It’s the holidays. You may be frantically shopping to find the perfect gift for family and friends. That’s what most people are doing this time of year. But what gift are you going to give yourself? You must give yourself a gift. Let me help you choose one.
Why me?
You may be thinking I don’t need a gift. But of course you do.
Sales is a unique and challenging profession. The possibilities for failure are seemingly endless. It’s true that you do have some control over the sales situations you are in. Yet you also lack a lot of control over the sales process. There’s a good deal of risk involved in every aspect of sales.
Even when you provide a great product, deliver great service, and provide value you can still lose an account. A buyer’s bother-in-law might become your competitor. Good luck with that one. A company can go belly up. What control do you have over the fiscal responsibility of another company? Not much. At this time of year, you can recognize that you survived another year and hopefully even thrived. So now you deserve a gift.
What can you give yourself?
The gift of time might be the most precious gift of all. What would you do if you had one day free to do whatever you wanted to do? That could be your gift. What you do doesn’t have to be enriching or meet any objective. It’s simply something you want to do. In fact, the point is simply to give yourself the luxury of choice. You want to do nothing all day? That’s your gift to yourself so do it.
There’s just one piece of advice I would give you if you have a family. Alert your family that you will be “off the clock” that day. When you appear to be available to do what other people want you to do, you might find that you no longer are able to do what you want to do.
Make a joyful choice.
You might be thinking that you can catch up on some sales work in the time you allocate to yourself. Avoid making that choice! Schedule the time as a business activity if you need to do paperwork or organize your office at year-end. The purpose of a gift is to bring you joy. While you may feel relief after completing a task and meeting your deadlines, that feeling is no substitute for the joy you get from receiving a gift.
Do something different.
Now is the time to think about the dreams you had for yourself. Think back to when you said, “I want to do that someday.” Well, now is someday. Get out your bucket list and cross something off. Not everything on it has to be skydiving or canoeing down the Amazon. Maybe you wanted to learn another language. You could go to the library and take home the tapes for the language you want to learn. Do just a piece of what you want to do.
Christmas will be here soon enough. Just be sure you’re on your list of gift recipients.