Rule #1: Look for the silver lining
Most disruptions cause the average person to panic, or react with a bit of fear.
Whereas others who look to make the best of the situation, tend to come out better at the end of it, than before the disruption occurred.
For instance, when lockdowns started happening around the world, some people struggled with dropshipping out of China due to stoppages in production and dramatically increased shipping times.
Those who adapted and got things rolling with USA based dropshippers were not only back in business faster… They saw a big upswing in their sales.
Or when Facebook started shutting down people’s ad accounts a bit too frequently, those who were diligent about sorting out a process for reducing that risk (and mitigating the problem if it were to occur) are the ones who hit an absolute goldmine…
…The fact that some people lost accounts turned out to be a huge benefit, as it also kept competition out (as many people just gave up at the first sign of disruption).
Rule #2: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
If you keep telling yourself things like:
“The greatest things in life come when I step out of my comfort zone”
and
“I’m the kind of person who is comfortable with being uncomfortable”
and
“I embrace all challenges as opportunities for growth”
Then you will be setting yourself up for long term success.
An example from my own business was back about 17 years ago when I first started buying paid online traffic.
I was doing well from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), but that was getting trickier due to increased competition, and more prominence of paid listings in the results pages.
So, I decided to take the plunge and buy traffic.
I remember spending $50 and losing ALL OF IT and giving up completely on paid traffic.
But then, for one of my niche products, my top affiliate was making about 100 sales a day.
And I asked him what he did, and he said he was buying traffic.
So I decided to go back to it, I spent about $150 before I’d made my first sale. It cost me about $500 before I’d even broken even.
But sure enough, by later that year, I was making thousands a day from the paid traffic because I had soldiered on…
…I pushed past my comfort zone and learned from the pain of mistakes.
And now I had an additional method of driving visitors that was in many ways more predictable than the ‘free’ methods I had been using before that.
These days discomfort from disruptions comes in all shapes and sizes, and the key is to embrace the challenge AND get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Rule #3: Never give up
For me, I often find that the path towards whatever my goal is, takes 3 times longer than I first thought it would.
That doesn’t mean it’s unachievable, but sometimes there are roadblocks along the way. Or the path is a little bit longer than you first thought.
The thing is though, if you never stop moving forwards, sooner or later you WILL reach your destination.
I remember once a guy with no legs completed the NYC marathon.
Some competitors gave up along the way, not everyone finishes, it’s a tough event.
But he used his arms and did it in 4 days.
Many times in business the same attitude applies.
Keep going, don’t worry about how fast other people are moving, just go at your own
pace and sooner or later you’ll get there in your own time.
I trust that this will help motivate you to keep fighting towards your goals, whatever they may be.
