You’ve set your SMART goals. You’ve written them down. You’ve discussed them with a mentor. You’ve shared them with friends and family. You’re working hard. You care deeply about your “why” and you’re excited about the future.

...But why aren’t you where you want to be?

Let’s take a look at eleven ways that you might be holding yourself back from achieving your goals.

1.   You’re not staying with problems long enough. Giving up too soon is a surefire way to never reach your goals. If you’re throwing in the towel or retreating to your comfort zone every time you start to struggle, you’re hurting your chances of success and missing out on key opportunities to take steps forward toward your goals.

2.     You’re only doing the right things SOME of the time. Consistency and self-discipline are the name of the game. You can’t expect to achieve your goals with any efficiency if you haven’t developed the right habits. You might be working really hard in the short term, but if you keep pumping the breaks, you’re only tiring out the engine and slowing yourself down.

3.     You’re sweating the small stuff. Every time you lose your attitude, you’re moving in the wrong direction. If you don’t have thick skin, you’ll go down an emotional rabbit hole whenever you face failure or frustration. Doing so only diverts your attention away from what’s most important and drains the precious energy you need to stay motivated and keep pushing.

4.     You’re avoiding the stuff you don’t want to do. We all have tasks we’d rather not tackle, conversations we’ve been putting off, and areas of professional development that we’ve been hesitant to address. But oftentimes, the things we’re avoiding are the things we most need to do. If you haven’t hit your goals yet, it might just be because you’re not stepping up. Adopt a sense of urgency by giving yourself smaller time-bound goals that will help you move the needle as you battle your procrastination.

5.     You lack self-awareness. If you want to improve in any area of your life, it begins with looking in the mirror. Many people end up stagnant because they blame their lack of progress on outside factors instead of understanding their own role in their successes and failures. Once you see yourself clearly and lose the excuses, you’ll be able to focus on self-improvement and start taking the right steps towards your long term goals.

6.     You’re not planning your days and weeks. When you’ve got big goals to hit, every minute counts. By not planning ahead, you are not only wasting time, but you are leaving space for lower priority tasks to crowd out the ones that will make the biggest impact on your advancement. Make time management a priority to make room in your schedule for things like professional learning and development which can help you build skills you'll need to finally achieve your goals.

7.     You’ve been too focused on just yourself. It sounds counter-intuitive, but sometimes focusing too much on your own career goals can set you back -- especially if you’re working in a team-oriented environment. You’ll find that if you prioritize helping your team hit their goals, that you will in turn hit your own. By sharing your knowledge and skills with others, you'll reinforce your own strengths while you help others achieve their own personal goals.

8.     You’re not receptive to coaching. If your pride is more important than your professional development, your progress will inevitably be slow. If you want to hit your goals sooner than later, it is essential to listen to your mentors and make the changes they recommend.

9.     You’re not working hard enough. If your goals are big, then your effort has to be huge. You can’t expect to accomplish anything great if you’re not giving 100% each day. You might already be working really hard, but sometimes that little bit extra is what’s needed to push you over the edge.

10. You’re surrounded by the wrong people. If you find yourself regularly associating with naysayers and Negative Nancys, it’s going to inevitably chip away at your morale. When you’ve got big performance goals to hit, you need every ounce of energy and positivity you can get. People tend to emulate the people they spend the most time with -- so choose to spend time with only those who are helping you achieve your goals and not setting you back.

11. Success takes time. Never underestimate the role that time plays in reaching your goals. You need to patiently, but persistently, persevere and trust that if you do the right things, you’ll get where you want to be.

As frustrating as it may be to not have achieved your goals yet, it’s important to remember that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Professional development is a lengthy process, but as soon as you recognize the reasons why you haven’t hit your specific goals and start to make the right changes, you’ll be that much closer to the finish line.

Ready to go beast mode? Beasts at sales are energetic, engaged, and capable of accomplishing just about anything! Unleashing your inner sales beast means stepping up your game to succeed at sales. Being a sales beast is a state of mind that drives you to be the best at what you do, but it also has a lot to do with how you behave and the image you project. While it’s important to trust your animal instincts, sometimes it takes a little good, old-fashioned discipline before things become instinctual.

By practicing the five B.E.A.S.T factors – body language, eye contact, awesome attitude, smile, and timing – you can start building great habits proven to help you succeed at sales.

