Actions Lead
Out walking Snuffy the Black Nosed Beagle in the freezing cold yesterday, The Grasshopper lifted one of my earmuffs and had this to say: “Actions lead, reasons follow.”
I guess I was thinking about the hundreds of emails I get at this time of year from potential clients that set themselves up for failure even before they begin a new endeavor.
Their emails contain all the reasons they can’t do something, and human nature being what it is, it rarely dawns on us that our reasons are our roadblocks.
As I started to thaw after the walk, I was again reminded of what my 4th grade teacher, Miss Wagner told us countless times, “You can either have what you want or your reasons why not.”
Our mind can reason away anything, no matter how absurd. You cannot, however, reason away action. It is, if you will, a separate action. The way the mind works is that we act and then we reason. It seems like it’s the other way around until you investigate. “The reason I bought the new car is because if I waited too much longer, I wouldn’t get top dollar for my trade.” Sounds reasonable, eh?
When you go behind the curtain, you will find that the decision was made by an, oftentimes, emotional part of you and you just added a reason after you acted on the purchase.
There is a technique in sales, where after the client has verbally agreed to buy, that you give them an objection to going through with the sale. I know it sounds counterintuitive but let me flesh out the technique. It is best used when the client has to explain the purchase to someone else in the company, perhaps a higher-up or partner.
Lets pretend that you sell widgets in red, white and blue and the client expresses a preference for blue. It so happens that your supplier has run out of blue widgets, so you offer the client red instead. He hesitates but finally agrees to purchase the red ones. It’s at this point you ask something like, “What’s going to happen when you tell your boss that you wanted blue and we only have red at this time?” He or she will say something like, “let me worry about that.”
You have started up their reasoning machine and they will protect their reasoning more ferociously than a mama bear protects her cubs. They will sell it up the line. That’s an upside of reasoning.
So how does this apply to making any change you want to your lifestyle? You have to stop insuring your failure by giving yourself reasons. “I really want to stop smoking but my husband will still be smoking and being around him will be a constant temptation.” That reasoning gives you an excuse to fail. Your reasons become your excuses that you’re already lining up to defend your failure.
List all your reasons for not doing something and then remove them one by one from your list and you will have a greater chance at success.
I understand the reality that if you want to be a world class ballerina and you’re over 60, it’s unreasonable. But you would be surprised at how many cockamamie reasons we come up with to insure our failure.
Let the reasoning machine have its say and then start whittling them away. Then your action will have a much better chance of leading you to a new way.
All the best,
John
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