Setbacks Are a Gift

When trials or setbacks hit, it is easy to doubt your choices.  Everything from relationships to career paths are cast in to doubt when trials or crises hit. 
 
However, without the least bit of naiveté, trials and setbacks are gifts.  Here is why.  Trials and setbacks are gifts because they help you…
 
Discover Misconceptions.
Discover Realities.
Discover Commitment.
 
Discover Misconceptions:  Let’s say you experience a setback with your career.  Staffing is harder than you thought.  Government regulations are eating away at your profits.  What a gift.  Operating as if staffing would be easier or that the government wasn’t going to get in the way, just held you back.  Being ignorant of these realities kept you from being effective.  And of course, once you clear out the misconceptions, you…
 
Discover Realties:  Using the prior illustrations, now you know how hard staffing is and can take action.  Maybe you need a more rigorous interview process.  Maybe you need to hire a consultant or work through an agency.  Maybe you need to change your pay structure or create an incentivized bonus system.  Either way, your trials showed you your misconceptions and now you are working on realties.  Understanding that, you can now….
 
Discover Commitment:  Are you ready to tackle your career with the new realties you’ve discovered?  Do you or your business model have what it takes?  Now, you can discover your level of commitment to what you are doing.  Now, you can make real progress because you have cleared out all the misconceptions.
 
All of this is true for relationships as well.  Trials show you where you have misconceptions about the other person.  You now can deal with reality, and you’ll know your level of commitment.
 
So, take this time of trials to do the hard work of self-assessment.  Enlist a mentor or a trusted friend who speak truth into your life.  But one takeaway, just don’t waste this trial or setback.  There are too many good things that you can learn from them.
 
Hopefully, these tips have been helpful.  If you want to go a step further in mapping out your career/personal goals, ProSight created a planner that enables you to do this each day.
 
The planner works like this.  It breaks each day into 3-hour segments to help you fuel up and power down.  But even better, it helps you figure out how to approach each part of your day. 
 
Pick up a Streamlining Planner, and transform your day.
 
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Gordon Duncan is the CEO/Consultant of ProSight Success.  He has worked in the eye care industry for nearly 20 years.  He has consulted in the medical field, manufacturing, accounting, and many other disciplines.  You can contact him at gordon@jgordonduncan.com
 
ProSight offers a host of resources for the optometric and small business field.  You can find front desk training at our Front Desk Academy.  Additional resources can be found below:
 
Digital ProSight Success System
Paperback ProSight Success System
 
And our best value:  the ProSight Success Workbook that includes a digital copy and a free hour of consulting.
 

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