When thinking about this in a conversation recently, I realized that this is a good example too of when things go wrong in our business as entrepreneurs.
The first time, it's usually a shock or we don't even realize it's going wrong until it's so wrong and then we can't really do much about it. We're so busy getting launched, growing or just staying afloat we tend to ignore things we shouldn't and wait until it gets to the point where we finally have to do something about it. Then we find out had we only acted sooner or stopped to get more knowledge, we'd have made the negative impact a lot less, if not stopped it completely.
The next time, we typically have learned a couple of lessons. We are quicker to stop the issue, quicker to act proactively and even though it might be a severe issue, we have the maturity now to act in ways to mitigate the damage and survive the unwelcome event, however terrible and impactful it might be, better than we would have had it happened before.
At least that is what we're supposed to do. However, I've been coaching long enough to see many entrepreneurs start, launch and fail without ever learning a lesson and continuing to make the same mistakes over and over. Oftentimes, if you ask them, they'll insist the issue was never with them, it was always someone else.
I can tell you that is never the case. I've done it and it was me. It was my failure to see patterns, to uncover uncomfortable truths, to fail to end things that were no longer serving me or even toxic because I didn't want the confrontation or I felt like if I did so it would be admitting some sort of defeat or failure.
My advice to any of my clients and an exercise where I say "Just Breathe" and then ask "What happens if this fails?"
This is never fun because it uncovers limiting beliefs, fears, and even terror. It's very important though for these two reasons:
Preparing for failure helps you prevent failure.
Preparing for failure helps you recover quicker from failure.
Maybe the failure is your fault. Maybe it isn't. Maybe a global pandemic came in and changed the whole world. No matter what, you're going to be ok. Even if it's a barely sketched out idea, don't be too afraid to confront it and put something into place because it's much better having that sketch to cling to and execute if things go sideways then driving everything into the dirt just hoping for a miracle. If you're afraid to do this by yourself, get help.
I'm offering.
Book with me here for a 15 minute Coffee Call: https://muse.youcanbook.me
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