Body Language:Your body is communicating with customers even before you’ve said a word. It’s important to understand the message you’re sending. Leaning on counters, tables, or desks as customers approach sends the message you’re bored and disinterested in speaking to them. It also doesn’t look very professional. Good posture has been shown in studies to make you feel more confident and prepared to make a sale. Facing the customer during a sales pitch can feel too confrontational, instead, stand to their side while you show them information. Don’t invade their personal space by getting too close, and avoid touching them other than a handshake, a high five, or a fist bump. Many people prefer not to be touched by strangers.

Eye Contact: Ever heard someone described as “shifty-eyed,” or have you noticed when somebody won’t make eye contact when they talk to you? It’s never a good thing. Keeping consistent eye contact helps you earn the customer’s trust by demonstrating that you’re confident and that you believe in what you’re telling them.  It communicates sincerity and genuine interest. It also allows you to connect with the customer, build rapport, and improve their engagement in the conversation – all customer service wins. By focusing on the customer’s eyes, you encourage them to pay attention and listen to you, and you can gauge whether they understand what you’re saying.

Awesome Attitude: By working in sales, you are helping to connect customers with services and products. Thinking of your role in terms of serving the customer, rather than just selling to him or her, helps you create a better experience for the customer, and most likely will result in more sales. That’s because people like to buy from people who make them feel good, cared for. People are busy, and not everyone is going to be polite when you approach them to make a sales pitch. But there’s no excuse for a salesperson to be rude, and it certainly won’t help you succeed at sales. When you maintain a great, confident, and friendly attitude, a customer who has already said no might change his or her mind later. But a customer you’ve been rude to is lost forever, and he or she might encourage others to avoid you, your product, or your company.

Smile: Studies have shown what you probably already know instinctively, smiling makes people feel good about you. Have you ever been in a bad mood and tried to keep a scowl on your face while the person you’re talking to is smiling. It’s tough, isn’t it? Smiling is contagious. It puts other people at ease, helps to change their mood, and most importantly, it leaves them with a good impression of you and what you have to say. While learning to smile consistently, and in a way that feels sincere and not forced, take practice, it’s probably the simplest thing you can do to improve your chances of making the sale.

Timing: Even when you do everything else right, the success of your sales pitch can sometimes come down to timing. Starting your pitch when the customer is too far away can force you to shout at them. Waiting until they are right in front of you can create an awkward feeling of intimacy. When approaching customers in person, start speaking to them when they are about seven feet away. Don’t wait until they have already passed you, or else you’ll be speaking to the back of their head, which puts you at a disadvantage.

Unleashing your inner sales beast takes more consistency and discipline than the name might suggest. Becoming a sales beast requires developing great communication techniques and professional habits that make the customer feel that you sincerely care about them and have their best interests at heart. The best sales beasts don’t depend on their killer instincts; instead, they use their B.E.A.S.T factors to convey confidence, sincerity, and helpfulness, which add up to the kind of creature qualities customers can’t resist.

Grit is a mysterious and powerful mix of passion and perseverance that gives some the strength to keep going where so many others before them have given up. In fact, studies have shown that grit may outrank either intelligence or talent as an indicator of future success. Salespeople know a lot about grit. They work in a competitive business, but for those with the grit to stick with it, the rewards can be huge. The best salespeople know that grit can be the secret ingredient that makes the difference between success and failure.

Here’s how grit can make good salespeople great:

• Persistence: To get good at sales you have to become okay with rejection. You have to hear “no” enough times that you finally figure out why people say no and what you can do to get a “yes.” People who thrive in sales are the ones who can persist, persevere, and learn to embrace the word no as a challenge to identify what will get the “yes”. To them, no is just another exciting challenge to overcome. Salespeople with grit are the ones who brush themselves off and wonder how many more people they can meet with before the sun goes down.

• Self-belief: Salespeople with grit tough it out by trusting their guts and believing they can make it no matter what anybody else thinks. Only the gritty keep moving forward regardless of the obstacles that may stand in their way.

• Long-term perspective: Salespeople, must be able to envision that future. Achieving long term goals means keeping your eye on the prize, and having grit means you focus on doing what it takes to win, overcoming hurdles and celebrating wins along the way.

• Unwavering Courage: Successful salespeople are fearless. They take pleasure in achieving the hard things, and they welcome the unknown. They want to overcome weaknesses, revel in change, and capitalize on their strengths. Salespeople with grit get out of their comfort zones in order to realize their dreams.

