I had one of those minor crises last week. The ones where you feel like giving up.

What immediately triggered it was getting a rejection email from a blogger to whom I’d sent a guest post. Now, this is only the third rejection I’ve had over almost 40 guest posts, which is a pretty good hit rate, but for a few reasons (which I’ll go into in a minute), it knocked my confidence and I seriously considered stopping the whole blog-to-build-a-business thing.

See, I’ve had times in the past where, in retrospect, I wished I’d stopped trying sooner at something I was never going to succeed at. So I always have the possibility in the back of my mind that I’m doing that again. Perseverance is a virtue – right up to the point where it becomes muleheadedness.

Obviously, I decided to keep going, but I learned a few things from reflecting on the experience. Here they are. If you read the headings, you’ll get a handy checklist for deciding whether to go on or stop.

photo credit: mattymatt

1. Am I doing any good?

I put this one first because that’s my ultimate goal. The reason I’m trying to build a business in personal development is that I love helping people to improve their lives, and I want to be able to do that more, while still keeping the option of sleeping inside and eating regularly. If I’m not helping anyone I should definitely stop.

It takes no effort at all to think back over emails, Facebook comments and blog comments I’ve received and conclude that yes, I am doing some good here. Importantly, I also don’t seem to be doing any harm, or at least if I am nobody is saying anything. That’s a good reason for perseverance.

2. What’s it costing me? Can I continue to afford that?

I spend a varying number of hours each week writing blog posts for my own two blogs, guest posting, tweaking my websites, creating ebooks and recordings and videos, seeing clients in the evenings, weekends and occasionally during the day, studying both business and personal development, going to professional conferences and doing all the other things one does to build up this kind of practice.

I spend money on marketing, training, web hosting, equipment and subscriptions. And my income from my day job is reduced because I work a 9-day fortnight in order to have more time to spend doing the things I just mentioned.

It’s hard sometimes to keep putting in those hours. And so far, I’m spending more than I’m making. But can I sustain it and persevere? Yes, I definitely can. It’s not feeling like a strain most of the time.

3. Am I personally getting a benefit?

Having already burnt out once while trying to become a helping professional, I’m well aware of the phenomenon where someone sets out to help others and sacrifices their own health and happiness as a result. Not going to do that. And what’s more, if I’m not getting anything out of it personally, ultimately it’s not going to be sustainable. Idealism only takes you so far.

So, what do I get out of what I do? Is there a reason there for perseverance? Well, the process of self-reflection that I go through when I’m writing posts (like this one that you’re reading right now) is immensely valuable to me. I’ve said a couple of times to people that even if nobody else ever benefited from my How Not to Change Your Life series over on my other blog, I’m learning a huge amount by writing it.

And working with clients who want to live a larger, freer life is a tremendous joy. It’s one of the best things I do.

It’s nice to get the feedback that I’m helping people, too.

4. What would be the cost of stopping?

The main reason I didn’t stop sooner when I was training to be a youth worker was that I felt I’d be letting people down – and also I didn’t want to be a person who gives up easily. Perseverence has always looked like a virtue to me.

Both of those feelings still apply to giving up now, which is disconcerting.

Plus, there’d be a lot of tidy-up work involved in shutting everything down, and it would be depressing work with no reward. Shun!

5. What’s the emotional context of wanting to give up?

As I mentioned, a few things were going on for me that are part of why a guest post rejection hit me so hard and made me question my perseverance.

Firstly, the post itself was one I’d spent several hours on, carefully optimising it – I thought – for that particular blog, which was one I especially wanted to post on again because of the great traffic I’d got from it last time. I presented a side of myself in the post that I usually don’t mention, too, so it felt vulnerable.

Turns out I optimised it too well, and the blogger didn’t want it because the topic was one she prefers to write on herself. Reading between the lines, I may have trodden on her toes, given that I was offering a different perspective on a favourite topic of hers.

And because it was so optimised for that blog in particular, I didn’t feel I could turn it straight around and resubmit it somewhere else, which is what I would usually do. So, a sense of wasted effort there.

At the same time, I’ve recently got over a cold that hung on for about three weeks, and that’s put me behind on my fitness goals, so I already had a “not making the progress I’d like” feeling lurking.

Add to that that my wife is unwell, which always makes me feel helpless, and I had three negative feelings – “wasted effort”, “not making progress” and “helpless” – which brought up all of the stuff I have attached to those feelings and threw me into a mental state where I was vividly aware of the courses that aren’t selling as well as I’d hoped, the fact that at a professional conference I was at recently everyone seemed to be getting more clients than me, and the general lack of overnight success that I’ve been experiencing lately despite several years of perseverance.

Because I know some good emotional management techniques, and because I’m aware of my own emotional context, I was able to separate those feelings out after a while and realise which part belonged to what, and how much of how I was feeling was actually unrelated to whether I should keep going with the blog or not.

The answer turned out to be “almost all of it”.

6. Am I seeing any success at all?

My site membership is growing steadily, and when I check my stats it seems like the members here are also spending time on the site and reading my material (which isn’t as automatic a thing as you might assume, and it’s an important sign of health). I do make occasional sales, and if I focused more on selling I would probably make more of them – based on a month where I did make that my focus.

It’s not like I’m shouting into an empty room. Perseverance is a lot easier when you are getting at least some response.

7. If I keep going at this level, is that OK, or do I have to make it big?

The worst case scenario here is that by persevering I continue to make steady, small progress, help a small number of people, and make a small amount of money.

That would be OK up to a point. I don’t have to be famous to be happy (actually, I think it would have a definite downside). At present levels, I’m able to continue at my day job (which just became more challenging, and not coincidentally more engaging, than it has been in a very long time), do personal development work that I care about on the side, and still give a reasonable amount of personal attention to emails, comments and so forth without running myself ragged. I think that’s important, and in fact I dislike the idea of reaching a level of success where I’m not accessible to everyone who wants to engage with me.

On the other hand, I’m putting in a lot of work relative to the results I’m seeing. I don’t know that I can keep that up indefinitely.

A few years ago, I gave myself until I was 45 to build a therapy business that I was getting a substantial portion of my income from. At the time, that was comfortably far off. It’s now less than a year away, and I’m either going to have to take it up a notch or else revise my goal. Maybe even both.

After the perseverance decision

So, what’s happened since I decided to persevere?

Well, two other guest posts came out and have got a great response. Membership to this site has grown by 50% in a few days. I’ve made a couple of small sales and got a new client, specifically from one of my websites. There have been several positive comments from people I respect.

All of this tells me I made the right decision. I’ll be sticking around. I hope you do too.

In fact, I’m thinking about creating a resource for you to help with perseverance and reaching your goals. It would be a combination of educational and motivational, and would likely include some audio and/or video from me on how to keep going until you reach your goals, a mix of automated and non-automated messages of encouragement, some inspirational quotes and a community support aspect (so it’s not just me cheering you on). There’d be an affordable monthly charge.

Interested? Comment or email me and say so. If I hear nothing, I’ll assume nobody wants it.

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