over·achiev·er | \ ˌō-vər-ə-ˈchē-vər \
Definition of overachiever
: one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level especially at an early age
1: A person who is motivated by their ideals. An intra-competitive person does more than they are expected to do or who is more successful than others.
2: One who strives for various degrees of near perfection.
3: Someone that desires more than is needed.
We all know the overachievers. They are the ones who always seem to have more hours in their day. They have success in work and thriving passion projects on the side. They are in great shape and have quality friendships. They tend to operate on a different level than 99% of those around them. Their belief, discipline, and persistence towards a meaningful goal has no limits. I absolutely love coaching these individuals. They are innately hungry to always be better than they were before. They are motivated by proving to themselves and others what they are capable of. It is wise to study the top 5 tips overachievers are getting coached on right now so you too can thrive in life during and after quarantine.
I coach overachievers in all industries: a mortgage banker in the the top 35 of Wells Fargo Private Banking, a financial advisor in the top 100 of Edwards Jones, an insurance agent who broke the record for being the quickest agency to get into the top 1% of Farmers’ Insurance nationwide, to name a few. I’ve learned over the years that overachievers have common character traits and habits that help them succeed above the rest, but they also are always looking for ways to improve. It’s in their DNA. If you want your business to thrive when you get out of quarantine and back into a disrupted world, there are some key things overachievers are doing that you can be doing now too.
Overachievers…
- Take the time to identify bottlenecks and fix them. We all have those pesky tasks that we do over and over again. That email you re-type over and over again. That list of people you want to call, text, or email that you only have organized in your mind. They annoy us but only take 5-15 minutes to get together, so we never take the time to fix the bottleneck or even see it as a bottleneck. Overachievers are taking the time to slow down to create systems, in order to speed up and accomplish more work more fluidly. One of the coolest tips I teach my clients is the email template saved as an email signature. Do you know this tip? If there is an email you send more than once a month, it should be saved as a template in your email signatures. That way, when you need to send it, you can just tap on your signature icon, click the title of the template and it pops into your email window. Add the recipients’ name and tweak one or two things that may be unique for this person and then send it off. Your 5-15 minute task now just took under 1 minute. Add this time & energy saved up and you now have an extra hour in your day. Get more done, leave early and work out, spend more time with your family. Whatever you want. This technique of identifying and fixing bottlenecks is a huge area of growth that help overachievers get more done more effortlessly in their day.
- Think outside the box. Our regular form of business may come to a bit of a halt right now. It may not have stopped, but you might be fearing that it will. Right now overachievers are identifying their new lead generators, their new best referral partners, and their new niche prospects. They are realizing that “What got you here, won’t get you there.” Overachieving realtors and lenders are now connecting with Family Law and Estate Planning attorneys, anticipating that divorces and deaths might rise in this awful epidemic . They want to be there to help those families going through tragic transitions. Overachieving financial advisors are asking to be introduced to the children of their existing clients to begin generational wealth conversations in case a client were to become ill.
- Do things they don’t feel like doing. Overachievers aren’t lacking feelings of fear, intimidation, or low energy, but they don’t let those emotions stop them from doing the things they know they need to do to move their business forward. They logically make a plan with their big goals for the year in mind: “I want to bring on 5 new ideal financial advising clients this year with over $1 million in investable assets, so I am willing to get on the phone to check in with my current clients and referral partners even though I don’t feel like it.” While the average person may be sitting in laziness or over-analyzing how they don’t feel like making the calls, the overachiever has already finished and is on to the next part of their day. More important things get accomplished through doing instead of waiting for the feelings of laziness to pass. They know that action cures the fear/avoidance/laziness/{insert negative emotion here}.
- Choose to be positive and quickly embrace the silver lining. Overachievers are all living in the same world with the same resources, the same shut downs, the same quarantines, and the same news that the rest of the business world has, but instead of quickly obsessing over the negative, they acknowledge it and choose to focus on the positive. “What you focus on expands. So focus on what you want, not what you do not want.”- Esther Jno-Charles. They know they can’t change the situation but they can change their perspective of it. Choosing to quickly find the silver lining and focusing on working towards it, allows them to stay out of anxiety and “doom and gloom,” and instead get to work creating the best out of a bad situation. “I have to work from home. This is awful” becomes, “I get to work from home, spend more time with my family, and enjoy home cooked meals with them everyday. What a blessing.”
- Are authentic, connect with people and build genuine relationships. Lastly, overachievers care about people. They don’t look at prospects and clients as “What can I get from you?” They genuinely care, create connections, and bond with the people they work with. By approaching their clients and prospecting relationships with kindness, people are more likely to reciprocate the feeling with trust and loyalty. Their referral based business soars because clients and referral partners are happy to tell others to use the overachiever who really cares.
After the COVID-19 pandemic is over, it is the overachievers doing these 5 things who will have a thriving business rather than simply re-building from the rubble. Follow their example and you’ll make it through the unknown of our current world with momentum, positivity and more business than you ever imagined.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/overachiever
