Best of CoBiz: Healing your business pain

Liz Wendling //August 28, 2013//

Best of CoBiz: Healing your business pain

Liz Wendling //August 28, 2013//

Believe it or not, pain can actually be a good thing and can be used to your benefit. Pain, if acknowledged, can propel you to take action. Pain can be a great mentor and motivator for you.  It can be a wonderful wake-up call.  It can be the driving force that propels you to have a desire to stop the bleeding in your business. Ask yourself are the pains mild, severe or life-threatening?

Many years ago, pain was the best motivator in my business. It was a better advisor than any speaker I’d ever heard.  A better guide than any coach I ever hired.  Pain picked me up and propelled me out of my business distress. I realized that if I wanted less pain, I had to seek out the right remedy. I made a conscious choice to trade in the daily aches and pains of my business for a future filled with success and abundance.  Pain got me to take notice of what was needed so I could do what was necessary.

I teach my clients to stop running from their business aches and pains and fully and deliberately experience the results of their pain. They need to feel agitated, frustrated, angry and jolted into taking action and some risk, so they don’t have to experience the same pain again and again.  I coach them to not deny, mask or mislabel the pain. Use the pain to reach for something more, something different.

Every company experiences pain. Growing pains, revenue pains, business development pains, financial and sales pains. Most companies choose to live with the daily aches despite the energy spent to ignore it. Whatever pain is present in your business right now, may serve as the fuel in your pursuit to heal it. Pain is personal and the level of tolerance is different for everyone.  How much it hurts and how long  you tolerate the pain is your choice.

If your business is suffering but you’re in denial, totally numb to it or mindlessly going through the motions, then you haven’t got much incentive to fix, heal or change the pain. Denial is costly and dangerous and the numbing side effects are deadly to a business. When the pain strikes, you must strike back with a dose of action and a shot of risk.

No risk, no reward. The act of admitting you’ve been in pain long enough and that it’s time to take action can be scary. It’s frightening to disrupt the sameness and risk the unknown. 

Pain gets your attention and moves you to take action. Use it to propel yourself out of the situation you’re in and get you to where you want to be. The business pain that burdens you now could be transformed into your best ally. It may be the very motivation you need to change your life and your income.

Does your business need a band-aid, a few stitches, a tourniquet or radical surgery to stop the pain? Remember, pain gets you to take notice of what is needed so you can do what is necessary.