some of the ways you run your business?
What if you tried something new, bold, scary, out of your comfort zone?
What if the way you’ve been doing things up to now isn’t giving you optimum results?
What if you tried this or that?
Take a look at everything you do in your coaching or consulting practice, or your freelance business, or even in your sales role, and start asking: WHAT IF?
2022 is right around the corner and I wish you all the success you can handle.