December 22, 2024 • 11 mins
For me, the last full week of the year has always been the chance to pause, take a break from the grind of selling, and really think about what happened over the past year—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
If you are anything like me and do the same, there are two ways to look back on your last twelve months. You can do so with regret or reflection.
These two opposing lenses are vastly different in the way they affect your view of where you’ve been and where you are going.
Regret
Let’s start by unpacking regret.
Some of you are already feeling regret about goals you missed, deals you lost, opportunities that slipped through your fingers, or the people in your life you may have let down.
Regret is that feeling you get when you look back on something you did (or didn’t do) and wish you could change it.
In many ways, regret is similar to worry, except it’s focused on the past instead of the future. Worry is about what might happen; regret is about what already happened. That’s a big distinction.
Although you can turn worry into action and change the future, you cannot rewrite the past. No amount of regret changes history. All it does is create a feedback loop in your mind where you keep reliving your mistakes, misses, and failures over and over again.
Stuck in the Endless Loop of Regret
I’ve observed so many people get stuck in this endless loop of regret. They keep lamenting, "If only I had . . ."
"made that call,”
“handled that prospect differently,”
“taken that chance,”
“been there or done that.”
Those “if only's” can paralyze you. They sap your energy, crush your confidence, and keep you from moving forward.
On one hand, regret can push you to change—you don’t want to feel that kind of pain again, so you work hard to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
On the other hand, regret can become a debilitating emotion that drags you into an exhausting and useless mental loop of “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.”
But no matter how many times you complete that loop, it doesn’t change the outcome. It becomes an emotional anchor that weighs you down as you start the new year.
Reflection
Reflection, on the other hand, is entirely different—and far more productive.
When you reflect, you detach from your emotions with objectivity to look at your entire body of work from the past year.
You’re asking the questions, “What went well? What didn’t go so well? What did I learn?”
You consider the wins that made you proud and the moments you’d rather forget.
You figure out why you won so you can repeat those winning behaviors.
You extract value from the lessons of failure.
Reflection isn’t about punishing yourself for what went wrong. It’s about gaining clarity on why it went wrong—and what you can do about it next time.
Reflection Creates Awareness
Reflection also helps you find gratitude in unexpected places. Maybe there’s a hidden lesson in overcoming an obstacle or perhaps you gained a new perspective because a challenging person came into your life.
It’s important to realize that each decision you made over the past year shaped your present circumstances. But you are not defined by these circumstances, only by how you respond to them.
Reflection creates awareness. Where there is awareness there is the potential for change. Awareness is like the sun, anything it touches has a tendency to transform.
The bottom line is that reflection is about learning, growing, and transforming. Regret is stagnation.
Why Reflection Matters at Year-End
The reason I’m talking about the impact of reflection as we close out this year is because, for most of us, the slate really does feel clean come January 1st.
In the sales world, we get a brand-new quota and brand-new targets. There’s an air of possibility as we think,
“This year is going to be different.
“This year, I’m going to crush my numbers.”
“Hit my income targets.”
“Make it to President’s club.”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
This is Jeb Blunt and it's money Monday
on the sales gravy podcast.
Make money, money, money,
money.
Make money, money, money,
What's up, everyone? I'm back with another Money
Monday episode of the Sales Groovy podcast,
and this one lands right in the middle
of Christmas week for much of the western
(00:27):
world.
Now, if you're celebrating Christmas instead of selling,
you're probably listening to this while knee deep
into festivities
or out doing some last minute shopping.
But if you're not part of the Christmas
crowd, this week is important
because it's the beginning of the mental transition
into the new year, a new start, and
a new selling season.
(00:49):
For me, this week has always been the
chance to pause, take a break from the
grind of selling, and really think about what
happened over the past year, the good, the
bad, and the ugly.
Then if you're anything like me and do
the same, there are 2 ways to look
back on your last 12 months. You can
do so with regret
or with reflection.
(01:09):
These two lenses are vastly different in the
way they affect your view of where you've
been and where you are going.
Let's start by unpacking regret.
Regret is that feeling you get when you
look back on something you did or didn't
do and wish you could change it.
Some of you are already feeling regret about
the goals you missed, deals you lost, opportunities
(01:31):
that slipped through your fingers, or the people
in your life you may have let down.
