I had a curve ball thrown at me last week.
Something big. It has the potential to change the trajectory of my life.
Yeah, that big.
It’s supremely exhilarating. And not at all what I had planned on. At least not yet.
If it happens, it will require a lot of rethinking and recalibrating. A lot of “untying the laces”, as Stevie Nicks so eloquently sang years ago.
Most importantly, it would require me to get really comfortable with taking a different path than the one I’m on.
I’m actually totally okay with this. I’m one of the few people I know that isn’t scared of change.
What was interesting to me, in the midst of my excitement over the possibility of this change, was a feeling of having fallen off the course I had set for myself. Of not having finished something.
What an interestingly limiting thought. Which, of course, led me to another thought.
How often have we all done this? How many opportunities have we collectively missed because we didn’t allow ourselves to stop what we’re doing and start over with something new?
If you spent a lot of time, effort and money on a marketing campaign and it didn’t perform as well as you anticipated despite tweaks, what would you do?
If you hired a new employee with grand high hopes and his/her performance is sometimes brilliant and sometimes mediocre, what do you do?
If you signed a new property based on a unique feature that’s popular in the marketplace, but the owner refuses to fix anything that breaks, what do you do?
In all of these examples, you could leave easily things as they are and it would be just fine.
The marketing campaign would underperform, but it would still perform and probably gain you some new reservations. The new employee provides part-time brilliance, which is better than full-time mediocrity. And that property with the unique feature - well, you’ve just have to have your maintenance team nurse it along.
You can make it work.
But here’s the thing. You don’t have to.
You don’t have to accept good enough.
You can go back to the drawing board and start over.
Will it be a pain in the ass? Absolutely.
Will it take more time and effort? Yup.
Will it cost more money? Probably.
Is it worth it? Maybe. Maybe not.
It’s not for me to tell you whether it’s worth it for you. Not my place to say what you should do with a plan that didn’t quite pan out for you.
But I will tell you to ask yourself this, “Is good enough good enough?” Whatever the answer to that question is, is your answer.
Either way, it’s okay.
As for me, I welcome every new adventure life has in store, as long as it keeps me moving forward.
I’ll keep you posted.
Have a great week, y’all.