Feel the Fear but most of all Persist

?One of the single biggest reasons why some entrepreneurs succeed and others fail is their ability to persist. You will need to persist through many things if you want to be successful in business. Such things include fear, failure, disappointments and challenges from clients, suppliers and employees. Persistent people usually view these as opportunities to learn, grow and do things differently. They reflect on what learning lesson they can take from their challenge or disappointment and more importantly they decide to do something differently next time to get a better result. There is no better cure for fear than persisting with taking continuous action, small simple action steps every single day.? Actions steps like those descried in previous chapters.?

Six years into my business everything changed and Ireland went through the worst recession in its history, something that was documented globally. With the Irish State almost bankrupt organisations turned their attention towards spending only on the essentials and in many organisations Proactive Health Strategy wasn’t one of them.?

Suddenly Health Screening Programs, Heart Screening Programs and Health Promotion Activities were discontinued overnight as they were seen as an “unnecessary spend”, particularly as many organisations were making so many people redundant and downsizing. These activities represented approximately 70% of my product offering at that time and therefore a significant proportion of both my revenue and profit.? In Ireland it is estimated that 1 in 5 businesses went out of business in the recession.?

Determined not to be one of the causalities of the recession after 6 years hard work I went back to my original business plan to look at what I could do differently, what other services I could offer and how I could use clients’ current needs to offer services that met them.?

I realised that Occupational Health, obligations under Statutory Health and Safety legislation were now pivotal to an organisation’s survival, as well as to my own and so I offered more of these services. I expanded my team of Occupational Health Nurses and I networked in more networks where there would be Human Resource Personnel and Environmental Health & Safety Personnel, the buyers of this service. For specific training courses that would back up many of the requirements in this area that I or my team was not qualified to deliver, I built up a team of associate trainers who worked under my company’s brand. I did compliance review meetings with all clients with the purpose of ensuring they had all statutory obligations covered, whilst helping me retain business and generate further business and therefore further revenue. For employees who went on a 12 month contract and retainer, I offered them some additional incentives. This was greeted by them in a very positive way and I ensured that I had a continuous revenue stream over a 12 month period.?

One of my competitors approached me in 2012 as their business had gone into decline and I acquired that business. My persistence and my discipline had paid off and it had ensured my survival and not only did I survive, I thrived!

I love to read motivational quotes, inspirational stories; these can be a great motivator for persistence. There is no shortage on the internet and social media of people who have succeeded against the odds simply because they didn’t give up or people who have had the courage to face their fear of failure even when it was happening and control it to find something better.?

Breaking Down the Beliefs that Will Limit You

We have talked earlier in this chapter about how our early childhood programming can manifest in inappropriate responses we have to the emotion of fear in adulthood. This same early childhood programming combined with our social environment is also what makes us limit ourselves in our own minds in adulthood as we create our experiences around the beliefs we believe to be true about ourselves. These beliefs may have come from parents, family, teachers, friends or colleagues. These limiting beliefs can take control over everything you do, every reaction you have and most of all every outcome you get. Unless you face your limiting beliefs and commit to taking action to address them and change them it is likely that it will take you much longer to achieve the success you want, not just in business but in your life in general.?

?An interesting thing to look at is the responses of children, they don’t see fear in the same way as adults do; they don’t limit what they want to do in the same way as adults might. Look at when a child is learning to walk, how many times they will fall before they know they are steady on their feet and able to walk but yet they will still keep getting up and trying again because they don’t see the fall as a limiting belief that they will never be able to walk.?

It is important to see your limiting beliefs as just that, a belief with no cold, hard or verifiable objective evidence to suggest that this is an absolute truth or fact. One of the best exercises I have ever done was at a seminar by Jack Canfield on The Success Principles in 2007 where he gave a very simple process to address and break down the beliefs that limit us. The purpose of the exercise was to turn limiting beliefs in to empowering ones and the template of the exercise is as follows:

1. My negative/limiting belief is --------------------------------------------------------------.
2. The way it limits me is -----------------------------------------------------------------------.
3. The way I want to be, act or feel is -------------------------------------------------------.
4. My turnaround statement that affirms or gives me permission to do this is

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.

Jack Canfield recommends that you read your turnaround statement every day for at least 30 days to implant the new empowering belief in your subconscious mind so that you can move forward.?

The above turn around statements are again another way in which you have to talk to yourself positively, you have to program your own mind. By doing this you will be able to turn limiting beliefs and statement around, e.g. I can’t will become I can (or at the very least I can if I try to), I won’t will become I will and so on. Be conscious too of the limiting words you use. A simple exercise is to replaces words like “can’t”, “should” “would” and “could” with words like “can” and “will”. For example, look at the two statements below, which one is limiting and which one is a positive aspiration?

“I would achieve my goals if I could give me time to it”

“I will achieve my goal and I can give time to it by focusing on what is important”