In many ways, regret is similar to worry,
except it's focused on the past instead of
the future.
Worry is about what might happen. Regret is
about what already happened, and that's a big
distinction.
You can't rewrite the past.
No amount of regret changes history. All it
(01:54):
does is create a feedback loop in your
mind where you keep reliving your mistakes, your
misses, and your failures over and over again.
I've seen so many people, sales professionals and
otherwise,
get stuck in this endless loop of regret.
They keep thinking, if I only had made
that call, if I had only handled that
prospect differently, if I'd only taken that chance,
(02:16):
if I'd only been there or done that.
Those if only's can paralyze you. They sap
your energy, crush your confidence, and they keep
you from moving forward.
Now, on one hand, regret can push you
to change. You don't wanna feel that kind
of pain again, so you work hard to
avoid repeating the same mistakes.
(02:36):
On the other hand, regret can become a
debilitating
emotion that can drive you into an exhausting
and useless mental loop of would've, could've, and
should've.
But no matter how many times you complete
that loop, it doesn't change the outcome.
It just becomes an emotional anchor that weighs
you down as you start the new year.
Reflection,
(02:56):
on the other hand, is entirely different and
far more productive.
When you reflect, you detach from your emotions
with objectivity
to look at your entire body of work
from the past year.
You're asking the questions, what went well, what
didn't go so well, and what did I
learn?
You consider the wins that made you proud
and the moments you'd rather forget.
(03:18):
You figure out why you won so you
can repeat those winning behaviors and you extract
value from the lessons of failure.
Reflection isn't about punishing yourself for what went
wrong. It's about gaining clarity on why it
went wrong and what you can do about
it next time.
Reflection also helps you find gratitude in unexpected
places.
(03:38):
Maybe there's a hidden lesson in overcoming an
obstacle,
or perhaps, you gained a new perspective because
a challenging person came into your life.
It's important to realize that each path you
chose over the past year shaped your present
circumstances,
but you are not defined by these circumstances,
only by how you respond to them.
(03:59):
The value of reflecting creates awareness.
And where there is awareness, there is the
potential for change.
You see,
awareness is like the sun.
Anything that it touches,
including you, has a tendency to transform.
The bottom line is that reflecting
is about learning, growing, and transforming,
(04:21):
And regret is about stagnation.
The reason I'm talking about this today is
because for most of us, the slate really
does feel clean come January 1st.
In the sales world, we get a brand
new quota, brand new targets. There's an air
of possibility as we think this year's gonna
be different. This year, I'm gonna crush my
numbers, hit my income targets, make it to
(04:41):
president's club, get a promotion, and finally close
that dream account I've been chasing.
But But if you don't take a moment
to reflect on what worked and what didn't
work, you're likely to find yourself repeating the
same mistakes.
Reflection
is like an internal debrief.
A chance to say here's what happened, here's
why, and here's how I'm gonna fix it.
(05:04):
Let me give you a personal example.
At the beginning of last year, I set
a goal for my sales training company, Sales
Gravy.
Now, this was a big bold visionary goal
that would
our organization and ultimately double our
sales. I proudly and I confidently told my
team that it was going to happen.
And then, in an embarrassing crash and burn,
(05:26):
I failed miserably.
Now, I could have student regret, beating myself
up and letting myself talk run wild about
how I fell short, but that would have
been a waste of time and energy.
So instead, I chose reflection.
I asked myself what happened and why I
didn't achieve the goal. And as I thought
over those questions, the answers came more clearly
than I expected.
(05:48):
One of the biggest insights I gained from
this reflection was that I had set the
big goal, but didn't establish a system or
plan to make it happen.
You see, a goal without a system is
basically just a wish. And as they say,
hope is not a strategy.
If you say you're gonna prospect a 100
potential customers per week, but you haven't built
a disciplined daily routine, built targeted lists, set
(06:10):
aside specific times for calls, and created accountability
checkpoints,
it's not gonna stick.
Sooner or later, your big bold goal gets
overshadowed by a million other tasks.
Without a system for achieving the goal, you
quickly succumb to discipline fatigue.
And this is exactly what happened to me.
(06:30):
At the start of the year, I was
fired up about my big goal. I was
confident, energized, excited, and I believed that I
could will the goal to happen just by
saying that it would.
