How to Break a Slump

If you have been in business for any time at all, you have experienced the “slump” – that dreadful place where momentum seems elusive and confidence and power feel like distant memories. We can have slumps in sales, in creativity; in leadership effectiveness... pretty much any aspect of business has slumps. So what do you do? Allow me to offer three simple

steps.

The first step is to grieve. Now that may sound a bit dramatic, but go with me for a second. When you are experiencing a slump you are experiencing a loss of something otherwise very familiar. If you allow yourself to grieve, then you can open the door to a new beginning, a fresh start. Without grieving – saying good bye to the old experiences, you will undoubtedly try to hold on to the “the way things used to be” and end up sustaining your frustration. Put a time limit on your grieving – then move on.

Next, decide to use this moment as a catalyst for new actions and new thinking. The key word is “new”. If you insist on using the moment to galvanize yourself to history – bear down and try to re-start what already isn’t working... again you are headed for frustration and a deep, longer slump.

A slump is a cue for new thinking.

Finally, begin to deliberately and methodically reinvent your brand, your environment and your habits and rituals. Your brand as a business and/or your personal brand in how you are known in your marketplace

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can be reconstructed and revitalized. Look at the way you are seen by others and freshen up or even do a makeover.

Reinvent you environment – move the furniture, paint the wall, reorganize your desk, clean out a closet, detail your car…make your environment feel fresh. And finally examine and change up your habits and rituals that might contribute to productivity, creativity or clarity. Look at changing what time you get up, how much you read, when you exercise, what you do before or after a long day, the rain dance you do – or don’t do – before you make a sales call. It’s all free game.

Slumps are not uncontrollable, self sustaining or ambiguous. Recognize it, grieve it, use it catalyze you and then reinvent your brand, your environment and your habits…and you’ll be flying in no time.

Coach Steve Dailey AchievementBridge – We Coach You Win © 2013, Steve@AchievementBridge.com Steve Dailey is a speaker, author, advocate and coach for people 45 and older embracing the second half of life as the Better Half. Helping hundreds of small business owners for over 20 years achieve new levels of vision, confidence and success in their business goals has taught him that those most equipped to make a difference in the world around them

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are those that have endured the challenges and obstacles of life through their first 40-50 years. His battle cry challenges - "If not for the second half, what was the first half for?!" www.AchievementBridge.com

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