As a small business owner, sometimes it’s hard to maintain self-confidence and self-belief. Especially if you’ve had a challenging week – maybe you worked with a client you didn’t like; or you made some mistakes; or something went wrong; or you got sick … we all have days, weeks or even months like that.
I came off my bike 18 months ago – chipped the bone and severely dislocated my shoulder. My right shoulder and yes I’m right-handed. The injury was so bad that I couldn’t work for 3 weeks. I couldn’t even type at all for two weeks and then it was left-handed only; I couldn’t drive for about 6 weeks and even then only short distances. I was taking so much pain relief every day for about 10 weeks … those were some tough days and weeks (and months for me). Unsurprisingly, my business faltered and stumbled a little. However I did not let this get me down. I used this “off” time productively to do lots of strategic thinking about my business and my clients. I came up with brand new ideas for my business – ideas that have been really successful.
How did I stay positive during that time? I firmly believe that we all have a choice when it comes to tough times or hardship. We can choose to get down about it and allow “it” to control us; or we can choose to use the experience and learn from it. Here are a few of my favourite quotes and sayings to help you keep going when the going gets tough or when it seems like a never-ending uphill battle:
-
Tough times never last, but tough people do. Robert H Schuller
-
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. Charles Darwin
-
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Scott Adams
-
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Edwin Land
-
There can be no stronger criticism than self-criticism and no harsher judge than ourselves. R. De Board
-
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it. W.C. Fields
-
Imperfect action will get you there so much faster than perfect inaction.
-
This too shall pass.
-
Sometimes there’s not a better way. Sometimes there’s only the hard way. Mary E. Pearson, The Fox Inheritance
-
Learning has to include an amount of failure, because failure is instructional in the process. Diana Laufenberg, How to learn from mistakes.
-
Let the experience refine you, not define you. Vivienne Smith, Single Mum’s Survival Guide
-
The only true failure is the person who fails to try.
What about you? What do you tell yourself when the tough gets going? Please leave a comment – I’d love to know which quote ‘speaks’ to you.
(OK and for those of you who are eagle-eyed, yes this is 12 not 10 quotes, but who’s counting when you’re with friends!)
Lovely one’s… I don’t remember who said it, but one of may favourites is “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”
yes I like that one too!
Your very own words spoke to me much. It is truly amazing to get to know how well and productively you used your so called “off” time. The quote that ‘speaks’ to me is the one of Robert H Schuller: Tough times never last, but tough people do. When the tough gets going, I tell myself that thank you Lord, you are with me; I am not alone, there is so much more to discover within me and around me.
that’s a fabulous quote, thanks for sharing