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SALES MOVES: Self-image determines more than sales success
By Jeffrey Gitomer
How do you picture yourself? It’s a fast track to success.
It’s a pretty powerful question when you think about it. Some of you are thinking handsome or pretty, some overweight or average, some successful or struggling. Some pictures are happy; some are not.
Tell me about the picture. Was it a physical picture (tall, pretty) or a mental picture (self-assured, confident)? Was it a positive picture (great attitude, successful) or a negative picture (failing, in debt)? Did you picture the “now” or “what you want to become?”
What I have found interesting about picturing yourself is that most people don’t want to look. They don’t like what they see, or they don’t like themselves. And then there’s that ever-present, unavoidable bathroom mirror.
Suppose I told you that the more vivid the picture, the more accepting you’ll be of yourself and the more you can see that tomorrow is the fast track to success. Would you at least take a peek?
The picture you have of yourself, combined with the self-belief that goes with it, is what you are likely to become.
If you read some of the books written on the subject of self-image and visualization, you’ll be surprised to find that they all have a common theme: The easiest way to get where you want to go is to picture yourself there in advance.
The breakthrough book, Psycho-Cybernetics, by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, is the classic example of what self-image is about. I read the book back in the early 1970s and often read a few pages as part of my commitment to lifelong learning.
Maltz writes, “We react to the image we have of ourselves in our brain. Change that image for the better and our lives improve. Self-image is changed for the better or worse, not by intellect alone, not by intellectual knowledge alone, but by experiencing.”
This goes for any aspect of your life—whether you want success, wealth, a new home, to become a doctor, to run a marathon or make a big sale. Picture yourself already doing it—or having achieved it.
You are in complete control of the beliefs and pictures that you put in your head.
Not only are you in total control of your mind, you can also alter and control your environment to enhance that control. Where you are can affect the way you think.
If you don’t like your job or boss, it will be extremely difficult for you to have the positive mental picture necessary for achievement. You have to love what you do (or at least like it a lot). How can you visualize success in a place you don’t like, or have a job you don’t like, or work for someone you don’t like? Answer: You can’t!
If you change your self-image in your mind, you will begin to achieve a mental image and live your thoughts.
In her book, Creative Visualization, Shakti Gawain says, “Imagination is the ability to create an idea, a mental picture, or a feeling sense of something. In creative visualization you use your imagination to create a clear image, idea or feeling of something you wish to manifest. Then you continue to focus on the idea, feeling, or picture regularly, giving it positive energy until it becomes objective reality…in other words, until you actually achieve what you have been imagining.”
These two books, Creative Visualization and Psycho-Cybernetics, are books you may want to add to your library as you seek to improve your self-image, build stronger self-beliefs, eliminate self-limitations, and block self-defeating thoughts.
“Jeffrey,” you ask, “can I do all of this just by reading?” Heck no! This is not about simply thinking or visualizing. That’s the beginning. You still have to take action to make it happen.
Committed, passionate self-belief leads to action—achievement action. Action with a dash of passion and positive anticipation leads to results. And those results will be your vision fulfilled.
The only way to achieve your desires and dreams is: act on them.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless, is president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.
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