Then my sales team started knocking it out
of the park, bringing in new clients, and
the work started to pile up. I was
traveling, speaking, training, advising clients, writing a book,
and dealing with everyday business firefights.
(06:53):
Because I didn't have a system in place
to support my audacious goal, as the grind
wore me down and my discipline began to
fatigue,
I slowly but surely drifted off course.
In my case, upon reflection,
I realized that with a goal this big,
the hubris to believe that I could just
will it to happen with my enthusiasm
was a failing strategy.
(07:15):
Instead,
I needed to hire more talent.
To make this goal a reality, I need
people who can lead the way and keep
this project on track while I'm out speaking
and working with our clients.
I also needed to build a systematic step
by step system for achieving the goal rather
than assuming we'd somehow just make it happen
because I said so.
(07:36):
As I look back, I'm grateful for my
massive failure because it forced me to change
my approach to leadership,
add amazing new people to my team, and
get much more dialed in with our business
planning process.
This is exactly why reflection can be your
best friend this time of year. It allows
you to own your failures without letting them
define you and it helps you leverage your
(07:57):
successes by pinpointing what you did right.
Regret says, you messed up. You'll never fix
it. It's too late.
Reflection says, you messed up. Now, let's find
out why, learn from it, and do better
next time.
My challenge to you this week is to
carve out time to reflect on your past
year.
I want you to set aside at least
(08:18):
30 minutes of pure silence. This means in
a place with all of your devices turned
off.
Now, if you're like most people, silence is
a rarity. You got phones buzzing, TVs blasting,
kids running around, text messages pinging, and email
notifications
lighting you up.
Therefore, you will need to be intentional about
finding and creating a silent place to reflect.
(08:41):
Then close your eyes and mentally journey through
the year.
Start in January.
What were your big goals?
What was happening in your world at that
time?
Then move through February, March, April and so
on.
Celebrate your wins.
Which deals closed that made you proud? Which
new relationships or connections had a big impact?
(09:04):
What personal milestones did you hit? What did
you accomplish?
Identify your winning behaviors.
The behaviors, the mindsets, and the disciplines that
led you to these wins
and ask yourself, how can you turn them
into repeatable habits?
Next,
acknowledge your failures or misses. And what didn't
(09:24):
go right. What deals did you lose and
why did you lose them? What goals stayed
out of reach? What opportunities slipped by? Where,
when, and how did you fail yourself or
let down the people around you?
And ask why.
Don't just accept failure, dig into it. Find
the lessons and identify the behaviors and mindsets
that held you back and commit to changing
(09:46):
them.
And finally, embrace gratitude.
When you're looking back on your past year,
it will be super easy to fixate on
the negatives.
But instead of this fixation,
identify the silver linings.
After all, it's the journey rather than the
destination that makes life truly meaningful.
Embracing the journey is the key to developing
(10:09):
a fulfilling and optimistic outlook as you enter
the new sales season.
As I wrap up this Monday's episode, here's
the big takeaway.
Regret is the enemy of progress,
while reflection is the catalyst for growth.
Next Monday, we'll talk about how to turn
your reflections into a concrete game plan, one
with structure, accountability,
(10:30):
and the best possible chance for success.
If you enjoy this episode,
please give us a 5 star rating wherever
you listen to your podcast,
and please share this with your friends and
peers. You see, your word-of-mouth is our entire
marketing plan.
I'll see you next Monday, but until then,
enjoy the holidays if you're celebrating. Stay safe
and remember to never let regret own you,
(10:52):
and instead,
let reflection guide you to where you want
to go.
(11:14):
Playing with my paper. I need every rare
scent. That's why I brought my little scraper.
This is Jeb Blunt and it's money Monday
on the sales gravy podcast.
Make money, money, money,
money.
Make money, money, money,
What's up, everyone? I'm back with another Money
Monday episode of the Sales Groovy podcast,
and this one lands right in the middle
of Christmas week for much of the western
(00:27):
world.
Now, if you're celebrating Christmas instead of selling,
you're probably listening to this while knee deep
into festivities
or out doing some last minute shopping.
But if you're not part of the Christmas
crowd, this week is important
because it's the beginning of the mental transition
into the new year, a new start, and
a new selling season.
