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The article below is dedicated to the person who backed me through everything and believed in me when others walked away.  By reading it I hope you discover a way to handle the feeling of loss you get when you miss a sale, a course, or any other way a business can make you feel bad or feel a loss. 

In the photo below is my Mum. I have taken her to my job interviews for General Manager jobs, rather than spend time away from her. If you have been with FASTER for a while, then you might have had dinner with her, some of you even stopped in her house. I employed her at my health club, which she loved working at, and the members loved her. When I flew international presenters in, such as Annette Lang, I would take them out to do cool stuff and bring her. 

Essentially I made it a thing to do all the things you shouldn't do with your Mum when you are running a business.  I look back on all of those things with pride and a smile. 

"You brought your Mum to an interview and you are 30!" my favourite interview feedback ever. This post is my way of helping you by sharing our journey, which would have made her smile because she lived to help and care for people.

Managing the feelings of loss in your business

Like any feeling, this is based on an emotion that is triggered by some reason. In this post, I want to share my personal experience with losses of all sizes and how it's okay to have the feels from this trigger.

This is topic is something close to my heart right now, as I have just lost a person who was more than close to me. Around all the triggers of memories, I was also reminded of what it was like to live a life where I did not deal with loss well. Although I just lost a person, the feeling is the same, the magnitude can be different when this happens in business.

In business, especially when you work for yourself, you will experience loss on a regular basis. Losing a client, missing a sale, leaving a gym, leaving an area, missing a course, missing a live day, missing credit for something you did, and just saying something that you think costs you status with a client, are all things that have caused me a feeling of loss.

At this point, it is important to remember that all feelings follow a process,

Trigger - Internal or External
Emotional Response - Physical, Chemical, Physiological response
Feeling - Interpreting the reason for the response
Action - The next thing you do because of the interpretation

The action will then reinforce or contradict the feeling, which can make you more or less aware of the triggers, and so the cycle will increase or decrease! So that is as clear as mud, but essentially when you interpret the emotional response and make an action, you control how the trigger will affect you.

Loss is correct when you have lost something, or someone, or the place that you were in. It is okay to feel like something is missing, it is okay for this to be enough to pause your day. The action though will help you to deal with triggers in the future.

For example, if you do a few great 1-1 promotional sessions and you think you are about to get another 3 clients, or maybe just 1 client, then no one signs up, then that feeling of loss can transfer into your next sales slot. It also means when someone enquires, if they go to say yes, you can find yourself asking them if they are sure about it or not.

I find that the best way to approach this feeling of loss, the ones that make you want to take actions such as questioning yourself and doubting yourself, often making yourself sad, is to follow these steps -

1 - Take the feeling on the chin, it's okay to feel stuff
2 - Make your action one of analytics, review why you have been triggered and what the feeling means, define the feeling
3 - Look at the big picture and then see if you need to tweak your long term plan
4 - Plan to make the changes
5 - Remind yourself that you cannot do anything right away apart from that, and then live in that moment.

My loss has been tempered by the advice I gave to the person I lost from the first day we had such bad news about her health. We decided together that she would enjoy each day as much as possible, whatever that meant, no excuses, no guilt. Then we did, which went from having meals, to just watching the telly together. Although we both knew the ultimate result, and what each deterioration in what a good day meant to her, this was not the focus and not important. Dealing in the minute with feelings and looking to feel the best possible, while keeping on the long term plan of lasting as long as possible, meant that when she eventually couldn't function any longer, we had not had 2 years of feeling sad to look back on, we had 2 years of her best life every day, without being crazy and off the hook.

I wanted to write this to try and help you, when you lose a client, you can only have a great day, do the work that helps in the long term and not worry.

The saying goes, cross that bridge when you get to it, sometimes I think I will cross that bridge when the water throws me over it as I am dragged through this lake! The reality is this,

Plan in advance
Have daily tasks OMF
Embrace loss
Analyse the situation and adjust if required
Carry on living the best day you can