Blunt Talk Sessions
Episode One
Welcome to the first installment of the Blunt Talk Sessions. I had a whole post planned on something else (inverted nipples, if you must know) but then after a moment of self-doubt and a little bit of depression about something going on in my life, I decided to write instead about Failure, and how to deal with it. More importantly, when do we say to ourselves that something isn’t working, and when do we make the decision to stop trying so hard? When do we give up? How do we know when enough is enough, what we are doing is just not going to get the results we were after when we started? When do we accept failure? How do we move on from it, especially when we have invested a lot of time (and money – not even OUR money in some cases) into our endeavour?
We wanted it to work, but clearly it’s not going in the direction we wanted. Not even close. How long do we keep throwing our time and effort (and more money?) at the problem? Have we tried every avenue? Have we thought outside the box? We need to be honest with ourselves – not everything we do works. Not everything we want will happen. Sometimes the will/idea/passion behind it is not enough. We need to think about the whole idea, the big picture and truly think about whether this was “us” to begin with. Why did we start on this road? Why did we jump in? We hoped for the best, right? We wanted to be a success!
I wanted to be a success! I wanted to be proud of myself and I wanted my husband to be proud of me too. If I am honest with myself, I thought it would be easier. What could be easier than selling things online? I mean I understood that business is NOT easy, but what I meant was that I thought it would be SIMPLER. Convenient, stress-free, safe, comfortable – I thought it would be SO SIMPLE and that it would work like a charm and I could FINALLY contribute and not feel so reliant on my husband for everything. Yes, I know he says what’s his is mine and vice versa (and that’s totally true, believe me) but I wanted to ADD, not subtract. I wanted to heap on the pile, not burn it slowly from the middle. So to speak. I haven’t burned anything, promise. Except a candle.
Which smells really nice, by the way. And that’s the thing – the stuff should sell itself! It’s seems to work for everyone else. Just not for me for some reason. So far, anyway. I haven’t given up yet, but I am truly tired of seeing the enormous sales made by other members of my “team” while I just sit there at the bottom of the list with the SAME AMOUNT that I started with. So much as been invested. My time. Money. Patience. Social mechanics. I am not a Facebook fan and yet I bit the bullet and took the step to sign up for a business page, after nearly 2 years of being Facebook free. I am trying. I really am.
What got to me recently is that the people who want to support me can’t really, and the ones who I thought would get involved haven’t even bothered to take a look. Perhaps my friend G is right: I’m not made to sell other people’s sh*t. Perhaps I have a different path to follow, but I know I don’t want to give up just yet. I have a strong will and I am very proud and this is perhaps a dangerous combination when it comes to these things, but it means I won’t give up until I am absolutely sure I cannot make it work and things are bleak and going backward. As I work out what that point is, I will see how to recoup some of the losses and bring something to the table so that I don’t feel so low and useless.
I guess that’s how you deal with it – failure, that is. You make sure that YOU understand the reasons behind giving up. You make sure YOU are happy with the decision you have made and that you really did give it a good college try. So to speak. When it comes to failing, the only person whose opinion you need to worry about, is you. The only person who has the right to question you and knows how to push your buttons (and oh how we know how to make ourselves squirm, don’t we?) is you. But if you can honestly say that you DID do your best and that things just didn’t go the way you were hoping/expecting despite your BEST efforts – then suck it up, take a breath, have a think about how to make it better next time, and MOVE ON. The only thing we control is our own opinion of ourselves. Make it a good one. Be your own best friend.