The book “Atomic Habits” is not specifically about sales it’s about success in any number of areas but the habits you follow on a day-to-day basis can make or break your sales efforts. I found this book very interesting in terms of uncovering my habits and the ways you can use habits to your advantage.
Specifically, this book is about how small habit changes can make a big difference in your results and in your life. James Clear said, “If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.”
We believe the performance gap between “who we want to become” and “who we are right now” is met only by creating a system of habits, which then becomes your character over time.
There’s some rules to help you to build up good habits.
Habit Should Have 1: Make it obvious (Cue)
Make a habit scorecard to list all your current habits performed daily. Because behaviours influence each other, the end of one habit often serves as a cue for another. When you list your habits, you’re able to see which actions precede them and which follow. By listing your cues and rewards in this way, you will see what current behaviours may be suitable to cue new desired behaviours.
Use awareness to your advantages
You can exploit the habit scorecard in two ways to form better habits.
The first is implementation intention, wherein you make a prior plan for a new behaviour by assigning a specific time and place for it. To illustrate, If your scorecard shows a gap in activities between 1pm and 1:30pm, you might find an opportunity to form a new habit during that time. This strategy makes the cue obvious by attributing a specific time and place to the behaviour.
The second is habit stacking. This method connects a new habit to a present one by allowing the reward to become the new cue. For example, rather than setting a specific number of home visits, you decide to engage with prospects and bring them to visit the showroom spontaneously. Engaging with prospects becomes the cue to bring them to visit the showroom.
Habit Should Have 2: Make it attractive (Craving)
In order to make your cravings lead to action, the possible reward must be attractive. Cravings involve the sensations of wanting, the anticipation of pleasure, and likely, the experience of pleasure. Both sensations trigger the production of dopamine in the brain, or the chemical involved in desire, but 90% of dopamine production is dedicated to wanting. The anticipation of something outweighs the pleasure of receiving that thing.
If anticipation is the greatest craving, you must create more promise for the rewards your actions lead to. There are two ways that rewards can be heightened to create stronger desires.
Temptation bundling is one way to make any behaviour more attractive. Like habit stacking, use the end of a new behaviour as a cue for something that excites you. This helps make the new behaviour more enticing. For example, you can brew yourself a coffee every morning, but to do this you have to wake up earlier. You have to find something that will tempt you to do it.
When you feel gratitude for the activities you’re able to participate in, you’ll be more driven to keep participating.
Habit Should Have 3: Make it easy (Response)
Minimising the effort of an action means eliminating the friction existing between you and the behaviour. The more friction there is, the less likely you are to act. The two-minute rule is also effective in making behaviours easier. Most of the time, you jump into the biggest changes required when trying to build new habits or start new behaviours. But big changes in behaviour are hard to maintain over time. You will make more progress if you break the behaviour down into tiny two-minute increments.
For instance, you want to meet 4 clients and bring them for a home visit everyday. You are successful for a few days, but on the fourth day, you’re too tired and you are running out of prospects to let you engage with. Suddenly, the behaviour has stopped. You might want to do it this way, why not start with a small number of prospects. Prospect for 10 minutes a day or once a week, and increase the amount slowly and gradually. Small successes motivate you to achieve others. Commit to to-minute actions at a time, and it will be easier to perform each required step until you have achieved the right full habit.
Habit Should Have 4: Make it satisfying (Reward)
If the end result of your efforts is unenjoyable, why would you want to do them again? You wouldn’t, which is why rewards need to be satisfying for habits to form. Most of the rewards you receive are delayed. You only receive a paycheck after you work for a month. You only get a final grade after months of studying.
But human nature is wired to want instant gratification, and most good behaviours need time before the positive results accumulate. You sacrifice now to benefit later. To stay motivated to continue good habits, find ways to create rewards that are instantly satisfying. You may have said that after you sold your listing, you might want to have a luxury meal to reward yourself for doing a great job.
Don’t walk past the true meaning and happiness of life to only reach an outcome. The journey is the best part.
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