For years and years, I have said that the only thing you can control are your actions and activities. Basically – your effort.

As much as people want, no one can control results. Whether you close that sale, lose that weight, get that job, marry that person, hit that lottery – if it happens, great. But you can’t make it happen.

You can’t will it to happen. You can’t force it to happen (and if you do try to force something to happen…and it does…generally it won’t work out long term anyway).

The only thing you can actually control is your effort. What you put into making something happen. You can influence and affect the results, but that’s it.

Effort vs. Results: A Common Misconception

This is a tough lesson for salespeople and leaders to understand. They try to hold everyone accountable to result-based metrics – number of closed sales, amount of sales/revenue dollars generated.

Instead, you should focus on activity and effort-based metrics.

Recently I heard something that made me realize that this whole time I was missing the other half of the formula.

You can only control effort...AND…attitude. You can’t control what happens to you or around you in life. But you can always control your attitude about the things that happen.

Attitude in Action: The Sales Call Example

For example, let’s imagine I tell you that it takes 50 calls a day to have the conversations you need that will lead to your sales goals. If you make those calls (plant those seeds) every day, day in and day out, you will succeed in the role – of course, assuming you actually know what to do when you do get someone on the phone.

So you sit down and make the calls. Maybe the first few days you will do it willingly and pleasantly. After a while, it doesn’t seem to be working out in your favor. Your attitude starts to turn negative.

This then flows over into any call where someone answers. Your negative, sour attitude will then repel most of your prospects from wanting to move forward with you.

That makes your attitude worse. You think the job is the problem, or the leads, or the calls, or your schedule, or people, or your manager, or your compensation plan. All of it gets fingers pointed at it.

But what can you control? None of those items…only your effort and your attitude.

You can go to the gym and be miserable and unhappy that you have to work out. Or you can be happy and excited to be able to work out and see it as something you want to do and get to do, not something you have to do.

It’s your choice. Your level of effort is your choice. Your attitude is your choice.

Conclusion: Taking Back Control

If you aren’t achieving what you want in life…

Stop trying to control things you can’t control.

Stop giving up your power over the attitude you can control.

Stop making excuses about the effort you aren’t putting in.