Recently I was thumbing through Instagram and I scrolled past a post by a creative consultant and program creator that I follow. It was a bit of a bummer of a post because, from what I could tell, she recently launched a program that flopped. And, as someone who has also had her fair share of flops, I felt for this person.
So much of our lives as entrepreneurs are spent trying. Failing or succeeding is a secondary step that is only reached by first trying. And the scary thing about trying is that you really don’t know how any of it’s going to turn out.
But if not for trying, we would not accomplish anything at all.
Though we all know that that sentiment is true, it doesn’t make it any easier when we are about to put ourselves out there. When we’re about to launch a business or a collection or a marketing campaign or a webinar…whatever the “it” is, it’s certainly terrifying.
Phrases like…
What if it doesn’t work?
What if everyone hates it?
What if I lose all my money?
What if people laugh at me?
…run through our heads over and over again, causing doubt, suspicion, and hesitance to try anything at all. And that really sucks. Because it’s the creatives, the risk takers, the “beat of their own drum” people who make change.
It’s those of us who decided that the typical path is not typical for us that will hit upon something magical. And the only way to do that is try. Even when we realize that not everything we try is going to work.
Instead we have to do our best to focus on how the act of trying something in itself is a triumph. The mere attempt to create something new and different, meaningful and helpful is a risk worth taking, regardless of the outcome.
And once we do, if things don’t work out quite as we’d hoped (something we can all relate to), then the most important skill we can hone is our ability to bounce back and keep trying.
Without resilience, we might as well just stop right now. Because there is not one amazing brand, business, adventure, idea, product, or service that hasn’t at some point tried something that simply didn’t work. But the reason that they are amazing is that they didn’t let that stop them from keepin on.
So the next time you try and don’t succeed, remember that you’re certainly not alone in that experience and that the only way to accomplish all that you’ve set out to do is shake it off, bounce back, and remember that this is all part of the journey.
All my love and encouragement,