Stress is unavoidable. But, if we pursue the stressors we enjoy, that make us better people, I believe that we will have a life full of achievement and better yet, fulfillment.
The Right Kind of Stress
I’ve always been one to shoot for the stars. Small goals never excited me. I always had to think big and grand. Although, I’ll have to admit that I was (still am) good about being able to put the big picture in the back of my mind and focus on what I needed to do right now.
But setting expectations when you’re unfamiliar with the territory is very challenging. Initially, there are many variables that you are unsure of. Combine that with confidence and setting high goals you could find yourself setting unrealistic expectations.
Now, don’t get me wrong, things seem impossible until they’re done. But, it takes time and it may be unreasonable for you to ask yourself to do attempt such a daunting task not ever having been in the situation before.
The task may still be achieved but the time table in which it will could be drastically different than the one you initially expected.
I’ve never sold fine art before. But, I have half a decade worth of experience in sales. I’ve done Business to Consumer, Business to Business, and stood on many sales floors. The products have been different, the consumers have been different, but sales is sales and people tend to behave in certain ways in these environments.
Although I’m an introvert at my core, I have gotten comfortable in settings where I’m forced to talk to people, engage and interact in a friendly, hospitable manner all the while trying to get them to make the decision for themselves to purchase.
It’s tricky business. The human animal is unpredictable; at times they can be easily convinced and other times there’s no breaking through Lasix online.
And, in sales, it’s inevitable that some days will be better than others. You never can truly predict which days will be good and which ones won’t. There’s many, many factors at play. Everything from weather, day of the week, how many people are in the store at the same time, what time of day they come in, how their day has been so far, and on and on…
There’s way to many variables to account for and it’s useless to try, in my opinion. All you can do (from a sales associate) is focus on the interaction right in front of you. From a manager or director of sales position, all you can do is help put your team in the best environment to be successful: provide them with training and support and let them do their jobs.
All those variables are what make sales stressful, at every level. It’s difficult to set expectations in sales for all the reasons mentioned above. There’s no real constants to measure off of.
Coming into Skagway I was pumped. I had high expectations and was convinced that I would learn the necessary tools quickly. I feel like I learned quickly and I’m fully capable of selling. But, it was all of the unknown variables I just mentioned that I didn’t account for and/or forgot about during my 8 month hiatus from the sales space.
When I left sales in Aug ’17, I left because the stress was more than I wanted to deal with. I convinced myself that sales wasn’t the space for me, even though I was convinced that I was good at what I did.
I’ve got a quote in my book that basically says, just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should do it. There’s another quote that fits in perfectly with this situation: “life’s too short to do shit you don’t want to do.”
So, here I sit… back in the retail sales space drowning in my own expectations that I naively and arbitrarily put on myself. This is not the stress I want to put myself through. Stress is una
voidable but the right kind of stress is actually very beneficial.
The type of stress I long for are dealing with cold conditions on high peaks, finding my line on a mountain covered in fresh snow, trying to figure out how to capture all these special moments in the mountains (video & photo wise), and before all of that making sure that all the necessary gear is packed and that I have the right team to embark on the quest.
Those stressors I look forward to. Those stressors I welcome. Those stressors make me a better human and put me in a better position to be a person of impact, who can influence others to put in the hard work and go after things.
Over the last half decade, I’ve learned a thing or two about myself. Some things I know will be incredibly important to keep close and refer to when I need to make a decision. The paragraph about ‘stressors’ I need to keep close, read it often, and commit it to memory.
If we seek the proper stressors for our lives, I think it’s reasonable to believe that we will have lives full of achievement and more importantly, fulfillment.
– Nick
