A Child, A Playground, The Sale!

Do you remember what it was like on the playground when you were a child?

Recently I took my daughter to one of our local parks on a Saturday to give mommy a break. When we arrived my daughter was so excited to see a bunch of children already playing. I was barely able to get the car stopped and her out of the car seat before she was running to the swings. I walked over to some benches next to the swings and sat down to keep an eye on her. As I sat there watching her approach a little girl swinging I reflected back to the innocence of my childhood. You remember, the days when we were not afraid to approach someone we did not even know and ask them if they wanted to play? The days when nothing would deter us from getting what we wanted.

I sat there and watched my daughter approach the little girl and ask her if she wanted to be friends and play with her? The little girl said No! Now here is the part that really got me thinking. My daughter was not phased by the little girls refusal to play with her, she just walked away and went to the next child and asked the same question! And low and behold the next child said yes, so off they went over to the sand box to play. A few seconds later the first little girl came over and asked if she could play with them! All three of them started playing together, before I knew it there was about 5 children all playing in the sand box together that lasted about an hour.

The longer I sat there watching the children playing together the more I thought about how we as adults become inhibited, insecure, and afraid of rejection to the point we hold ourselves back from “Closing the Sale”. Whatever the sale might be to us, whether it might be making new friends, networking for business, cold calling, or just meeting new people. Through the years our insecurities grow and we never seem to be able to get out of our comfort zones.

We start being concerned what someone else will think of us, we feel what we have to offer or say has no value, we start to “Fear Rejection” and it continues to keep us from getting what we want or need in our personal and professional lives.

Here is techniques you can try to get over your fears:

1) Think about the stories you build in your head, do they have a foundation of truth? (Probably not!)

2) Challenge yourself! (pick one thing that you are afraid of and actually do it.)

3) Analyze your feelings after doing it. (did you notice it was not as bad as you thought it would be?)

4) Now do it again! (did you notice it was easier the second time.)

I summary we can not let our fears control us! They are nothing more than Fears, they have no Foundation! We are the ones that gave them their power over us and we are the ones that can take the control back!

Just like my daughter and the children on the playground we can get anything we want as long as we do not allow our fears to control our goals. We can determine the outcome by simply reverting back to the days when we had no “Fear” and got what we wanted!