• Endurance: Having grit means having the stamina to follow through on your promise to yourself, and finish what you’ve started. It’s an attitude of always finishing what you start.

• Owning it: In the sales business, excuses won’t get you very far. It’s the effort you put out, your commitment, and your unwillingness to give up that will determine your success. The ones who succeed in sales are those who are accountable for their own actions.

• A Winning Attitude: To beat the odds, you have to ban negative thinking and immerse yourself your passion for your work. True grit takes keeping self-doubt, fear, frustration, and even disappointment from derailing you. It takes an absolute belief in yourself and confidence that with hard work, you can achieve your dreams.

• Drive: Leaders in sales will tell you that to accomplish something extraordinary, you must remember why you’re doing it. You have to stay connected to the things that are most important to you, because they are the things that will make all the hard work worth it in the end. The most successful salespeople never forget what they’re working towards.

Intelligence and talent are huge advantages in business that can help you innovate, perform well, or solve problems. Without the grit to stay the course even when it gets bumpy, those advantages can be fleeting. Brains and natural ability are the reason many people are good at their jobs, but without the grit to overcome challenges, bounce back from stumbles, and the drive to push themselves further, they may never truly be great.

We all want to get ahead, and figuring out what’s keeping your goals out of reach can be tricky. It takes asking a lot of important questions and making sure all the pieces are in place to ensure your success. You’ll want to be sure you’re getting the right training, connecting with the best possible mentors, and working for a company that positions you for growth. But, don’t forget to take a good hard look where it matters most: yourself. Your attitude and the way you approach life, your job, and the people around you can be the critical factor that decides your fate. Luckily, your workplace attitude is the one piece of the puzzle entirely within your control. All it takes is accepting responsibility for the role your attitude plays, along with a willingness to change.

Here are 10 easy ways to change your attitude for the better:

1. Stop Complaining: Everyone complains from time to time, but a nonstop stream of complaints gives the impression of someone who’s constantly dissatisfied. While it’s normal to be occasionally frustrated when things don’t go your way, nonstop complaining shows an unwillingness to take action on your own behalf. If you’re miserable in your job or hate where you live, ask yourself what you can do to change your circumstances.

2. Banish Excuses: If you have the bad habit of justifying your own behavior, you’re missing a lot of opportunities for growth. Only by being accountable for your own mistakes can you hope to learn from them. Taking ownership is necessary to improve your performance in the future.

3. Assume the Best: Instead of adopting a can’t do workplace attitude, be optimistic and focus on what you can do. If you assume things will not go your way, why would you try at all? Your negative assumptions could be keeping you from taking risks and trying new courses of action, which could produce exciting and unexpected results.

4. Stop Sweating Everything: When everything bothers you, and you’re almost always angry and  stressed out about something, all that tension drains energy you need to be great at your job. Getting caught up in your emotions also prevents you from being able to objectively look at situations to try to understand why problems occurred so they can be avoided in the future.

5. Own It: If you spend a lot of time explaining why things are not your problem, you’re also missing the opportunity to take credit when things improve. Passing the buck may protect you in the short term, but it cheats you out of chances to grow and take on positions of greater responsibility.

6. Learn to Compromise: It may seem like you’re standing behind your beliefs, but people who never compromise can make collaborating with others a miserable or even impossible process. What you call your independence or strong mindedness could be preventing you from making valuable contributions to team projects, or you might be derailing the team’s efforts altogether. Instead of drawing a line in the sand, strongly state your concerns, but listen to other ideas as well. The best course of action is often somewhere in the middle.

7. Embrace Questions: When people question you, it can feel like they’re doubting you. The reality may be that they are just seeking clarity or shedding light on a detail you overlooked. Questions from others can help you provide critical support for your own ideas, which could bolster your argument and give your proposals a better chance of being approved. Instead of bristling, welcome questions with open arms.

8. Stop Jumping to Conclusions: You call yourself decisive, but others would call you impulsive. While overthinking every situation could slow you down, not thinking at all before you speak or act can mean overlooking the potential consequences. Try to tame your kneejerk reactions, by taking just a few moments to cool down and think about how your response might be perceived by others.

9. It’s Okay to Be Wrong: You associate making mistakes with weakness, but nobody can be right all the time. Refusing to admit that you might have made an error or might not fully understand something, doesn’t make you look smarter; it often does the opposite. People who don’t acknowledge their errors appear not to know they have made them.

