Got shape? I mean sales shape. Are you in top condition to succeed in sales? Sales success is a competitive endeavor, and part of the war is being fit enough to endure in the heat of battle.
Let鈥檚 face it: Sales doesn鈥檛 always provoke a healthy lifestyle. Time spent sitting in your vehicle or at a desk induces muscle stiffness. Meals with customers and sales meetings are constant temptations for overindulgence and alcohol. At the end of the day, motivation to get in an evening workout is trumped by the desire to unwind from the pressures of customer demands.
We know the healthy decisions we should make, but still can鈥檛 avoid the temptation for the fatty food, extra drink, and useless dessert. So why do we act in contrast to the known benefit of a different behavior? Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, noted that we too often choose pleasure over gratification. The French Dip sandwich with fries will induce pleasure, while the salad ends up being more gratifying. Yet, we choose the pleasure (short-term physical stimulation, which often leads to remorse) over gratification (long-term benefit and personal satisfaction).
The challenge of living a healthy lifestyle requires the conscious and consistent decisions to opt for gratification over pleasure. Besides becoming a healthier person, your sales and business performance will improve when you choose the difficult, yet gratifying, healthy choices in your daily life. At the risk of stating the obvious gratifying choice, here are a few ideas that can help you avoid the short-term pleasurable one:
Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day. Yes, we鈥檝e heard this. It鈥檚 even better if you can average 60 minutes per day. Lift light weights. Take a family bike ride. Walk the golf course instead of riding the cart. Take the stairs instead of the escalator. Jog slowly. Enroll in a yoga class. Just get started and you鈥檒l discover that the first week and month of your program is tedious, but soon the program gets a little easier every day. Consistent small decisions are more beneficial than a periodic surge.
Drink water. Lots of it. There are many guidelines on how much water you should drink. The Mayo Clinic defines the requirement by gender鈥�15.5 cups daily for men and 11.5 cups for women. One Harvard article suggests about 6 cups per day. In the end, all experts agree that our bodies need copious amounts of water. At the risk of being overly graphic, the best measure is to ensure that your urine is close to colorless, and that you aren鈥檛 persistently mistaking thirst pangs for hunger.
Choose healthy food and drink. The biggest challenge of the sales profession is choosing the right food and drink at business meetings. You don鈥檛 have to be so full from appetizers that the entr茅e is uncomfortable to eat. You don鈥檛 have to drink alcohol because everyone else is. Alcohol dehydrates, adversely affects sleep patterns, hurts your digestive system, and leaves you feeling groggy the next day. The first healthy dining decision is the hardest, but the discovery it still satiates leads to future healthy (gratifying) decisions.
Turn off the news and turn on your mind. A world class athlete cannot compete on a diet of twinkies and cupcakes; a world class business leader cannot compete on a diet of negative mental inputs. The news is a commercially sponsored medium designed to arouse (negatively) and keep you glued to the broadcast. Ultimately, the news merely makes you feel angry and sad. Start your day without it and avoid watching it before bed. Your mental outlook will improve significantly 鈥� and quickly!
There is a side benefit that occurs when you begin to make healthy lifestyle choices off the field of battle. Your discipline and confidence to make the right choices in the heat of battle will also improve. Slow down your decision making just a bit and start making the gratifying choices.聽
