Motivation Monday

I love words. I love to read them, listen to them, speak them. Beautifully strung together words to make a point or inspire are like music to my ears.

Whenever I hear or read things that I love, quotes, little snippets, words that motivate or inspire me, I quickly jot them down in the notes app in my iphone. Anytime I need a quick boost, I’ll read through it. Oftentimes when looking for inspiration to post here I’ll read through it.

One that I have heard, and repeated often, is by Tom Ferry. I’ve heard him say it probably hundreds of times in his videos and podcasts … “What got you here will not get you there.”

That resonates with me so much, and applies in every area of our business and life. When you are growing, learning, striving, the things that you did to get you to where you are right now will not get you to that next “level”, whatever that is for you. Whether it is growing your business, expanding your database, improving your health, or growing in your role as a mother or partner. In order to continue to grow you have to grow too.

Try new things. Step outside of your comfort zone. Sometimes changing your surroundings in terms of physical space, and sometimes even in terms of people. The plateaus will come. Maybe you have landed at a good spot, maybe you’re comfortable. I have found that with our business, no matter how successful you are right now and what it took to get here, if you aren’t consistently learning and trying new things then eventually it will start to slip as others around us grow and stretch and do new things. The times when I have grown the most in my business and made the biggest strides are when I learned something new, tried something new, stretched beyond what was comfortable, and, probably most importantly, set my ego aside.

My ego thought I knew enough. “I’m doing well. I don’t need to learn anything. What I’m doing works.” The working and doing well part may have been true enough, but eventually I got stuck … it was only when I started focusing on learning, realizing all of the wonderful different ways there are out there to run and grow my business (my way wasn’t the only good way), that the magic really started to happen.

So take a few minutes today and think about what got you to where you are today, and where you want to go, then figure out what that next new step will be and act on it. Don’t be afraid to learn, to try, to do, to act. It will make all the difference.