In Uncertain Times, Your Vision Will Get You Through
Every business has to manage with some level of uncertainty. But every now and then something happens that causes uncertainty to rise to the level of upheaval. Your world goes topsy-turvy, and you find yourself facing challenges you haven’t encountered before. The way to keep your bearings is to focus on the future and your long-range vision.
During times of great uncertainty, anxiety and stress can crank up the volume on that little voice of fear inside our heads, seeding our thoughts with worry and doubt, undermining our confidence. What if things don’t get better? What if you’ve made the wrong choices for your business? Do you have what it takes to get through this crisis?
The first thing you need to do is regain control over your thoughts and emotions. I recently spoke with top designer Garrison Hullinger for one of our Creative Genius Podcasts. Garrison went through an extremely challenging period in his life before transitioning from a stellar career in retail to interior design and growing a hugely successful design firm in a relatively short period of time. I asked Garrison what his thoughts were on coping with adversity. “You have to put fear in the corner where it belongs,” he told me, “and keep moving forward.” Great advice for these challenging times.
How do you keep moving forward? By continuing to work on realizing your vision for yourself and your firm. You cannot control all the external forces that may impact your business, and you can never know what challenges may come next. You can, however, control where you put your effort and how you choose to respond to challenges when they arise. Even if all you can do at the moment is make small improvements, maintaining a positive mindset and feeling confident that you are in control of your future will help you to move forward and get closer to your vision.
If you don’t see a way forward, perhaps you need a bigger vision for your business. It’s easy to get locked into doing things a certain way and expecting certain kinds of results, especially if that’s brought you success in the past. If that’s no longer working for you, take some time to reflect on what’s changed, how you can adapt to the change, and how you can make your business even better in the future. As Garrison said to me, don’t dwell on the problem, look for the solution. That solution will serve as the foundation for your new vision.
You can listen to the full conversation with Garrison from the Creative Genius Podcast page on our website.
