Are you a Professional or an Amateur?

Have you ever found yourself looking in the mirror at times and wishing that you were further ahead than you are with your goals? Maybe that gym habit that you had is falling to the wayside. Perhaps you're not spending as much time with your family and friends as you would like, or just not achieving what you'd like to be achieving at work. The truth is, until you decide to step up and turn pro, these things will never change.

Now, one of the favorite definitions I have is the definition of what separates a professional versus an amateur. And a professional is someone who gets things done whether they feel like it or not, whereas an amateur needs to feel like doing things in order to get them done. Or, for example, an amateur needs feeling to precede action, whereas a professional knows that it's action that generates feeling.

I used to really struggle with getting things done. I would not feel like doing a particular project or piece of work and put it off. Or I would not feel like the time was right to restart my gym routine or to go and work out, you know, one morning. Or I would feel like. Not. Not feel like that the time was right to be spending that more time, you know, with my family.

That I still had a little bit of work that needed to be done. I just had to get through this next project. And the truth is, I didn't realize it, but I was acting like an amateur in life because I was needing to feel like doing things instead of just getting them done. And this is one of the most powerful things that you can embrace to really take your life and your. Your business to another level. This concept of being a professional, not an amateur, this concept of as a pro, you get things done whether you feel like it or not, this concept of taking any feeling or notion that I really don't want to do something, and as a signal that therefore you must step in that direction. Think about it this way. Think of an Olympic athlete. How many times do you think Olympians in their four years or more that they're training before their event will wake up on a morning and think, I really don't feel like doing this workout right now? How many times do you think one of your favorite musicians or singers out there will wake up on occasion and feel like, I don't feel like doing the practice today? Of course, they feel like this all the time, right? This is just natural. It's part of life. And what they've done differently, though, from the rest, those who have reached the top, you know, have reached the top of their game, what they do differently from everyone Else is that they show up with that professional attitude. They do things whether they feel like doing them or not. I had a, I work as a high performance coach for entrepreneurs, CEOs, just everyday people who just want to reach a higher level in life. And I had a client once who was writing a book and I asked him, how's the book writing going? And he said, not well. And I said, why is that? And he responded, well, I just haven't felt like writing lately. And my response was, what does that have to do with it? Stephen King, one of the most prolific writers of all time. Every single day he has a writing routine where he sits down and he writes rights whether he feels like it or not. So to turn pro, to start being a professional in life rather than an amateur, which will totally change the trajectory of your life. It's not just this mindset shift. There's a few other things that you can embrace to help you complete this transition from amateur to professional. And the first is to focus on the process, not the outcome. So you have an outcome that you want to achieve a certain level of income or certain goals with your health or your business or your family. Once you have those goals in mind, think about, well, what's the process? What are the things that I need to do in order to achieve those goals? Whereby if I just do that thing every day or every week, the goal will just happen and you make the process the goal, then that becomes a thing that you focus on. So let me tell you a story with my coaching business to help illustrate how I focus on the process, not the outcome. And I'll actually tell you a few different things that relate to the business. So one is the whole concept of coaching discovery call. So when you're taking on a new coaching client, you need that initial call where you're determining whether or not there's a fit and if this person would be interested in a longer term coaching relationship. Now, frankly, the majority of those calls end up being nos and a handful end up being yeses. But by focusing on the process and not the outcome, I came to appreciate that yes lives in the land of no. And that if I just focus on making those calls, enough yeses will eventually materialize. One of the things that I really embraced, if you've ever heard of Byron, Katie, she has this great phrase that she had in one of her books where she says just about anything in life that you want can be achieved, provided that you're willing to go through 1000 no's. So with this kind of little Nugget of wisdom in mind. I made it my goal to focus on the process of acquiring 1000 no's over a certain period of time. So every single time I had a coaching discovery call, I was using that as an opportunity to just focus on the process, focus on making that call, you know, rack up another no. Knowing that obviously I don't want, you know, a handful of no's and that's the only thing that I want to arrive at. But knowing that if I focus on just the process and collecting those no's, that eventually some of those no's will become yeses. And sure enough, when I focused on the process in that way, I started to receive more and more yeses. The conversion rate of those calls went up and suddenly I was reaching a different level, I different outcome, but by focusing on the process.

