Reluctant to Slow Down? Me, Too.

Are you reluctant to ease off the accelerator in business, or in life?

I'm a pedal-to-the-metal kind of guy, whatever I get into. As a boy, it was roller and ice hockey. I played it religiously, every day of my life.

As a teenager it was rock and heavy metal music, and as a young man my life got swept up in the Kingdom of God, and I became a Bible nerd.

You might think there are things in life where you simply "can't get enough." Money, sex, power, influence, pleasure ...

I've got more of all of them today than I did 20 years ago. None of it butters my biscuit.

"More," as a wise mentor told me, doesn't necessarily equal "better."

So last week, inching toward Friday, I received a message that became the "last straw," the one that finally told me to curb my enthusiasm.

It's funny how you can get a message that has little to do with your current spiritual state ... yet somehow, it tells you everything you need to know.

Mine was a classic response from a disinterested prospect. The message really meant "No." But for whatever reason, they didn't say "No."

Instead, it they requested "information" - specifically, information to which they already have access. I've learned to deny and ignore these requests.

Ignore Your Internal Response ... At Your Peril

On other days, I'd simply move on. But on this particular day, I felt the answer boil over from deep within, spoiling for a fight:

"I'm not sending you s--t."

Luckily, I didn't say it aloud. But if that attitude's at work when I'm prospecting and setting appointments ... something's not right.

Immediately, I withdrew. From years of selling, I've learned to put the phone down and take time to clear my head.

As I did, the picture came into focus. I'd been pounding the digital sidewalk for weeks, with mixed results. I wanted to close a couple of deals for the end of Q1, but they fell through.

I'd been pushing, as hard as I could, to make something happen. When it didn't work, my inner beast began to growl from his cage. It was time to go quiet, and let the smoke clear.

Does this sound like "reluctance," the way you've traditionally thought of it?

We associate reluctance with timidity.

If you're reluctant, you might think it means "hesitant to display passion, aggression, or any other volatile emotional state."

People with this mindset and temperament usually incur the label "mild-mannered."

But I believe there's more than one way to be reluctant. Many human behaviors that stem from fear can manifest through vocal, tangible or visible means.

Think for a moment of our entrenched, global ideological and political standoffs. As Americans, we've never been less reluctant to tell the world what we think.

I suppose, in one way, it's a good sign - freedom of speech is alive and well.

But we've never been more reluctant to admit we're wrong, and cling stubbornly to things we think we know ... that just ain't so.

Reframed Reluctance

I think a similar relentlessness overtook me in the past few weeks. It came to a head when I couldn't work past a phony rejection without becoming angry.

That anger led to some toxic emotions - which don't simply "go away." They have a way of festering beneath the surface.

So I signed off from the computer on Thursday, and since then, I haven't scheduled anything new, or added any work beyond what's necessary to keep clients happy.

It'd be nice if it was a simple problem, like a dry pipeline, poor sales process or lack of quality leads ... but none of those are at play here.

In this case, I have a full pipeline with a good sales process for high-quality leads. All the more reason it "should" work.

Except that it doesn't - or at least, not liked it's supposed to.

I've learned - that's okay. It doesn't mean I'm blowing it, or the deck is stacked against me.

What's not okay is to despair, rage or dismiss the entire endeavor, simply because things aren't going exactly the way I want.

Instead, I have an opportunity to overcome reluctance.

Reluctance to push harder against an immovable object, trying to force results I'm not prepared for, from people I'm not yet sure I want as clients.

Has this ever happened to you? What have you done with it? Let me know in the comments section.