Have you ever felt that spurt of energy or motivation as you near the finish line or the end of a task?

I was having a drink with a close friend Suresh Bawa recently, before he ran his very first Marathon (in his 40s!) for his Charity Promise Dreams. I told him about the rush of endorphins marathon runners get at 26.1 miles of the 26.2 mile race. I also warned him that this is the most likely place for a cardiac arrest to occur too! Thankfully he completed the marathon, with his heart in fine order but his knees very much worse for wear (well done Suresh!).

Well this special event that occurs in the brain as we near the end is called the x-spot and it can be hugely helpful in allowing us to see success is now probable rather than possible.

To accelerate your success rates, you need to find your x-spots early and often and here I am going to give you some ideas how to do this.

The key thing is that the closer you perceive your target or finish line to be, the faster you will move towards it. And the key word here is “perceive”! If you can alter your perception, you can prime your brain to release those chemicals sooner and accelerate your success.

So here are some strategies to help you do this:

  1. Change your brain’s perception of how close you are to the target. Some examples of this are to give yourself a perceived head start by designing goals with some progress already achieved. Set targets for your team including the progress already made during the business year, look at your task list for the day and include meetings you are definitely having and tick them off and finally break down goals into mini goals. I mentioned this to a client recently when suggesting a sales person might be better motivated with quarterly targets and rewards than annual. 
  2. Increase the size of the target and make it more likely to hit it. I was speaking with Liz Ivory from the Ministry of Inspiration (a wonderful person Liz) and she told me how Richard Wilkins (her partner and also a wonderful person) described the way people set what they call big goals. The problem is that these big goals are in fact small, as the chance of hitting them is very slim! I am all for dreaming big and having an ambitious Vision and long term goals, but we need to be careful of setting goals that are too difficult in the short term. Make the target big so you can hit it! One way to do this is to reinforce how well you have done on similar tasks in the past, which can shape your perception of how big a task this is. If you are in a competitive situation, minimise how much you see or hear of your competitors. I know this goes against the importance of market research, but we can get too obsessed with that. I stopped receiving mailings from my main competitors a while back and am much more focused now on what I and my business can do for people. Finally, make sure you feel you have a good 75% chance of achieving the shorter term goals you set. If not change them!
  3. Reduce the amount energy you perceive is necessary to hit your target. Remember the more effort we feel is needed to hit our target, the more likely we are to give up. So take care of your brain’s resources. Don’t do a challenging task on a day you don’t have to, if you already have a key task to do on an important project. Make some tasks routine so you do not have to think about them and therefore keep some cognitive resources spare. Put your most important tasks earlier in the day when you are sharper (unless you are sharper at other times of the day). Overall just make it feel easier to do the important things. 

 

To find out more about accelerating your success and being happier in what you do, please join us at our upcoming free events “Achieving Success and Happiness in Your Business”. Click HERE to book your place.