(00:49):
For me, this week has always been the
chance to pause, take a break from the
grind of selling, and really think about what
happened over the past year, the good, the
bad, and the ugly.
Then if you're anything like me and do
the same, there are 2 ways to look
back on your last 12 months. You can
do so with regret
or with reflection.
(01:09):
These two lenses are vastly different in the
way they affect your view of where you've
been and where you are going.
Let's start by unpacking regret.
Regret is that feeling you get when you
look back on something you did or didn't
do and wish you could change it.
Some of you are already feeling regret about
the goals you missed, deals you lost, opportunities
(01:31):
that slipped through your fingers, or the people
in your life you may have let down.
In many ways, regret is similar to worry,
except it's focused on the past instead of
the future.
Worry is about what might happen. Regret is
about what already happened, and that's a big
distinction.
You can't rewrite the past.
No amount of regret changes history. All it
(01:54):
does is create a feedback loop in your
mind where you keep reliving your mistakes, your
misses, and your failures over and over again.
I've seen so many people, sales professionals and
otherwise,
get stuck in this endless loop of regret.
They keep thinking, if I only had made
that call, if I had only handled that
prospect differently, if I'd only taken that chance,
(02:16):
if I'd only been there or done that.
Those if only's can paralyze you. They sap
your energy, crush your confidence, and they keep
you from moving forward.
Now, on one hand, regret can push you
to change. You don't wanna feel that kind
of pain again, so you work hard to
avoid repeating the same mistakes.
(02:36):
On the other hand, regret can become a
debilitating
emotion that can drive you into an exhausting
and useless mental loop of would've, could've, and
should've.
But no matter how many times you complete
that loop, it doesn't change the outcome.
It just becomes an emotional anchor that weighs
you down as you start the new year.
Reflection,
(02:56):
on the other hand, is entirely different and
far more productive.
When you reflect, you detach from your emotions
with objectivity
to look at your entire body of work
from the past year.
You're asking the questions, what went well, what
didn't go so well, and what did I
learn?
You consider the wins that made you proud
and the moments you'd rather forget.
(03:18):
You figure out why you won so you
can repeat those winning behaviors and you extract
value from the lessons of failure.
Reflection isn't about punishing yourself for what went
wrong. It's about gaining clarity on why it
went wrong and what you can do about
it next time.
Reflection also helps you find gratitude in unexpected
places.
(03:38):
Maybe there's a hidden lesson in overcoming an
obstacle,
or perhaps, you gained a new perspective because
a challenging person came into your life.
It's important to realize that each path you
chose over the past year shaped your present
circumstances,
but you are not defined by these circumstances,
only by how you respond to them.
(03:59):
The value of reflecting creates awareness.
And where there is awareness, there is the
potential for change.
You see,
awareness is like the sun.
Anything that it touches,
including you, has a tendency to transform.
The bottom line is that reflecting
is about learning, growing, and transforming,
(04:21):
And regret is about stagnation.
The reason I'm talking about this today is
because for most of us, the slate really
does feel clean come January 1st.
In the sales world, we get a brand
new quota, brand new targets. There's an air
of possibility as we think this year's gonna
be different. This year, I'm gonna crush my
numbers, hit my income targets, make it to
(04:41):
president's club, get a promotion, and finally close
that dream account I've been chasing.
But But if you don't take a moment
to reflect on what worked and what didn't
work, you're likely to find yourself repeating the
same mistakes.
Reflection
is like an internal debrief.
A chance to say here's what happened, here's
why, and here's how I'm gonna fix it.
(05:04):
Let me give you a personal example.
At the beginning of last year, I set
a goal for my sales training company, Sales
Gravy.
Now, this was a big bold visionary goal
that would
our organization and ultimately double our
sales. I proudly and I confidently told my
team that it was going to happen.
And then, in an embarrassing crash and burn,
(05:26):
I failed miserably.
Now, I could have student regret, beating myself
up and letting myself talk run wild about
how I fell short, but that would have
been a waste of time and energy.
So instead, I chose reflection.
I asked myself what happened and why I
didn't achieve the goal. And as I thought
over those questions, the answers came more clearly
than I expected.
(05:48):
One of the biggest insights I gained from
this reflection was that I had set the
big goal, but didn't establish a system or
plan to make it happen.