The other thing with my coaching business that I, you know, I can relate to this is writing content. And this is a bit of a, you know, a funny story here. So obviously we know when it comes to writing content or producing any type of content consistency, you know, quality and just maintaining that frequency is absolute king. It's paramount. And I was trying to get into the writing habit of writing one newsletter, one email for my newsletter per week. And the person that I was working with, his name is Stefan, he's absolutely brilliant and he helps me with the whole back end of making sure that the content is delivered on a weekly basis through the system we use. We use kajabi.

Stefan told me after we got the first email set up, he said, eric, I just noticed something that the way we have this set up, it's going to go out every single Thursday in perpetuity, without fail. At 10am, a new email to whoever signs up for the newsletter. So unless you have an email written By Thursday at 10:00am, your whole list is going to get a blank email. So maybe we should change that up. And I thought, no, actually this is genius because let's keep it like that. It's high risk. We have to have the email written every Thursday by 10am or a blank email goes out. But the nice thing about that is that it's going to force us to focus on the process, right? So you know, the outcome with all of this with the coaching business that I want to acquire new clients, you know, generate income. But by focusing on the process, just collecting those no's, knowing that yeses will come out, just writing the content every single week, having a system for doing that, knowing that eventually that too will lead to people interested in coaching, but by focusing on the process, the outcome happens. The other thing that you could think about when it comes to turning pro and not being an amateur, because remember, that's what we're talking about, a pro. What does a pro do? So a pro takes action whether they feel like it or not, whereas an amateur needs feeling to precede action. Other things that can help you in your transition from an amateur to a professional is to get into that habit of focusing on the process, not the outcome. But also the second thing here is to get into the habit of don't think. I know that might sound a little bit weird, but I want you to just shut off your thinking. Just do. Mel Robbins wrote this book called the Five Second Rule. If you've not heard of it, Mel, she's great. The book's amazing. And the basic premise of the book is simply that the moment that you have an urge to do something or work towards a goal or do something that you know you should be doing, you have five seconds to take action and just do it before the thinking part of your brain is going to try to, is going to try to convince you otherwise. So I'll give you another example here, a story. So one of the CEOs I coach, aside from wanting to be a high performing CEO, one of the other things that he wants to do is get into shape and feel like he's fit and healthy and also high performing in the health department and not just in the company department. And we really struggled with him trying to get into this routine for the first six months. And then he had this genius insight. Suddenly his exercise routine became super easy when he reminded himself to not think. So sort of like that 5 second rule from Mel Robbins, don't think, just do. So every time that the thought of jumping on his exercise bike came into mind, he just jumped on it, right? He didn't think about it, he just did it. So don't think, just do. And then the final thing that you can do that can help you in this mission to become a professional, not an amateur. To do things, whether you feel like it or not, is something that actually U.S. navy SEALs and special Forces troops around the world do. And they call it dirt diving. The mission and what it simply means is that you can think at the beginning of your day. What are all the things which could be feelings, such as the feeling to procrastinate, the feeling of dread associated with something. What are all the things that could go wrong? All the, you know, combatants or enemies, if you will, that might show up and try to derail your day and anticipate in advance. How would the professional version of me deal with each of those amateur feelings that might pop up and think about that in advance. Visualize how does that version of you, the pro, the not the amateur, deal with each of those things that might try to get in your way. And you'll be surprised how if you anticipate adversity in advance, how it helps you complete your professional versus amateur mission. So in summary, we're on a quest to help you turn pro. No longer be an amateur. You want to be stepping into the ability to take action on your life goals and dreams, whether you feel like it or not. Because that's what pros do. What? Whereas amateurs need to feel like doing something in order to take action. And to aid you in that mission, you can focus on the process, you know, not just the outcome. You can get into the habit of not thinking too much about doing something. Maybe use that five second rule. Don't think, just do. And last but not least, you can also dirt dive the mission. Right? So what are all the things that could go wrong in the course of the day? Think about how the professional version of you would show up and handle those things rather than the amateur version of you do all of these things. Turn pro in life, leave the amateur behind and your life and even business will take on a whole new trajectory. Now, if you like insights like this and would like to hear more, please head over to my website@ericpartaker.com where you can sign up for my weekly newsletter.