How to decide whether to stick with your plans or cut your losses

In a profound losing streak that has since become legendary in the annals of stand out women billionaires, J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers before it was finally picked up.

Similarly, Sarah Blakely (Spanx founder, a.k.a.my personal lifesaver) was shunned by multiple manufacturers before finally finding someone willing to take a chance on her tummy-flattening, muffin-top smoothening butt corsets. Today she is a self-made billionaire.

Sometimes you’ll experience a losing streak at the beginning of a journey.

I hate to be indelicate, but it must be said: the early losing streak sucks.

Unfortunately you can also hit a losing streak after achieving blockbuster success.

In her recent book, Oprah Winfrey discusses how she felt ashamed, embarrassed and imposterish delivering the 2013 keynote address at Harvard on account of the severe financial struggles her eagerly anticipated network, OWN, was having at that time.

These types of ‘late season’ losing streaks also suck.

In these instances, you may be tempted to quit, give up or spend inordinate amounts of time pondering the following question.

“Do I suck?”

In general, I would advise the answer to that question is a hard No.

You certainly don’t suck.

But your plan, strategy or approach might.

That said, pragmatic women like us must have the wherewithal to decipher between when we’re simply playing through a losing streak and therefore must pull a J.K. Rowling and continue…

And when we need to stop throwing good effort after a bad plan.

This is where so many women entrepreneurs get mired in confusion, indecision and overwhelm.

You might lose yourself in books, blog articles, online courses or Instagram stories searching for The Right Answer.

Perhaps you make pro/con charts for quitting or persevering.

All of the above can be useful. But they are only predictively useful if you use them in concert with the right emotional compass.

And that compass is: Radical Conviction.

Radical Conviction is a term I coined that refers to an ultra high level of belief in and commitment to your entrepreneurial vision.

Simply put: self made women millionaires and billionaires have deep, radical conviction in their vision.

Think about it: confidence alone isn’t enough to help an entrepreneur play through a risky losing streak.

Confidence doesn’t quite have the juice you need to bring a vision you can’t see to reality in the real world.

And this act of creating something out of nothing, generating value where there was previously merely a whisper of an idea, is what women entrepreneurs do.

To accomplish this act of everyday magic making, you need an emotional resource much deeper than confidence.

You need radical conviction.

Radical conviction is the fuel that will power you through a prolonged losing streak…

Or give you the energy and vigour to re-jig your strategy, research and test alternate tactics until you finally DO hit the winning streak you’ve been waiting for.

So to answer the question of whether you should ditch your plans or persevere, I leave you with this…

Your propensity to succeed at the Big Stuff will always be directly proportional to the amount of Radical Conviction you are able to muster.

If you have a vision and you have radical conviction, you have the two most critical elements required in any business venture. Everything else can be figured out.

In June, I’ll be teaching a group of incredible women entrepreneurs how to build up radical conviction. It’s a free program, and I’m running it inside the Fierce Feminine Leadership Community of Practice.

Simply go here and request an invitation to the group if you’d like to join us.

Stay fierce,

Eleanor

 P. S. You truly CAN build radical conviction. Would love to show you how.