You see, a goal without a system is
basically just a wish. And as they say,
hope is not a strategy.
If you say you're gonna prospect a 100
potential customers per week, but you haven't built
a disciplined daily routine, built targeted lists, set
(06:10):
aside specific times for calls, and created accountability
checkpoints,
it's not gonna stick.
Sooner or later, your big bold goal gets
overshadowed by a million other tasks.
Without a system for achieving the goal, you
quickly succumb to discipline fatigue.
And this is exactly what happened to me.
(06:30):
At the start of the year, I was
fired up about my big goal. I was
confident, energized, excited, and I believed that I
could will the goal to happen just by
saying that it would.
Then my sales team started knocking it out
of the park, bringing in new clients, and
the work started to pile up. I was
traveling, speaking, training, advising clients, writing a book,
and dealing with everyday business firefights.
(06:53):
Because I didn't have a system in place
to support my audacious goal, as the grind
wore me down and my discipline began to
fatigue,
I slowly but surely drifted off course.
In my case, upon reflection,
I realized that with a goal this big,
the hubris to believe that I could just
will it to happen with my enthusiasm
was a failing strategy.
(07:15):
Instead,
I needed to hire more talent.
To make this goal a reality, I need
people who can lead the way and keep
this project on track while I'm out speaking
and working with our clients.
I also needed to build a systematic step
by step system for achieving the goal rather
than assuming we'd somehow just make it happen
because I said so.
(07:36):
As I look back, I'm grateful for my
massive failure because it forced me to change
my approach to leadership,
add amazing new people to my team, and
get much more dialed in with our business
planning process.
This is exactly why reflection can be your
best friend this time of year. It allows
you to own your failures without letting them
define you and it helps you leverage your
(07:57):
successes by pinpointing what you did right.
Regret says, you messed up. You'll never fix
it. It's too late.
Reflection says, you messed up. Now, let's find
out why, learn from it, and do better
next time.
My challenge to you this week is to
carve out time to reflect on your past
year.
I want you to set aside at least
(08:18):
30 minutes of pure silence. This means in
a place with all of your devices turned
off.
Now, if you're like most people, silence is
a rarity. You got phones buzzing, TVs blasting,
kids running around, text messages pinging, and email
notifications
lighting you up.
Therefore, you will need to be intentional about
finding and creating a silent place to reflect.
(08:41):
Then close your eyes and mentally journey through
the year.
Start in January.
What were your big goals?
What was happening in your world at that
time?
Then move through February, March, April and so
on.
Celebrate your wins.
Which deals closed that made you proud? Which
new relationships or connections had a big impact?
(09:04):
What personal milestones did you hit? What did
you accomplish?
Identify your winning behaviors.
The behaviors, the mindsets, and the disciplines that
led you to these wins
and ask yourself, how can you turn them
into repeatable habits?
Next,
acknowledge your failures or misses. And what didn't
(09:24):
go right. What deals did you lose and
why did you lose them? What goals stayed
out of reach? What opportunities slipped by? Where,
when, and how did you fail yourself or
let down the people around you?
And ask why.
Don't just accept failure, dig into it. Find
the lessons and identify the behaviors and mindsets
that held you back and commit to changing
(09:46):
them.
And finally, embrace gratitude.
When you're looking back on your past year,
it will be super easy to fixate on
the negatives.
But instead of this fixation,
identify the silver linings.
After all, it's the journey rather than the
destination that makes life truly meaningful.
Embracing the journey is the key to developing
(10:09):
a fulfilling and optimistic outlook as you enter
the new sales season.
As I wrap up this Monday's episode, here's
the big takeaway.
Regret is the enemy of progress,
while reflection is the catalyst for growth.
Next Monday, we'll talk about how to turn
your reflections into a concrete game plan, one
with structure, accountability,
(10:30):
and the best possible chance for success.
If you enjoy this episode,
please give us a 5 star rating wherever
you listen to your podcast,
and please share this with your friends and
peers. You see, your word-of-mouth is our entire
marketing plan.
I'll see you next Monday, but until then,
enjoy the holidays if you're celebrating. Stay safe
and remember to never let regret own you,
(10:52):
and instead,
let reflection guide you to where you want
to go.
(11:14):
Playing with my paper. I need every rare
scent. That's why I brought my little scraper.
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