Stay Strong While Struggling

In the past I’ve shared several stories about my personal struggle, and a few of the things I’ve learned from those struggles.

What’s important as you continue your professional life is to stay strong no matter what!

Stay Strong doesn’t mean you can’t be personal, or that you can’t break down, or that you can’t deal with the situation. Stay Strong means that you stand still while going through the rough situations.

My insights for this came through the experience of the resilient canvas that we created during the COVID pandemic. I learned that resiliency comes in four blocks, which I have discussed in many blog posts, in our podcast. In our Resident Entrepreneur Program we walk through the canvas over 14 weeks.

Today I want to highlight one of the sub-sections under Self-Awareness — we call it “ME” (but we mean YOU) — to help you understand that it’s OK to freak out when things are bad. But it’s not OK to stay freaked out for any length of time.

Once you’re done freaking out, think about actions you could take to minimize the freakout cycle. If you are upset because something happened to your work, or at work, you can move to considering what actions you can take to minimize the negative situation.

Here’s an example:

A competitor comes into the market and takes over your current customers.

It’s OK to freak out because you’re losing business, but it’s not OK to stay freaked out because that won’t help you in any way, and you can’t control it.

Instead, think about what you can do to minimize what just happened. Maybe it’s your product, your services, your pricing, your packaging, your customers, your location, there are so many factors you could review.

Then start looking at actions you could take to make adjustments to attract new customers or markets, offer new products or services, hire new staff, or whatever the scenario might be.

You have to move from Freak Out to ACTION!

The easiest way to do that is to concentrate on what you CAN control.

As you Stay Strong, I say it’s OK to Freak Out — and it’s OK to move to actions. Because actions will allow you to start seeing the light at the end of the new tunnel!

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. What can you do to Stay Strong while struggling — whether personally or professionally?

2. What can you do to move, right away, from the freakout stage to action stage?

3. What other tools have you used to Stay Strong and stay professional?

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Faris Alami is Founder and CEO of International Strategic Management, Inc. (ISM). He works internationally, presenting Exploring Entrepreneurship Workshops and other entrepreneurial ecosystem — related ventures.