It's Not a River in Egypt

I admit it. I've made some mistakes. Oh, sure, I talk
about all of the things that went right and that I did
pretty well with my home-based business, and that's true.
But I would be doing both of us a disservice if I were to
leave you with the impression that all is well in
"Home-based Business Land", that I live in a carefree
fairytale world of wealth and consumption, and that my bills
are all paid and will continue to be. No, it's not like
that at all. And it's only just recently that I identified
the problem. It can be summed-up in a single word: denial.

My business is centered around software that is dependent on
a technology that is slowly going away. I had a nice income
stream (customers pay an annual fee), but as my customers
drifted to new technologies my base of income eroded. I
could see it happening. For years I said "This gravy train
isn't going to last forever!" I chose to ignore it. Why?
Denial. Although I wasn't consciously aware of it, I took
the attitude, "I'll worry about it when it happens."
Suddenly the revenue is alarmingly low, and now I have to
deal with it. Had I dealt with it sooner, it would have
been much easier to fix.

A friend of mine recently went to New Zealand on a speaking
tour. She agreed to pay her own airfare and the organizer
('Peter') would pay for hotels and for her speaking
appearances, plus she would be able to sell her books and
tapes at the seminars. It was not until after she arrived
that Peter informed her that most of the seminars had been
cancelled. After she arrived! He knew that participation
was going to be low. He knew that they might have to
cancel. He didn't tell her, though, because he was in
complete denial.

Denial is what we do when we just can't face the truth. It
is very real, but it does nothing to fix the problem. Did
Peter's denial of the failure of his seminars change
anything? Did my denial of eroding revenue change anything?
YES! In both cases it made a bad situation worse.

Two things happen when you are in denial. First, you have
more anxiety because you haven't examined the situation
enough to know how bad it really is. No matter how bad it
is, it's easier to deal with if you know where you stand.
Second, there's a pretty good chance that delaying the
solution will make the problem worse, maybe even completely
unsolvable. By denying the problem, you may be passing up a
golden opportunity to fix it. Easily.

Do you have a situation that is too scary to deal with?
Deal with it anyway.

Do you have a situation that is too embarrassing to face?
Face it anyway.

Deal with it. Face it. Get it over with. You can't make
it worse; you'll only make it better. You'll feel better
too.