Three Lessons for Turning Your Life Around After a Failure

I had to close my first practice.
After nearly a year of sacrifice to reinvent my life, I was shutting down. All that time given to studying -- time created by declining vacations (including one dive trip to the Caribbean), missing dinners and holidays with friends and family and getting up before 5A – felt wasted.
My goal was to build the most popular hypnotherapy practice in my town in Florida. I had written VERY specific goals; visualized a VERY specific outcome; invested time, money and energy into a VERY specific business and it was gone.
It wasn’t lack of business that led to the closing. It was a relocation. I was moving from Florida to California.
For the first few months in Los Angeles, I didn’t take my own advice. I’m wired to help other people, but help myself? Nah – What do I know?
A colleague of mine described this phenomenon pretty neatly. He said to me, “Working on your own stuff is like trying to shave your own back. You can probably get some of it, but you won’t see it all and will miss more than a few spots.”
I re-branded and opened a new practice in California.
The journey forward has been enlightening.
Here are three things that I’ve learned from this transition.

1.    It’s good to have specific goals, but you also need to be flexible.
In my desire to build a specific business, I branded myself to a certain location. I could see my future so clearly; the plan was all worked out in my mind. I wasn’t going to ever move, so why not use a name that positions me as a provider to an entire region?
Smart, right?
Uh, not so much in my case.
I ignored suggestions from those who went before me. They told me to use my name instead of a regional designation.
But I didn’t listen.
Unfortunately, the initials SWFL don’t resonate well in SoCal.
I had to look at my real goal. What did I really want?
I wanted to have a successful practice. It really did not have to be constrained to one location. It could exist anywhere.
I accepted my lesson and this time, I named my company after me.
Now, if I ever need to relocate again, I can take myself with me wherever I go.

Takeaway: Plan for the unexpected. Create your own flexibility by vetting your ideas and being open to feedback.

2.    Once it’s over, let it go.
I let my sense of frustration… no, it was more than that… it was a sense of failure… get in my way.
I let anger take over.
I resented closing that business; I resented California rents and California taxation; I resented moving 3,000 miles and giving up all of my network of friends and family.
Most of all, I resented me.
Instead of taking this tabula rasa opportunity to once again reinvent myself and my practice, I was just wallowing in self-pity.
One day, I had a harsh gut-check and knew that I had to get out of my funk and start moving forward again.
Since then, opportunities have appeared that would have remained invisible if I had not taken responsibility for myself, gotten off my ass and started walking forward.
Is this a hard step?
From personal experience, yes, it can be.
Also from personal experience, I know that we make our path as difficult or as easy as we think it should be. Our personal sense of worth determines our outlook.

Takeaway:  Get over it. Let it go and start moving. Small, consistent steps are as effective as big ones.

3.    Celebrate wins. Even small ones.
When you’re in a dark place, it’s difficult to see the good things. Read more on that here.
Once you have started moving forward, recognize your progress, even small steps.
This ritual will help you to more fully appreciate your motion and it will help crystalize your success in your awareness.
What kind of things should you celebrate? Well, that’s really up to you, but here are some ideas:
If you are becoming a non-smoker and had one less cigarette today than yesterday, that’s a win. You don’t need to go cold turkey.
If you are losing weight and saw a one pound loss instead of the two or three pounds that you were hoping for, congratulations, you are now one pound closer to your goal.
Find and define your own successes.
Takeaway: Stop beating yourself up. Start appreciating all the things you do right.
We all recover from perceived failures. We do it when we’re ready… but why wait? Why put yourself through a hell of your own creation?
If you want some help with reframing your situation, I’m here to help. Hypnotherapy is an incredible tool for unleashing the power of our subconscious mind.
You know my name. You can reach me here.