When my grandfather was lingering in a nursing home, he gave me some words of advise. "Linda, when you feel like giving up, only do it if you want to die, otherwise you'll have to spend more time catching up to where you left off." I was reminded of those words when I read an article by Andrea Lee today which she called Retreating Forward. Here it is below.
"Are You Retreating Forward?
Reframing “retreating” as “retreating forward” can be an important tactic to use in your business.
Too often, as an entrepreneur (and as people) when you experience a setback, a failure, or even undergo a large transformation (positive or negative), you feel like you need to backtrack and start rebuilding from your “new reality”.
You retreat in the traditional direction: backwards, and lose valuable time (and cash flow)
However, if you can shift your thinking, and retreat forward, you can build from the experience with far less of your valuable time lost in the process.
What does retreating forward in your business look like? Here are a few examples:
- If you have a program you delivered that wasn’t as successful as you wanted, turn it into a free offer to build your list.
- Instead of scrapping a program you have grown bored of, tweak it into something new that renews your energy (or automate it so you don’t teach it yourself)
- If you discover a new direction in your business, continue to sell your old programs during the transition, instead of scrapping everything and starting at zero
- If your first try at something new failed, find a second group and try it again (we tend to make business decisions on far too small sample sizes)
- If your coaching (or counseling) program isn’t working, try changing the number of sessions, the order of the sessions, or the people you are trying to help
In each of these examples, something changed or failed, and your gut instinct might be to stop, retreat, and start with something brand new. Instead, try taking that “failure” and moving forward with it in a new direction, or with a new adaptation, and see what happens.
Will you give retreating forward a try?"
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