We’re human, and there is no changing that. That means we’re flawed and insecure at times, but we’re also powerfully creative. Our ability to reason, think, express a complex range of emotion shows an intricate web of interactions firing off to form images, actions, trigger behaviours and all kinds of responses to our internal and external environment.
I start with this statement because we can often forget the many reflective qualities we have that help us to engage, discern and interpret the world. We can limit our capacity to use these qualities to help us to grow personally every week.
How does this all fit in with sales performance?
The power of reflection and asking yourself questions is a practice of high performance going back further than 300 BC. In fact looking up the power of questions you’ll find over 1.5 billion articles (Crazy).
Recent studies have strongly validated reflective practice to high performance. Most current being bestselling book by Brendon Burchard High Performance Habits that linked six core qualities to top performers. Two of the six habits being identified in the area of clarity and productivity (worthwhile read).
Reflective practice has huge benefits in increasing self-awareness, which is a key component of emotional intelligence, and in developing a better understanding of others. Reflective practice can also help you to develop creative thinking skills, and encourages active engagement in work processes.
We can pretend that you only show up at work as a sales professional, sales leader, business owner, and entrepreneur. The reality is our whole self turns up and all parts of our life can and in many cases will impact our results and the way we engage with others including our clients.
Today as you read this I want to encourage you to create your own reflection time. A time each week or month where you ask yourself questions. Not to mourn the things that didn’t work out, complain about something or something you didn’t do.
This is about how you get better and improve any or every part of your life and professional work. I do have a huge bias and am an evangelist around the benefits of learning to ask better questions.
You can’t possible cultivate better questions for others to help them if you don’t do the same for yourself.
Look at your week and ask a question like, what has the week taught me about who I am and what I might need to work on? What is the potential benefit of that learning to my relationships, business and goals? These are just a sample of questions.
Here are the exact set of 11 questions I ask every week. These do evolve. Take 20-30 min and allow the experiences of this week, month or year to grow you rather than hold you in the place you have the ability to move from.
- What was I most proud of this week/month?
- What am I most grateful for this week/month?
- What has this week/month/year taught me about myself and what I might need to work on?
- What can I do today to benefit from this information?
- What relationships do I need to pay more attention to and what would need to be different?
- Who do I need to forgive or apologize to?
- What one person, skill or activity this week/month/year contributed most to moving me to my goals?
- How can I use this again?
- What one or two people do I need to say thank you to?
- What one thing would I need to achieve next week to move my goals forward?
- What would need to be true for this to happen?
What next?
Do you have your own set of questions you ask? if not try these and let me know how you experience them.
Remember: “Your beliefs about what’s possible are always one choice away from making you limitless or limited. It begins with the questions you ask”
Pipeliner CRM assists salespeople to precisely reflect on what they have done right. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.
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