Page 131 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

what exactly would you do?”

He laughed and then started listing things as I wrote them down on a flip
pad. After he got through the ridiculous ideas, like stealing other peoples’
accounts and cooking the books, he began to think of more ideas. At first it was
hard.

“I’d have to be in two places at once,” he said. “I’d have to make twice as
many presentations as I’m making. I’d have to present to two clients at once!”

Then it hit him. All of a sudden he got the idea that he might be able to stage

a large presentation of his product with a number of clients in the room at one
time. “I could rent a room at a hotel and have 20 people in for coffee and donuts,
and I could make a big deal out of it,” he said.

A number of other ideas came to him—ways to combine his cold-calling
with his travel time, ways to utilize e-mail as a sales tool, how to use the
administrative staff better, and ways to expand his contracts so that they would
cover longer periods of time for a higher original fee, but at a lower overall rate.
Idea after idea came to him while I wrote furiously on the pad.

All of the ideas were a result of his thinking big—

“How would I sell 200,000 if I absolutely had to?”

He surpassed his goal of 140,000 the very next month!

I’ve often used this method with myself. If I have a goal of signing two
seminar contracts in the next three weeks, I’ll often get out a pad of paper and
ask, “How would I get 10 contracts signed in three weeks?” Inflating my goal
puts me at a different level of thinking, and because I’m solving the problem of
10, I always get at least two.

If you want to really get some fresh motivational ideas, try expanding your
goal. Blow it up until it scares you. Then proceed in your thinking as if it’s a
must that you achieve it. Remember that this is just a self-contained game, not a
promise to anyone else. But it’s a game that’s fun to play because it works.

94. Give yourself flying lessons

We need heroes in our lives. They are not a sign of weakness; they are a