My first day of work was tough. Real tough.
The downside to such a demoralizing day of work is that it deals a sharp blow to your self-esteem, and makes you question your capabilities. You feel like you want to quit and go home.
The upside is that it forces you to re-evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. In today’s training, my manager told us quite frankly:
“This job shows you if you are weak or strong. You will know very quickly.”
I’d certainly say he’s right. Within two hours of working the job, I did feel weak. But, we know that necessity is the best motivator. I must necessarily get better at what I do if I want to stop having negative experiences with customers.
So I’ve created a system for myself to help track my progress:
I record the results of every door I knock on.
If you’re curious, “NI” means not interested. “NQ” means not qualified.
Here’s how it turned out:
Day 2: Knocked on 20 doors.
Day 3: Knocked on 40 doors. Landed 2 in-home presentations.
Day 4: Knocked on 50 doors.
Day 5: Knocked on 15 doors. Landed 4 in-home presentations. My personal record!
Sure, I haven’t landed a single sale yet. But I have numbers to prove to myself that I’m getting better at what I do. This is what keeps me going and keeps me from going insane.
A coworker explained the concept of Zorro Circles to help me with this. The following story is from the movie The Mask of Zorro:
When Zorro first started out he had no focus and no control. He wanted to do too much, too quickly. His training began with the drawing of a single circle in the sand. Don Diego told Zorro that his entire world now existed within this circle, and he had to master what was inside of it before he could move on to the next circle. Through time and dedication, Zorro mastered circle by circle. As he learned how to command his emotions and began to understand and utilise his skills, he eventually had the ability to accomplish his goal. (His goal in this case being to take on the army. No big deal.)
Source: Geckoboard
So for the meantime – I’ll be like Zorro. Just focused on the small circles around me that I can control and master.