You can be as positive as you want, there comes a time in your life when things go wrong. Nothing unusual really, it’s just part of life.
In my case, technology and I have been having somewhat complicated relationship in the past few weeks, with notably the crash of one of my websites and an inordinate amount of customer service motioning to try to get it back online.
It’s finally back although we’re still ironing out some folds. So yay to that!
In any case, the least I can say is the past few weeks have been challenging.
However I am a firm believer that in every crisis there is a silver lining so I wanted to share some insights I gleaned from things going haywire.
Here's what to do when everything goes wrong Click To Tweet
1. Fight the pull of negativity
As much as I know the value of meditation and visualization (staples of my life for yeeeears) I still stumble from time to time. Sometimes too much BS gets to you and you just want to moan.
Fact!
Even though I know what it does to my outcomes (it makes everything worse basically) it’s one of the hardest urge to resist.
You know how it is when things start to break down: you stay up late, you skip a couple of meal to save time to fix things, you forget to work out, you start to feel stressed and you exhaust yourself.
You’ve probably noticed that as this happens you start to get grumpy and less patient.
It’s a matter of vibration. Once you get below a certain point, it become really hard to see anything positive.
Welcome to the vicious-circle!
It takes a lot to stay focused on positivity when things break down.
Negativity has a magnetic pull that entrains you.
At this point the last thing you want to do is to sit and meditate and that’s exactly what you need to do the most.
And it’s going to take everything you have to do it.
But it’s worth it! It really fixes things. So do resist the pull of negativity and don’t skimp on those practices.
If you can’t manage it, at least find a way to refuel yourself: play some music, spend quality time with people you like, go swim, go ride your bike, find a way to shift the mood around.
It’ll give you energy and allow you to think more creatively.
Also it does have the effect of creating little magical breakthroughs.
I am lucky to have an amazing support system that helps to pull me out of the negative spiral quickly, but I know everybody is not that lucky. If you need a hand, I am here to help.
You have to learn to resist the pull of negativity Click To Tweet
2. Be prepared for all eventualities
My website host was hit by a massive backup failure and from what I could see they had to deal with a monstruous mess.
What made things worse for me however was that the crisis totally affected their communication ability and they were no longer able to provide adequate support to their customers following the failure.
All of the sudden, the first issue which was bad enough was compounded by their abysmal technical support at the time when their clients needed support the most.
Not a pretty combination.
Needless to say, as a client this was beyond frustrating.
But as a business owner, it was a valuable lesson.
-How would I hold up in such a dire situation?
-How would I keep providing quality support in case of a humongous crisis?
So far the answer looks like this: have systems for everything and create more contingency plans.
Sh*t happens, it’s part of life so be prepared for it.
You can never remove all risk but at least you can alleviate it.
You can never remove all risk but at least you can alleviate it.
On a broader scale this crisis has been a reminder to do a life audit and see where I needed to create more security.
With one site down for weeks it’s painfully clear that diversification is important. To some extent that already the case for me. But there’s room for improvement.
Concretely, what does that look like?
As much as I love location-independence maybe everything doesn’t need to be online?
Maybe it’s time to re-incorporate more traditional strategies?
3. Crisis = opportunity
I know the chinese character story is not accurate but there’s still some truth to this statement.
The multiple tech breakdowns forced me to put my head under the hood and reevaluate everything.
Because of them, I rediscovered old tools, I abandoned out-dated practices and I proceeded to make some really valuable upgrades.
Sometimes, breakdowns are a gift that forces you to get out of auto-pilot. They make you revisit your life so you can make powerful adjustments to get ready for your next level.
Ultimately, the best way to deal with breakdowns might be with gratitude.
Breakdowns are a gift that forces you to get out of auto-pilot. Click To TweetPin this post for later!
