Digging Yourself Out Of A Hole

Time to get a bit blunt.

You can’t rely on anyone but yourself when things don’t go your way.  Sure, you’ve got your family and probably some really close friends that will step in to help you out in pinch, but in general, you are the master of your own destiny.

Sometimes the problems are quite small.  The last few months I’ve fallen a bit behind on some work in the Casual Marketer business.  There are a number of reasons for this, but the reality is that I just had too much to get done, I had too many things on the go and there were some really weird circumstances.  All that added up to falling a bit behind schedule and things that I wanted to do pushing out for a couple months.

My first reaction to stuff like this and the one I share with you in the daily emails on a somewhat regular basis is that occasionally you have to give yourself a bit of a break and cut yourself some slack.  Most of us know internally when we’re a buried in work that needs to be done, we don’t need to beat ourselves up over it as well.

On the other hand, you only have yourself to count on.  If you’re behind in your work, then you need to roll up your sleeves and dig in.  The work won’t do itself and the longer you leave it, the more that will uncertainly pile up behind it.

I could talk at length about the lost opportunity costs when you let your backlog of tasks get out of hand.  For example, I have been meaning to work on a number of courses that I want to sell on the Casual Marketer site.  Those courses have been held up because there have been a couple other initiatives that I’ve need to do first.  As a result, I know I’m leaving money on the table AND I’m curtailing the growth of the business as a whole.

The thing is, I don’t just “talk” about being a Casual Marketer and having a side hustle business that you run from the proverbial kitchen table, I’m doing it.  I have a very busy full-time job that keeps me busy for 8 – 10 hours per day.  Adding to the complexity, I don’t have one business that I run on the side, I have two or three (depends on how you look at it).

Bottom line, when I talk about this stuff, it’s not theory or some stuff that I read in an eBook from someone else, this is stuff from walking the walk.

So I totally relate to you and wherever you’re at – if you’ve started and are struggling to get traction, I’ve been there.  If you’re moving forward but are overwhelmed by the things you’ve got going on, I can honestly say that I’ve been there myself.  If you’re having great success in your side business and you want to keep driving that forward to see how big you can grow it… Me too!

That’s why when I tell you that sometimes when you’re up to your knees in crap that’s backed up, the best way to solve the problem is to get a shovel and dig yourself out.  The gurus will tell you to outsource and find other people to solve your problems, but the truth is, if you caused the mess, then the best thing to do is fix it yourself if you can.

This weekend, I’ve had to basically set aside the idea of rest and relaxation and hammer out 20 hours of work on the business across Saturday and Sunday.  And I’ve still not caught up – I’m probably going to have to do this for the next two or three weekends as well as working for a couple hours every night the week.

This is what I signed up for.  This is what you signed up for when you chose to do something hard and set up your own business, especially if it’s not your primary job.  If you’re thinking about taking on this challenge, then you know what you have in store for you in the days and months ahead.

But the thing is, while it’s tiring and sometimes it seems like the list of things to do is getting longer no matter how much effort you put it, it’s a very rewarding path.

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