How Not To Suck (In Business)

It’s the second post in the Business Awesomeification series! Yay!

You can’t Not Suck all the time

I want to start out by saying that this week, I was AWESOME. And this week, I also COMPLETELY SUCKED. It’s true.

One of the hardest things I’ve learned about myself, through the crucible of being-in-business, is that I can’t actually Not Suck consistently. I can try my hardest: making better systems, answering all my emails, hitting my deadlines, and greeting the day with a smile.

But what often happens is this:

• I get brain-block when I’m trying to understand my own behavior in order to make the system that should help me do it better (whatever IT happens to be)
• I get overwhelmed with my emails and stop being able to answer at least the most important ones
• I trip over and smash into my deadlines, then scramble to pick up the pieces and apologize to my clients, while at the same time trying to fix the problem I made by giving a ridiculous deadline in the first place
• I wake up stressed out or grouchy or dismal, with a sore back because I didn’t even relax while I was sleeping

It’s incredibly heartbreaking when you realize that you can’t actually be awesome ALL THE TIME. Even when the Suck is rare, and even when you know you’re kickass good at your work and that you do try your best, you will still feel like The Biggest Failure Ever when you trip and fall.

And not just when you trip and fall the first time – you’ll still feel that way all the times after that, but hopefully you’ve figured a way to deal with the emotions so that you can fix the Suck as soon as you can.

But I WANT to Be Awesome all the time!

I’ll let you in on a secret: you can’t be awesome all the time.

In fact, none of the people you admire are awesome all the time. None of the best geniuses in the world are (or were) awesome all the time.

The mathematician who discovered that Euclidean geometry doesn’t actually describe real-world problems, and laid the foundation for Einstein to formulate his Theory of Relativity – he died early of consumption because (among other things) he was totally unable to take care of himself. His math skills were awesome. His life skills sucked.

My own business skills failed me this week, and I let a client down, in all the ways I NEVER let my clients down. I’m an awesome designer, and I love people, but in this case, I sucked.

Learn how to embrace Sucking as a learning experience, and then avoid it as much as possible

Armed with the knowledge that you will, in fact, Suck - and probably Suck Hard – at least once in your business, should lead you to be a little less hard on yourself when it happens.

You probably won’t be less hard on yourself, but at least you’ve thought about it first, and that does actually matter.

And don’t forget, either, that Sucking is a really good learning experience. Not only are you realizing (or remembering) what not to do, you are also creating the way that you deal with problems. Because there will always be problems. Things will never be perfect, and something will always go wrong just exactly when you wish it wouldn’t.

Sometimes it won’t be your fault, but you need to fix it anyway. Sometimes it will be your fault, and you need to take responsibility and make it right.

Everyone fails, but the difference between you and everyone else is that you’re going to build on your failure. You’re not going to let it wreck your ability to be awesome.

(That’s why I like you so much.)