How to Make That Damn Phone Call - Getting Over Procrastination

When you were a child building a Lego set, putting together a puzzle, or playing Fruit Ninja on your mum’s phone, you often learned and got better by doing the activity itself. Sometimes it would take days; maybe you’d give up in frustration and then eventually re-attempt it later, but you only got better by playing with that damn toy.

The greatest accelerators of learning and improvement are doing the things that are uncomfortable, unpleasant, and hard.

The Pareto principle has never been more apparent than in cold calling/phone sales for me personally, where I’d say 20% of my calls make 80% of commissions. These are often multi-layered, with a specific strategy in mind and careful navigation of the conversation that:

• Clearly establishes expectations
• Demonstrates you’re solving a problem they actually face
• Doesn’t bullshit you with buzzwords and non-tangible outcomes

It sounds easy on paper, and honestly, hitting those three points isn’t the hardest part of my day-to-day - it’s the actually just calling these clients. The activation energy to overcome that is high and a blocker for me some days.

Breaking that peak activation energy down:

• 25% - Information: A lack of information and the general unknown.
• 25% - Anxiety: What if it goes wrong and they say no?
• 25% - Stress: The mental tension that it will be a difficult conversation.
• 25% - Procrastination: I’ve got way more other tasks I can do instead.
• Hidden: 50% burnout from overworking and doing all of the above for days on end.

(Yes, that does add up to 150%, but we often over-leverage ourselves and do what is unnecessary.)

Realistically, we can’t reduce that activation energy to zero, but we can still reduce it by taking the factors that are in our control and minimising their impact on our mental state.

Strategies:

Anxiety:

• Think big picture: Will this matter 5 years from now?
• Look back at your past success: Remind yourself of what you’ve accomplished; hype yourself up.

Stress:

• Accept it will be hard: Acceptance is understanding, and with that in hand, you can start to move past it.
• Think about the upside: What will accomplishing this task do for you? It will reduce the burden you feel now and give you a specific desired outcome.

Procrastination:

• Swallow the frog: Do the hardest things at the start of your day when you’re more likely to succeed. You have a full tab of energy and resources at your disposal.

Burnout:

• Maximise your life for what makes you happy, not external factors or opinions.
• Do the things you enjoy and don’t give them up to squeeze an extra 10-20% of productivity out of yourself.
• Take time to do absolutely nothing, we’re constantly overstimulated and having time to sit with your thoughts without stimulus is powerful.