10. Celebrate the Achievements of Others: When others around you succeed, it can feel like it’s hurting your own chances for success. The praise others receive sometimes makes you feel invisible. But you might be overlooking how your colleagues’ successes contribute to your team’s overall growth. Instead of resenting their achievements, appreciate the way their stellar performance inspires you to up your game.

It’s never fun to admit that you might be the source of your own problems, but taking responsibility for your own workplace attitude is an essential step to overcoming those hurdles. Don’t beat yourself up. Instead, take an honest look at yourself and your interactions with others, and make a list of areas you’d like to improve. Write down tangible actions you can take to avoid being viewed as having a bad attitude at work in the future. You may even want to ask your coworkers how they perceive you. While their impressions may be hard to hear, their outside perspective is likely to offer insight into behaviors you weren’t even aware of. Understanding the problem is the first step toward being able to fix it.

Great meetings can help us feel excited about work, but bad meetings can do just the opposite. These innovative meeting strategies will empower you to make the most of your meetings – something that will be good for not just you, but your team members as well.

Schedule Meaningful Meetings

The simplest strategy for turning a bad meeting into a good one is to set a meeting purpose and a leader. Bad meetings are almost always due to a lack of direction, goals, focus, or a sense of efficiency. If you are in charge of a meeting, prepare an agenda that you can send out to attendees ahead of time along with any materials you’ll be reviewing. Take 15-30 minutes before the meeting to review meeting goals and specific points you plan to bring up.

Change Your Attitude

Even if you aren’t running the meeting, you can still help improve it by staying organized and being actively engaged. Before the meeting occurs, make sure you can answer the following questions:

• What do you want to learn from this meeting?
• Who are the people attending the meeting?
• What are their goals and interests?
• What is your role in this meeting?

Prepare yourself beforehand to ensure you understand the purpose of the meeting and how you are expected to participate. Touch base with coworkers and find out what they will present. If you have relevant questions or concerns, write them down so that you will be ready to bring them up during the meeting. Arrive a few minutes early to greet the leader and review the agenda. Finally, always take detailed notes of what was discussed, especially as it relates to deliverables and deadlines.

Write a Meeting Summary

Once the meeting ends, don’t simply dive back into your work or head out for lunch. Sit down for a few minutes and think about the meeting: Review your notes, highlight the most important issues discussed and their outcomes, and take note of next steps and deliverables. Set reminders to follow up on items if necessary; don’t fall into the trap of taking great notes and never looking at them again.

If you take the time to prepare for meetings and approach them with a positive attitude, you will be able to make each meeting a productive part of your day and a positive influence on your career.

Getting more out of meetings requires a positive attitude and creative strategies. How do you get the most out of your meetings? Share with us on Twitter and follow us @Cydcor.

We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.

It’s time to spring forward! Use these ten terrific tips to energize your attitude and get the most out of your workday.

1. Consider Your Customers

Your customers’ wants and needs are what matters most. Figure out what they expect and then exceed those expectations. Take the time to become extraordinary.

2. Start with a Smile

Smiles often change attitudes—your own and your coworkers’. People usually like to be around people with a happy demeanor. Think about the times when you were having a rough day and seeing some else’s smile encouraged you to smile. It may be a simple thing to do but making an effort to smile will make an impact on the rest of your day.  Smiles work from the outside in, so practice smiling often. You’ll improve your outlook and strengthen customer and co-worker connections.

3. Schedule Some Fun

It is important to look for ways to keep you in a positive state of mind. Perhaps have lunch with a friend, join the fun and be part of the office team night,  and listen to upbeat music on your way to and from work. You’ll bring back authentic energy to your workplace.

4. Save Your Gratitude

Record your accomplishments in a notebook or in your smartphone. When you need a boost, you have a resource that will transform a challenging day to a great day.

5. Attack Your Hardest Task First

Putting off a difficult job never turns out well. Procrastination sows, and that can ruin your day. Attack your hardest task first; once it’s out of the way, you’ll feel accomplished and ready to meet anything else that comes your way.

6. Help Someone

Reach out to your team to see if they need help with their tasks. Doing something for others is a great way to get out of your head and gain a positive perspective.

7. Become an Optimist

Consciously remind yourself to see the positive side of every situation that you’re in. You can learn from every experience at work, and that’s an exciting possibility. Looking at things from a positive perspective will also help you be more solutions-minded and a proactive teammate.

