The End My Rope – When Trying Harder Just Isn’t Good Enough

Something has to change.  I am at the point in life where you are honest enough to realize that what you have been doing just isn’t working.    You finally realize that just tweaking a few things and trying harder just isn’t going to do it.  I have tried hack after hack and rededication after rededicaton and if I keep trying it, I know I am going to get the same result.    SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE.

shipwrecked-failure-stuck-dreamsI am talking about my side businesses and entrepreneur dreams: The Happy Rock, Top Blog Posts, and my so called strategic web consultant business.   In April of last year I finished my MBA and created great plans for the next year.   It is now well over a year and things are almost exactly where they were 15 months ago.   It just isn’t working.  I had the plan and it just hasn’t come together.    I had dreams of replacing 30-50% of my income, I failed.   I still have the same mediocre blog and not much else.

In the back of my mind I know that it is OK.  I enjoy failure to some degree.  It is a new challenge that will require new skills and approaches and a strength that must be received, because my effort isn’t good enough.   It is also encouraging that a lot of my awesome successes in my life have sprung out of failure.

So why did I fail this time?

I am not fully sure yet, but I do know three huge areas that are glaring culprits:

Failure to focus on the tasks that provide the most value. I get about 2 hours a night if I am lucky and it is easy to spend it all checking email, tweaking a design, fighting sleep, or even just wasting time.  It is quite another thing to spend my limited time doing high impact tasks that are usually much harder and offer a lot more resistance and discomfort.  The high value tasks that I have avoided like the plague are prayer and meditation, researching and writing great content that helps people, and directly helping others achieve their dreams(especially through strategy consulting).

Not facing my fears and discomfort.  Web strategy consulting requires skills and knowledge that are quite underdeveloped.   I can do the web development no problem, but small business marketing is a newer endeavor.  I must also overcome my shyness to create leads, communicate effectively, and impart vision and hope.  I have pretty much avoided that business altogether; it was the path of most resistance.  Oddly enough it is the path I feel the most attracted to and deepest call to pursue.

Not focusing on others. Businesses make money because they provide value.  Fulfillment comes from positively contributing to world that far beyond your self interest.  I have spent much of the year so focused on what I am trying to accomplish that I lost all perspective when it comes to helping others.   I am not a particularly giving person by nature, so this another area that requires tapping into resources that outside my own ability.

So where does that leave me.? Again I am not all that sure yet.  Nothing drastic is happening as of now, but rest assured it will.  It has too.   I desire my dreams I have been given far too much.

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