Those pesky Setbacks
I was speaking to a client the other day when they had just received some suboptimal news concerning their business. That usually super optimistic, cheerful and upbeat person immediately turned into a sad, lifeless version of themselves. As we were walking through the experience, trying to make sense of it all, we got to a point of choice. “Should I just give up on the idea?” - they asked me. We proceeded to talk it through. What might happen if you gave up, what might reality look like from then onwards? What might be shitty, what might be amazing, what might get easier, harder?
After 2 minutes of mentally exploring these options, it was pretty evident that they couldn’t just give up. What they had built was a solid foundation and packing it in now would just feed the part of their personality that despised giving up. The choice was straight forward. Take a deep breath, roll up your sleeves and get up again.
The whole story reminded me of my own experience building this coaching business - how a setback can really put me into a tailspin, things become extreme and scary. There are 2 things that help me in those moments.
1) What world do I not want to get back to? That’s super simple: I don’t want to go back to the corporate rat race, where it’s most important to look good, where great ideas get squashed in favour of the status-quo and where politics rule the day 2 day. A place where being loud gets rewarded, where the quality of the work is less important than falling in line and saluting to the process (no matter how silly that process may be).
2) Facing my fears. Fear is a strong emotion. It distorts ones perception of the world, however it can be a great guide too. A guide around what really needs to be done. I really like the line from Frank Herbert in Dune “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Setbacks are inevitable. I would go so far to say that setbacks are actually fantastic. They are the data points, the forks in the road, the moments of pause that will guide the way towards what we really want. How important is the thing you’re suddenly unsure about.
You’ve recently had a setback? Great - what is it trying to teach you?