Do you recall the 2009 goals I tasked myself to complete for Squidkid.com? I wanted to seriously increase traffic, possibly start a second blog, and completely restructure my swimming business. Here is how I did:
- Came about 5,000 under in hits. I tasked myself to achieve 45,000 hits in one year for a total of 60,000 hits here on Squidkid.com. I thought this was a ridiculous amount, so I feel great getting just under 40,000.
- I didn’t start a second blog. I did, however, take a demanding 6-week online book writing class where I completed an entire book draft to find out if my topic in question was the right new venture for me. I decided that it wasn’t which is the norm: 7 out of 10 entrepreneurs drop their idea upon serious research.
- I completely restructured my swim business. But I took an estimated 20% loss on total net income due to uncontrollable circumstances. Swimming is a temperature-contingent activity, after all, and at mercy to the weather which didn’t clear up until mid-June.
Boy, sure sounds like I didn’t do too well, doesn’t it? Quite the contrary. I learned a couple great lessons this past year. For example, singular successes matter. We’re always pluralizing our goals. We want to work out more, cook more or write more. This past year I completed a 200-mile foot race and got one swim piece published in Parenting Magazine. Two pretty big items. One can be bigger than two. It’s sometimes called the shotgun approach: aim carefully and pull the trigger when you’re sure you won’t miss. Beats spraying bullets everywhere.
Also, by planning for failure, I came ahead. I knew when I started booking my home private swim lessons I was without the usual safety net a third-party pool gives me (ie. enforcing a policy where I get paid even if the client cancels). I decided I didn’t want to put that expectation on people, so I planned to loose 20% of my business due to cancellations, which I did. I planned for losses but still made more money working less.
Finally, I didn’t waist my time doing something I wasn’t 100% into. I love the topic of personal finance. I’ve been possessed with some powerful ambitions to start a blog or write a book about it, so I took myself seriously and signed up for a class with a seasoned and published author who would knock me and my idea around to see if I would still hang on. What I learned is that I’m not ready to go big until I can handle small. So I picked up a personal finance client, Creditopia.com, and am getting my fix, experience and paycheck writing about financial topics on a regular basis (the pay part would have been much harder to eradicate from running a blog or selling a book).
Failure is an important word and I’m not scared to use it. We tend to look down on its usage or substitute the term for something less harsh in this society. I think if you don’t acknowledge your failures, you’re missing a huge part of how to figure out who you are and what you should be doing in life. How has failure shaped you?
