Procrastination Will Ruin Your Chances of Success
Procrastination can take different forms. You may consciously procrastinate and avoid what you know you should be doing, or you may unconsciously put off your top priority tasks by attending to a series of ‘never ending fires’. Whatever type of procrastination you suffer from it can be ruinous to your business.
Take your own advice
It’s your job to tell potential clients to get off the fence and act when it comes to planning their financial futures. You need to get across to them that putting off important decisions will delay the achievement of their financial stability and success; and that initiating even the simplest of plans will mitigate the snowballing costs of inflation. By not acting – by procrastinating – they will be confronted with hardships later through declining income or increased expenditures.
The same thing applies to your own career success. If you don’t take control right now of your life and business, you will look back with regret. If you spend all your time thinking and talking about taking your business to the next stage, you will stay at a mediocre level or backslide. Putting in the minimum or turning a blind eye won’t cut it; success will not happen by simply sitting back and watching the world go by.
Set goals then work towards them
To stop yourself procrastinating set goals then routinely re-examine them. If you have concrete goals and dreams of success you will feel more motivated than people who drift along aimlessly.
Write your goals down, since research shows that writing down your goals increases your chances of sticking to them by 42%. Then track and measure your progress on your journey to success, ticking off milestones along the way. When you get into the office each day you must know exactly what you want to achieve.
To help you set goals, imagine what you want and work backwards. Where do you see yourself in one, two or even ten years’ time? Then work backwards to set yourself targets that must be hit along the way to your eventual goal. Break things down. Ask yourself how many appointments you need to open one account. So, how many people do you have to prospect every day to get that appointment?
It may help to set weekly goals. Don’t hit your monthly target in a couple of weeks then simply coast along. Use that extra time to prospect more and you will end up even further along the path to success.
Manage your time effectively
What many people accomplish in a typical week could often be done in half that time. So, stop wasting time by procrastinating and start organizing your work-life. Delegate less essential tasks, or set a time each week to get through administrative work. Then concentrate on the important things i.e. marketing yourself and prospecting.
Set deadlines and stick to them. Priorities may shift but if you set a goal to call 30 prospects each morning do not let this slip. Your goals and targets will give you structure and stop you drifting.
Don’t procrastinate out of fear
Procrastination often arises because of a fear of success, a fear that can paralyze you. You may lack motivation because you feel you aren’t smart enough or charming enough and may even trick yourself into ‘partying the night before the presentation’ whereby you can explain away your poor performance on the previous night’s antics.
Don’t fall into this trap because this behavior enables you to escape your responsibility, and it’s a move that will make you stand still. Overcome this fear by practicing your soft skills.
Stop finding excuses and start putting your plan into action. Put one foot in front of the other and don’t look back. If you put in the effort now, you can and will succeed. If you don’t, you won’t. So, take back control of your life and business and you’ll never have to look back in regret.
Your career is not a hobby, it’s not something you can stick on the backburner. Your future happiness depends on it, so if you want to take your business to the next level get organized, set goals and stop procrastinating. If you’re not careful procrastination can and will kill your success as a financial advisor.
Take your business to the next level – start today!
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