What To Do When Things Go Wrong
Adversity_1100x825
A Story About Failure
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin FranklinLast night I made an excuse to you. I posted on Instagram that my computer crashed and I was out of a resource to deliver you promised content. The current content I had promised to you is lost at the moment and I was going to ride it out until I got my situation resolved.This is the coward’s way out and I’m better than that. I have failed yet I can redeem myself and overcome this adversity.Bad things happen and we hope they don’t happen to us. Yet they tend to happen when we least expect it.Business is great as you build momentum and continue to ride that wave thinking that everything is smooth sailings. You begin to feel comfortable and neglect the thought that something can throw your world off track until it actually happens.This happened to me because I failed to prepare for disaster and plan ahead.I got home from my honeymoon Sunday and began to work on this week’s blog post. I’m way behind my normal routine and didn’t post the week that I was on vacation because:
I didn’t have anything prepped ahead of time to stay on track and
I told myself I deserved a break, which I did, but this is not a good excuse
As I was hustling to write and draw a feature image, my computer screen started to act funky. It was glitching and becoming pixelated and choppy. I would close the screen or do a hard restart and things would go back to normal.I’ve never had a problem in the 5 years of owning my Macbook Pro, yet I had a weird gut feeling that these quick fixes wouldn’t last and that I had a major problem coming my way.Unfortunately I was right.Monday night my computer inevitably crashed as I was working and I couldn’t get it to reboot properly. Needless to say I was freaking out. I already skipped out on last week’s content and I didn’t want this to happen again. I took it to my local Apple technician to find out the motherboard had failed.Great.....It’s a costly repair but I’m being an optimist that I can get it covered under an Apple Repair Program that has reported multiple instances like mine with my model.Say a prayer for me that I get it approved and fixed for free.....This brings me to the point of this post, what do you do when things go wrong?
This is by far one of the biggest growing pains and obstacles I will overcome in my early career. I feel the best way to attack this issues is by responding positively and learning from it as I get back on track.When we face adversity, we must:
Chose how we will respond
Learn, prepare and plan ahead
I am going to make the best out of this situation and stop feeling sorry for myself. There is work to be done and I can find ways to follow through with my weekly commitment even if the situations are rough.
1. Responding to Adversity
Life will throw you curve balls. There is no avoiding it.The only thing you can do is to decide how you will respond. I constantly harp on that you have always have a choice in life. You have a choice to respond to situations positively or negatively.There are things you can and can’t control and my computer failing is something I couldn’t control. What I can control is finding a way to put out content and deliver my promise of weekly self-help material that is focused on helping you and me at the same time.I strongly believe that how we respond to adversity is a true test of our character. This is something my college football coach would preach to us all the time.I am a man of character and I choose to overcome this adversity.Sure I could throw a pity party and tell you that you will not be getting content for the second week in a row. I feel most of you will understand and maybe even feel sorry for me as well.Well don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t want your pity. I want your encouragement and feedback so I can continue to grow stronger as a creative individual.I want to be great and to be great you can’t get caught up in the things you can’t control. You can't make excuses.As you respond to adversity, you need to use it as a learning experience and figure out how you can avoid possible issues in the future.
2. Learn, Prepare and Plan Ahead
My computer crashing is a massive obstacle that I did not plan for. I felt totally helpless and was mad at myself and the situation. It took me a good hour to realize I had no control and that I needed to make a plan.Now that I’m responding to the situation and working through it, how can I learn from it and prepare for future obstacles?The main thing I’ve learned is to work ahead.
Approaching my process of writing and drawing content has been a week to week ordeal. I have ideas in the queue but never completed work in case of a disaster like this. I’ve been failing to plan ahead and setting myself up for disasters.Using this approach is like living off your pay check week to week with no savings. Living off a paycheck to paycheck basis will get you by until a disaster strikes.Say your car breaks down and you have no backup emergency fund to get you out of a jam? You’re pretty much screwed and lose control of your situation. You’re probably responding to adversity with a negative perspective and throwing a pity party.Well I haven’t worked ahead and should have had several blogs and images scheduled to post in case of an emergency such as my computer failing. I never thought I would have this problem and felt my process was near perfect.I’m new to this and now realize I’m far from perfect and my system is severely flawed.
I need to prepare and plan ahead.
This is easier said than done and I need to give myself an extra dose of my own medicine. Things that I preach to myself and my audience that I really need to focus on are:
creating even more time in my schedule
prioritizing what’s most important
analyzing and refining my process
writing everyday
scheduling blocks of time to work ahead
sacrificing the things that are holding me back
backup and save my future content in shared or external drives
These are the keys to preparing and planning ahead as I continue my journey.
Pushing Forward
This post is a wakeup call to myself and hopefully my failure will inspire you to prepare for similar issues and work ahead.
Key Takeaways:
You will experience hardships
By failing to prepare you’re preparing to fail
We have a choice on how we respond to adversity
How we respond is a true test of our character
Stop making excuses and deal with it
You must learn from your failures
Preparing and planning ahead is crucial
Do you want to be like me and have your world turned upside down because you weren’t prepared?
I know you don’t and that’s why this week’s homework is directed at me. I challenge myself to prepare for possible disasters and to work ahead with my content. Whether it’s 1- 3 weeks of content scheduled out, I can’t keep doing the same routine.I can’t live life on a paycheck to paycheck basis so why would I approach my business the same way?
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