“Wow, Mike is really disciplined. He gets up and jogs five days a week!”

“Mario has great discipline. He never snacks or looks for sweets after dinner. No wonder he looks great.”

“Lori has amazing discipline. I swear she can bang out fifty cold calls before noon without even refreshing her coffee.”

Years ago, when Mike began to develop his running discipline (habit) he would set the alarm for 15 minutes earlier than he needed to have a chance to move his body a bit and be fully awake before run time. He’d put his running shorts and shirt on the chair just outside of his closet and his running shoes by the door.

Mario used to be overweight. What he knew about himself was that if there were no snacks, sweets, or soda in the house, he wasn’t going to run out to 7-11 at 10 PM to get some, so he stopped stocking them. By removing the temptation, Mario gained the discipline.

Lori learned early that she was easily distracted and got pulled off her morning plan to cold call by texts, emails, office chatter; whatever. She needed to make the calls to make her numbers. When Lori first began her career, she lamented not having the fortitude to stick to the task the way she imagined successful people did. So, lacking that fortitude, she built a system. She brings a thermos of coffee, so there is no need to get up to refill her cup. She has a list ready to call, so there is no time wasted researching a call list. She closes her office door, puts her phone on DND, and her laptop in airplane mode to quell any notifications. Then Lori makes the calls.

From the outside, you might think Mike, Mario, and Lori have amazing discipline and wish you had some of the same. But they began by building in easy go-to moves that would help to inhibit them from truckling to their old programming and begin to write the code for the new. Discipline starts as a system and becomes a habit. You got this…

Own Your Sales Gene…