In business, some days rock while others are awful.

The good days are blessed with momentum, the ideas flow and you push past obstacles with ease. What’s more, it’s easy to get enough done to achieve (and invoice) your target hourly rate.

But on the tougher, darker days the resistance is uncomfortable. You can get stuck and things go wrong. Your productivity can plummet and the cash slips away.

It hurts.
 

How do you ride your roller coaster?

 
If you want to grow and develop a successful micro business you’ve got to learn to ride these waves.

In particular, you’ve got to manage your productivity when:

• Things go wrong
• You make mistakes
• You’ve lost your “brass” balls

 
During these times it can be very tempting to hide away – and in this zone your business is on red alert for stagnation.
 

If you’re not taking responsibility, you’re NOT in control.

 
If you’re really serious about making your business a success, you need to take 100% responsibility and ride the good with the bad.

You must take credit when things are up, but also stand firm when the fit hits the shan.

This simple act of taking responsibility of EVERYTHING separates the high achievers from the business wannabees.

So if you deal with the dark days by blaming others for your failures and creating external excuses to get yourself off the hook, your business will never achieve the success you desire.
 

Responsibility is a powerful thing

 
Taking 100% responsibility brings your business firmly back under your control.

It forces you to stop blaming someone or something else and instead makes you to look at what decisions or actions you’ve taken. With 100% responsibility you’ll look at problems, issues and failures differently. You’ll learn from your experiences, uncover new solutions and grow in confidence.

It’s also the only way to ensure the stuff you want to create for your business (and your personal life) happens.

So you see, taking responsibility is the only way to ensure your productivity and business results are firmly in your hands.

If you place responsibility elsewhere, you make your business susceptible to someone else’s whim.

What are you going to do?

It’s pretty much inevitable you’ll face failure and tricky times in your business. This is especially true if you’re planning to take risks, step into the dark and try stuff that’s outside of your comfort zone.

But it’s up to you to decide how setbacks will influence your productivity and the ability to make things happen in your business.

What do you think? Please tell me in the comments below.
 

A final word from the amazing Zig Ziglar

 
And to close, I’d like to share some pertinent quotes from the amazing Zig Ziglar who sadly passed away last week. Zig Ziglar was an inspiration to me and his words sum up the essence of this post perfectly.

“Your business is never really good or bad ‘out there.’ Your business is either good or bad right between your own two ears.”

“If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.”

“When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.”

“Remember that failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.”

Quotes from: blog.hubspot.com