Today’s post is by Jamie Crosbie, CEO and founder of ProActivate. Jamie is a certified peak performance mindset trainer. Contact her at [email protected] or (214) 720-9922 to learn more about how her training can help your sales team reach peak performance levels.
Life is full of choices. Do you want Bavarian cream or jelly filling in your donut? Jalapenos on your pizza? Gluten free or whole grain? Should you invest in bonuses or add new training for your sales team?
On any given day, you can face a bewildering array of choices. Some choices are obviously weightier than others. How do you keep up with the changes, make educated guesses, and make meaningful, high-impact decisions on a daily basis?
To answer that, we need to talk about using your “inner GPS.”
Plotting Your Course by Freeing Up Your Mind (and Your Time)
Studies have shown that most people make as many as 100 decisions every day. Not only can this be mentally tiring; it can be time consuming, too. One of the best ways to cut down on the time of this cognitive expenditure is to simply make some decisions on a wholesale basis.
Take, for instance, routine decisions about what to wear, what to eat, or how to handle the weekly commute. Often, these can be simplified by making bulk decisions in advance. If that means wearing an iconic hoodie every day, that works (it does for Mark Zuckerberg, anyway). For the rest of us, it can simply mean you streamline routines and focus on the critical decisions instead. In a nutshell, decide in advance what you can focus on and what you can turn into a well-oiled routine, so your mind is free of clutter.
Choose Early
Once you make it to the office doors, you may find yourself so slammed by a virtual train of emails, phone calls, and meetings that – by the time lunch rolls around – your cognitive capital may be waning. That’s why you should make big decisions early in the morning while your mind is still fresh and capable of both intuitive leaps and mental gymnastics. The basic idea is to handle the bigger issues first, then move on to the less important matters as the day goes by.
Free Your Mind and the Rest Will Follow
Decision making is not for the faint of heart. In many cases, you may need to step back and do what your mom advised when you were a kid: “sleep on it.” According to a recent study by researchers at the Journal of Consumer Psychology, temporary distractions such as sleep, exercise, or meditation allow other portions of the brain to “wake up” and solve problems much more easily. Allowing yourself to ruminate on a decision and take a mental break (if possible) may allow you to sort through what is meaningful and what is not.
Seek Win-Wins Instead of Expediency
Other decision making tools include asking important questions, such as examining what is in line with your goals and values. One way to do this is to seek win-win solutions instead of the low-hanging fruit of expediency. Take the case of Fairphone, “a social enterprise that is building a movement for fairer electronics.” As a company, Fairphone operates on a platform of transparency: when choosing suppliers, they seek sustainability, honesty, and transparency over pure cost savings. Pricing is – of course – important, but, having said that, working to create win-wins with customers and suppliers not only creates better relations; it boosts profits, too.
This list is, by no means, exhaustive and each day will bring new challenges. If you can cut down on the number of decisions, allow your mind the freedom to think, and seek solutions that benefit customers and shareholders alike, you may find yourself less stressed and way more successful.
To learn more about developing a peak performance mindset, contact me today (214) 720-9922.
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