8. Do More Than What’s Expected

Think like an Olympic athlete when you are working—don’t let anything stop you from living up to your full potential! Master your tasks and core assignments first, then tap into your entrepreneurial spirit to find opportunities to do more and exceed expectations.

9. Get to Work Early

Show up twenty minutes early. Get a head start on your day by avoiding last minute traffic that can make you late for work. Getting to work early will also give you some time to think on the tasks you need to accomplish for the day. Perhaps you can use the time to read a section of a motivational book or reflect on your goals. Not only will your day start off better, but you’ll also get noticed for taking the initiative.

10. Talk to Your Boss

Let your boss know what you’re doing. Share your career plans. Asking for advice is a great way to let your boss know that you’re committed to the company.

What are some tactics you use to stay positive at work? Share your tips with us on Twitter @Cydcor or Facebook, and show this article with your friends to start a conversation with your community.

We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.

What worked this year? What didn’t work? These two questions provide a framework that will improve your performance in the coming year.

Do you have a plan for setting and achieving goals in next year? A personal review of your past year will uncover winning strategies that deserve to be carried forward into the coming year—and those that can be left behind. Conduct an annual review of your performance at work with the following techniques.

Write It Down

Record your observations as you conduct your annual review so you’ll have something to refer back to later. A simple Excel worksheet allows you to organize the past year’s wins and losses month by month. Or, if you prefer to write by hand, Moleskine notebooks are well-made—and can work with Livescribe smartpens to translate your notes into digital content.

Look For Significant Events

Be cautious with granularity. Looking too closely at the past year can cause more issues than it will solve, distracting you from the larger picture. Stay focused on identifying significant events and strategies that impacted your performance.

Create Specific Goals

When planning for next year, create specific goals. Don’t just say you want to make more money or “get better at” something. What will you actually do to make more money? What does “getting better” at something look like? You need to be able to measure your progress toward these goals in a concrete way.

Make a plan and follow up on each step. Use the following categories to establish specific goals for the New Year.

• Attitude – Find a way to cultivate a positive attitude by listening to music that makes you smile, studying meditation, or engaging in other positive activities.

• Career – Review your job description for important keywords and phrases, and find opportunities at work that engage those skills and your expertise.

• Creative – Take a class in something new to challenge your mind. Study a new language or learn to dance. Energize and activate your mind.

• Education – Build a business book list for the coming year and form a reading group at work. Learning together is powerful.

• Family and Friends – Schedule time with family and friends and follow through with your dates. You’ll be energized when you get back to work.

• Health and Fitness – Eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, drink lots of water, and get plenty of rest.

• Volunteering – Find opportunities to volunteer at work. For example, Cydcor employees recently sponsored a food drive for a local charity. They also support Cydcor Operation Smile and regularly participate in doing good works. Find a way to help in your company too.

Did you achieve your goals during this year, or did you fall short of your expectations? Have you conducted an annual review and planned for the new year? Comment here, tell your story on Twitter, and follow us @Cydcor. Share this article with your friends and start a conversation with your community. #cydcorlearnandgrow

We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada, to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.

In this installment of Cydcor Reviews, Miriam Caballero reviews Attitude is Everything by Jeff Keller.

Description of the book:  This is the story of a lawyer who after practicing law for a few years, he realized he was not happy at all. He realized there were many things that he disliked and decided to change his job. In the process of finding what this new job should be, he realized there was more to do than just look for another job for him to do.

Throughout his struggle of finding the right job for him, he learned that in order for him to be happy, his happiness did not depend of his job. He learned that all this time the change needed to take place within him. This is where he learned that his attitude was the key factor to determine whether or not he would be happy or not.

Why Cydcor Leaders recommend this book: This is an easy read story many people could relate to. The author does a great job at giving examples of the negative thoughts he had based on the circumstances he was facing and the impact these negative thoughts had in his life. Once the reader is able to understand the struggles the author is explaining in his book, is easier to understand what the author is trying to explain. In this case, the message the author wants to get across is that in order to be happy, people must have a great attitude in everything they do. The author references a quote by Charles Popplestone, "You can't always control circumstances. But you can control your own thoughts."

Miriam's favorite part: My favorite part of this book is when he explains how "everyone starts with a clean mental window". The author explains that children view their life through a sparkling clean window. They are fearless and willing to get up no matter how many times they fall down. But there comes a point where life starts throwing dirt at their windows in the form of criticism, rejection, disappointments. This dirt starts to pile up and they no longer see life in the way they used to. They are not able to see things as they are and their attitude starts to change.