Skip Steps to Get (Major Gifts) Success: Part 2
This is Part 2 of the 4 part series.
How do we get smarter about raising major gifts faster to enjoy the success we want sooner? How do we find a rich life balance? Can we skip some steps along the way? How do we intentionally incorporate these experiences into your life to leapfrog over some of the rough parts as well as move through the learning more quickly.
- Figure out what’s important to you – professionally and personally.
- Focus on BOTH components of success – the thought process and the specific techniques.
- Seek out all types of mentors and educational experiences.
- Realize you are closer than you think.
My business tag line is , “The Mindset and Methods of Major Gift success.” Sometimes I get a good deal of ‘eye-rolling’ when I talk about the power of our mindset in our success. I like to think about this dance I do with a major gift giver where at first we tentatively go out on the floor, find our balance, learn a step, maybe step on each other’s feet by accident, and gradually begin to flow with each other. Over time we glide! It is such fun, we can’t wait to learn different steps and dance again!
Your inner and outer game. We tend to focus on the outer game. Degrees, credentials, how-to’s, courses , best practices, meeting metrics, donor engagement methods. These are important, no doubt. You can Google “how to” anything and get a plethora of folks out there to tell you. But it’s our inner game, what’s going on in our heads, that empowers us to skip steps and achieve our goals more quickly. We focus on the fruits, instead of the roots.
Why? Most of us go through life with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. We want to be successful, but we have limiting beliefs that hold us back. Beliefs about why people give, money, wealth, our own abilities to be worthy to build the relationships – are we smart enough? Experienced enough? Important enough? These limiting belief manifest themselves in habits like procrastination, poor or no decisions, low expectations of giving results and excuses for poor giving results. These mindset habits make up our internal picture.
Our mindset consists of:
- stuff we tell ourselves (Hmmm, do I talk to myself? ……Just did)
- stuff that our colleagues, bosses, spouses and friends tell us, (You have always had trouble getting appointments, you’re not as smart as _____)
- and stuff we’ve been carting around from childhood. (Filthy rich. It’s hard to make a living. There’s not enough of …. You were never good at…)
And this picture we make of ourselves becomes our outer reality. Really. Unless we decide to change it. The best way to do this is to ask empowering questions. “Why am I so successful..organized…on time….smart…raising so much money etc.”
When we can control our thoughts and come from a place of abundance, it leads us to a “Both” kind of life – not either-or. “Either I can be successful at work/or I can have time with my family” becomes “I can have both, a successful major gift career and a rewarding family life.”
It is not easy to manage your mind…train your brain… to push out the negative and focus on the positive. We like to make excuses to not have to take responsibility for our results. But it is important to keep trying. To re-focus on all that is right, good, and going your way in your life – your strengths, your gifts, the results you want.
And understand that sometimes you feel a bit bummed out and aren’t sure why. You feel doubt, sense uncertainty, and experience fear. You wonder why it is taking so long to get to your next goal.
This means you’re normal. Then you must remember….
Something wonderful is happening. For you. Right now. Enjoy!
Invest in Joy!
