A few months ago.. “make that approximately 4”, I made the decision to take the motivational lifestyle aspect of my the blog and launch an online business out of it. Anyone who reads the blog, or follows me on social media knows that I am and have been an advocate for personal growth, working on accomplishing your goals and remaining positive in the time of great adversity for a while. Now I have launched one Freelance Virtual Assistant business in the past year and failed terribly at it. However, that presented a learning opportunity to me and made me realise all the things that I needed to first fix and then learn in order to progress & succeed in my new business. So of course, I took a different route.
After invested money and time in my new business; learning and implementing all that was being taught via the workshops, webinars online training, I somewhat felt at a standstill last week. I felt “what was the point”. I thought that if I followed all the steps, implemented all the mechanisms I learnt progress would happen. But nothing did.. and I almost gave in & threw in the towel. But as always, the universe is watching, guiding and reminding me to take one more step. “talk about feeling like a fraud, right?” After all, my purpose is to motivate others to aim and work on achieving their goals. We all have our moments, and I for one love being 100% real and open with my readers and clients.
So what changed? It first started over the weekend- “Sunday to be exact”, I woke up feeling exhausted both mentally & physically. That’s what happens when you’re working a 9-5, building a business, and living a life”.; and I knew that something was wrong. I began to second guess myself. Why wasn’t I receiving sign ups for my then titled “Clarity Webinar”, why wasn’t my course selling as much as I wanted too, why this & why that.. and it was at that point that I needed to tune out. So I decided to shut out from anything work related for one & do something fun; & one of my idea of fun is dressing up and having a photo shoot.. which is exactly what I did. I dressed up, did my makeup, laid out 3 outfits and did a video shoot for a Look-book. But how long would I be able to escape the reality? The reality of feeling like a failure? And most importantly “HOW WAS I GONNA REGAIN MY MOJO”?
Again the universe heard my calling because, on Monday morning, the very first thing awaiting me on my timeline was a mini pep talk from Cailen Ascher- Clarity Coach. So naturally I hopped on over to her site, and the first pop up was “How to go from being stuck to 6K months”, so I signed up. This mini 2 part podcast has opened up such a wave of relief & clarity over the past 3 days, as you see it made me realise that my mindset on being fixated on “what if no one signs up, or purchases a course” was my problem. I was focusing on the problem and not on creating a solution. I was doing what I was taught & coached to do instead of streamlining it to suit ME. Not only that, every other post I’ve read during the past 3 days kept reminding me, to DO WHAT I LOVE. To REDEFINE my Purpose; Revisit, Simplify, and most importantly “It’s ok to fail sometimes”, as it presents an opportunity to be motivated all over again, and let’s just say edit your plan. I can honestly tell you that I have seen such a drastic change in such a short space of time with not only my mindset, but my attitude towards my business.
TWEET THIS:
Here are four things you can do when you feel like a failure. Get motivated all over again by trying these 4 things:
RE-DEFINING YOUR PURPOSE.
After listening to Cailen’s first podcast I had to thank her, & of course, it brought such joy to her knowing that her advice helped. I was also eager to listen to the second podcast and when I received it I was on a bank line. “surprisingly with 30 persons during the lunch time rush. This presented an opportunity to learn something more, realise my TRUE AUTHENTIC WHY, take some note on my phone. It also led me to download a copy of “THINK & GROW RICH”. Which by the way the first lesson is all about your PURPOSE. Having a BURNING DESIRE to achieve that GOAL. And guess what, as it turned out, I was straying away from my purpose & my goal. I was being distracted by all the thrills being thrown my way, hence focusing on that more than I was supposed to. If you get distracted by the temporary failure, get a pen and paper and rewrite your purpose. WHAT ARE YOU DOING & WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? You can also surround yourself with materials, publications, blogs, podcasts to help remind you and bring you out of that slump.
DO AN EVALUATION OF THE SITUATION.
I gave myself a quarterly goal which at this point I should have been at a 6. But I feel like I was still struggling with moving away from number 4 on the outcome grid. Let’s say your ideal outcome is at 10, draw a scale of 1-10 and mark out where you are on the grid. Then, figure out what went wrong after that. What is preventing you from moving on to the following number? Sometimes the one obstacle can be hiding right under our noses, but because of all the hustle & bustle around us, we fail to realise it. Instead of ignoring it and moving forward, tune out, address it and then think of your next big step.
ASK FOR HELP & RESET YOUR COURSE.
I honestly believe in doing it right. If I am going to do something I want to do it right. And unless I haven’t identified what the challenge is, creating value is not possible for me.Which of course leads to frustration. After analysing the situation, the big picture became clearer. After also speaking to a fellow entrepreneur within a facebook group, she made me realise that I was being too generic in my marketing tactic. The purpose was written all over my posts, my bio, my resources, however, the sales pages, the opt-in forms lacked the purpose.Which of course resulted in the low response rate for sign ups. And I asked myself.. “HOW COULD I NOT SEE THAT”? Of course, sometimes it helps to have a second pair of eyes. So if you can’t figure out the problem, ask someone for help. And after you have identified your problem & next big step from the 2nd point, redesign the plan from there on out, and keep progressing. Which is why I spent majority of the day ensuring that my Work With Me page showed and added value to my audience, & why I streamlined my upcoming Goal Clarity Webinar Sign Up page to be more tailored to the target group of people. You can also download this bonus Goal Planner to help you re-identify your goals and bring life to them.
CELEBRATE THE SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
Regardless of the moment, one of the ultimate best ways to lift yourself out of the slump is to be grateful and celebrate. No matter how small you think it is. celebrate it. Because maybe at the time you were working on accomplishing that minor milestone it seems like a mountain, but you did it. And if you did it once, you can definitely do it again!
There is no direct path to success, nor is objective. Everyone has their own definition based on what their desired goal and outcome is, and if I have learned one lesson is that I should focus on my version and not anyone else’s.
THE ALPHESS 