When you starting up a business or even after you’ve gotten it underway but have entered into a slump, chances are you’re encountering factors and situations you didn’t expect. If you’ve become too attached to your initial business ideas or strategy you may be overlooking nuances and opportunities that show you what you need to do next.  Even with the best strategies, there will be times when you don’t know what do. This isn’t a reason to give up.  Here’s what you can do instead:

• Acknowledge it’s okay not to know  – the first step to discovering anything is admitting that you don’t know
• Assume something effective can be done – no what matter the situation is, start from the premise that problems are solvable
• Let your gut guide you – trust your intuition
• Focus your attention away from the problem – instead focus on your desired outcome and work backwards to figure out how to get there from where you are
• Generate multiple possibilities – usually our second or third ideas are better than our first
• Grapple and let go – put your subconscious mind to work on solutions. Often the best solutions come “from out of the blue” after you’ve worked on them • Get help; talk it out. Sometimes the process of explaining what you’re thinking leads to the solutions you’re seeking
• If all else fails, act – take your best shot, then observe and learn from the results.

But Should You Give Up?

When things don’t go as we expected, instead of continuing to push ourselves harder, some of us feel like throwing in the towel. There are a number of typical reasons people have for wanting to throw in the towel:

• It’s break time – We often feel like giving up when we’re tired out, or burned out.
• Take a break; get some sleep, whatever is necessary. Once refreshed, you can re-evaluate whether you still feel like quitting.
• Dislike for what’s involved – there’s almost always more than one way to do something. Explore other ways of doing it before throwing in the towel.
• It’s not what you thought -sometimes as we get into making a change we realize it’s not at all like we thought it would be, and we need to find another more suitable direction.
• You feel like a failure – if the effort involved in changing directions becomes too hard or is taking too long, it’s easy to feel like we’re failing. Instead, it means we need to take an objective look at what we’re doing.

It’s okay to allow yourself the option to quit; otherwise you become a slave to your goal. But if you’re still committed to putting your new show on the road, ask yourself this question:

Are you proceeding at the right pace for you? Be realistic. What’s right for you? Do you need to be on a Fast, Medium, or Slow Track? If you think we can help, we offer counseling.  [maxbutton id=”1″]

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