Are you going to be nervous in the downturn, or nervy?
It is much easier to lose your nerve than it is to regain it, so better not to lose it in the first place. I have lost my nerve before and made decisions I regretted for a long time after they were made. Acting out of fear leads to poor decision making and a lack of leverage that, in turn, leads to unfavorable outcomes. That is why you must maintain your nerve and focus on the actions you need to take to create positive change, rather than allowing yourself to be overtaken by fear. Fear is one of those emotions that grows to fill the space.
When this downturn began, I had a client that wanted to extend our contract at half the previous rate in order to cut costs. Without any other projects in hand it would have been very easy to take their offer and hope that something better would come along. It’s much harder to walk away from guaranteed income and focus on winning new clients during the biggest downturn in a generation, but I did. The outcome?
Not losing my nerve, refusing this offer, and fully dedicating myself to revitalizing my business has led to the signing of two new clients outside the United States, the signing of a top literary agent to represent my book project (and very soon a book deal), and to Blogging Innovation expanding to become the leading innovation blog on the web with more than 15 contributing authors and upwards of 200,000 monthly page views.
So before you lose your nerve and start asking yourself all those questions about what could go wrong, focus instead on asking yourself about the actions you could take now to make sure that things go right.
Are you going to be nervous in the downturn, or nervy? If you act fearful, your clients will be afraid to do business with you, but if you’re confident that you will do great things, then your clients will want to do great things with you.
This article originally appeared on Find Your Nerve
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