You know when someone tells you what to do, but REALLY tells you what to do, not asking…? They kind of dictate you what to do, and expect you to just oblige… 
How does that usually make you feel?
Awful isn’t it! I hate it when that happens. It goes against every fibre of my being when someone does that, and usually, it has the opposite effect of what they want to achieve.
On the other hand, when I can do something on my own terms, or when someone ASKS me something, that’s a whole different story.
That takes me back 6 years ago. In July 2014, I decided to quit smoking. I’d been smoking for quite some time, and on my birthday, I decided that I’d been smoking for long enough, and it was time to ditch that bad habit.
Putting aside the fact that it’s really unhealthy to smoke in general, it made me feel short of breath, and I would feel as if I swallowed a chimney after a night out. So that Summer’s day, I thought “Enough is Enough”. 
My fiancé Ian isn’t a smoker, and even though he never told me that I couldn’t smoke (and he never complained about it!), the fact that I felt less good about it every day, made me think that it was time to put out my last cigarette, and I made myself the promise to get rid of it once and for all.
Now, I’d tried to quit a few times before, as many smokers do, so it wasn’t my first attempt, but I never really succeeded as it was usually because someone close to me told me I should stop, or that I should ditch this bad habit, so it was never completely my own decision.
That day, I decided myself to stop smoking ‘for good’, and I just quit. 
No nicotine patches to help me, no sprays, no gums, nothing of the sort. Just me and my determination.
Now, six years onwards, I’m truly happy that I quit, and that I persisted. I’m not going to say that it was easy, because funny enough, I actually liked smoking. It was something that I considered to be a social thing, it had a certain charm to it, and I genuinely enjoyed the taste of a good cigarette. Still today, when I smell the smoke of a cigarette, I think back on how nice it was sometimes to have a smoke. I also, very quickly, remind myself about the not-so-nice things related to smoking, so no risk in relapsing here! 
The thing is, that sometimes we just have to do things that we don’t always enjoy doing initially, and we have to find a way to make it work for us. The advantage is, when you can do it on your own terms, it usually works best, and it becomes second nature over time, so you don’t even have to think about it anymore. I don’t have the reflex anymore to wanting a cigarette when I go out drinking with friends.
A life without cigarettes IS the new norm for me.
No one demanded of me to stop smoking. No one told me how to do it. No one told me what to do. ‘I’ just decided for myself that it was enough.
In your personal life, or your business, you need to make decisions on your own terms. Running your business the way ‘you’ want it, is one of the major benefits of being your own boss.
Same goes for your sales, when you’re selling on your own terms, and in your own style, in a way that feels natural to you, that’s exactly where you need to be, and then, you will enjoy doing it and you will thrive. It will become the new norm to you as well.
Remember, you’re not standard, your business is not standard, everyone is unique, so make sure you make your life, your business, unique and bespoke to yourself, adapted to your own way of doing things. You will see, you will get the best results 