J U M P S T A R T 1 9

"This business is mental. The skills can be taught quickly. It's what happens up here that determines what you do with those skills."
— National Sales Director Cheryl Fulcher

I'd be shocked if I'm the first to tell you this, but what you focus on, you create more of. And I don't mean in the sense of stare at the owl sitting in your mom's front yard focusing on it delivering your Hogwarts letter (sheesh, finally!), but I mean, in order to be a champion you have ​to first champion your mind. Second, champion your schedule. We're gonna talk about that first one today.

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Ever waffled with the idea of putting your business "on the back-burner," which is code-word QUIT?

You know what quitters don't do? Win. What's the best way to keep from quitting, so you can start putting #winning on all of your posts and texts to your mom? Remember those goals and commitments you made like, IDK nine days ago? If you want to quit quitting, stop starting over and keep going, you have to stay excited. 

Excited you does things. Miserable or waffling you does everything to keep you from doing those things.

When I buried my business, goals and desires under other stuff [read: putting 200 percent effort in my full-time job at the expense of everything else], I was cranky. Angry. Frustrated. Not fun to be around. Liable to stab you with my knitting needles. I complained about everything because I felt like my soul was being sucked from my very body for 60 hours a week and I was so mentally exhausted all I wanted to do was a big, fat nothing. It was miserable. I was miserable. And when you are miserable and all you're thinking about is misery ... y'all, they don't joke when they say "misery loves company."

It was vital not only to my business, but to myself, to find a way to break that cycle; to get and remain excited, and to excite other people while I was at it.

​​For example: Let's examine Miserable Dallas from a few months ago (or honestly, at many points during the past decade, but that's neither here nor there). Miserable Dallas woke up frustrated about her job. She then stayed in bed until the last possible second because she didn't want to go to the place that made her miserable. Sometimes she would wake up with such anxiety it caused her to become physically ill. Miserable Dallas would eventually go to her job, spend the next however many hours were required of her there, talking to other people who were miserable or angry. She got in her car to come home and called her mother, boyfriend, best friend, someone she worked with who wasn't there that day, to fill them in on what misery occurred. She was so mentally exhausted after being miserable and dwelling in her misery that eff it, she was going to not do anything productive because she was no longer excited about anything ... and if there was a glimmer of hope, she sabotaged herself and squashed it. Do you think this Dallas was a champion of anything except perhaps amount of days she could go without washing her hair?

This is why Cheryl Fulcher's, who is a top leader in my company, words were like a "ohhh shoo," gut-punch moment at her event this month.

I don't care what your business is — skills only take you so far. Seriously. Once you got the "how to" down, then you gotta do. It's the doing of the skills that moves you forward, and the not-doing that keeps you stuck where you are or moving backward. Take any class you had in high school or college: you probably learned a skill, maybe a certain lab technique, running two miles in PE, the Pythagorean Theorem, music on the trombone, whatever it was, in order to get better at it and more confident about your ability to do it, you had to perform the skill over and over. If you didn't do the skill, or convinced yourself you sucked at said skill, well, so be it. But if you committed (ha, there's that word again) to doing the skill repeatedly, you were the one breaking records in your high school cross country meets and being all Lindsay Lohan Mathlete about your life. Stop focusing so much on the "how to" and focus on the "let's do!"

​The entire time I was so miserable I had the exact same skills I do today, but I wasn't committed to working them. I knew how to book appointments, make sure those appointments were going to take place, make women feel amazing and at home, ensure if they chose to shop they loved what they got (and if they didn't, figure out what worked better), share my job with others. That did nothing for me when I was doing nothing. 

Are you there now? Are you afraid of going down that rabbit hole? Allow me to share with you some of the ways I force myself into a better mindset.*

• Exercise. Every day. In the morning. I force myself to run Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and lift free weights Tuesday and Thursday. 
• Affirm as I exercise. I sound like a hokey maniac telling myself everything amazing quality I possess and all the great things I'm going to accomplish that day. 
• Listen to speeches + podcasts of people who I admire. Y'all, I say this one, but let me caution you. If you're in a comparison trap, and listening to people you see as successful talk about being successful is going to drive you bonkers and cause you to talk negatively about yourself, skip this until you're ready. I suggest listening to positive pump-up music that excites you instead. 
• SPEAK UP. Find a mentor who you trust. Don't complain to them; they're not your therapist; but chances are, they've been either exactly where you are or in a similar position, and may be able to offer advice. Wallowing in your misery blows. Talking it out in a constructive manner helps you figure out what's going on and how you can change it. 
• Do whatever skill it is that you've been procrastinating doing, and do a lot of it. You will get better. Your confidence will increase. Your excitement will increase. And because you're doing more of this and focusing on it, you'll start to reap the benefits more consistently, for, as Cheryl Fulcher also once said ... you cannot pray for it and then just sit on your couch.

*Please note that I am not a therapist, not a licensed mental health professional, and I deal with depression/anxiety without the use of medication. These are things that helped me. If your rut seems more severe than just being down in the dumps, there is no shame in seeking help. Seriously.