Overcoming Problems
Hi, Penny Oates here again from thebestsalesfunnels.com. Great to be here doing another post.
What I want to talk about today is the problem I encountered when I initially tried to build a career in sales.
Once I started down my career path in sales, albeit by accident rather than design, as I’ve spoken about in previous episodes, I really took to it, loving talking to people and working out the best ways to increase the amounts they sold of our products. I rose through the ranks very rapidly, mainly I think, because no one had told me I couldn’t, so I just assumed I could, no doubts, no fears, just a clear success path ahead! All in all, I was really enjoying my rise through the ranks and the recognition I was getting. I felt like I was on top of the world and loved how I was viewed by others.
Ok, so there was this nagging guilt about leaving my dogs in my husband’s care so much and I knew he was getting sick of me being away so much and our relationship was suffering because of it, but I chose to ignore those nagging doubts and crash on with my dreams and ambitions.
Then came my first redundancy…that was a real shock as I had thought this was a forever type scenario. Still full of confidence though, I quickly found another sales manager’s job and threw myself into it, again striving to make an impression, working longer and longer hours and spending more and more time away from home. Perhaps I should have stopped to re-think things when the same thing happened a year later. I certainly should have done if not the third time, then certainly the fourth. But I didn’t. My mindset was that I needed to make a success of my sales career and at that time I felt my happiness depended on doing just that.
Get Mortgage Broker Funnels’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
It didn’t. Over the next number of years, I kept working my plan…if one job disappeared I got another one and tried to progress. I think a lot of us are the same — we don’t like to admit that our plan is flawed, so we continue with it , often long past the time we should have stopped to evaluate. By now though, doubts were starting to creep in. My marriage was failing, my dogs spent more time with my husband than me and I was still no further forward in my career because I never really got time to prove myself before the whole cycle started again.
And that was when I made the decision to take the new, and much more fulfilling path, of working from home.
As I have already explained, it wasn’t all plain sailing, there have been a lot of challenges on the way and I was scrimping and scraping for a long time before I started to make any headway. I am still not earning as much as I was in my sales career though I think that will happen over time.
One thing I am sure of though is that I am now truly happy, being in charge of my own destiny and being able to spend time at home with my dogs.
Also, I am aware that now I am a much better person for what I have been through. My transformation came too late to save my marriage, not surprisingly because looking back, when I was fixated on my career ambitions, I was an unbelievably selfish person. The only surprise was that he stayed so long!
Nowadays though, I have become much more appreciative of what I have and focus on helping other people achieve their dreams which is a much better and more worthy goal. And do you know what? It makes me feel much better about myself. If I eventually make more money, great. If I don’t well my dogs and I get on fine and we are very happy with our lot!
Thanks for reading my post. I will continue tomorrow…
