Anyone can have a moment when despite your best efforts things are not working out. the current podcast episode provides Four tips to right yourself during those moments of disappointment.
You’ve reached a place at some point when it seems that despite your best efforts, things are simply not going as you had hoped. Anyone trying something new will tell you there will be moments when you question everything you previously told yourself seemed right and true.
Some attempt to deny and others become discouraged, both of which are ineffective at best and often self-defeating. Denying means you continue in the same direction which works out to going in circles. Becoming discouraged means you stop altogether and admit defeat. These two are polar opposites but result in the same dead end of not getting you where you want to be.
The following are a few steps to take when you find yourself at the end of the road…
Take a step back
It helps to take a step back either through a few hours of reflection or even better a weekend or day trip that gets your mind off the situation at hand. For those who might think you’re walking away from analyzing the situation, this maneuver is far from that. Your mind will continue to work on the problem, just in the background where it has time to consult all your stored information to provide a solution. True, our natural impulse is to push through and keep going but mentally this actually creates a bottleneck where so much information is coming in you don’t not have time to process it all. The unintended result is that your mind spends most of its time trying to store rather than analyze. Small periods of stepping away and focusing on something else allows your mind to catch-up which provides breathing room to begin to analyze the information that may provide a solution.
Look for unintended benefits
Not seeing the forest for the trees is a good example of how we work ourselves into a trap. I’m reminded that the original focus of air travel was not the transport of people but mail. Charles Lindbergh originally wanted to prove the point that 
continental flight was possible for swift transport of mail. Rather than sticking strictly with air mail he single-handedly helped others see that the airplane was an instrument for transport, mail or otherwise. And thus began the airline industry.
In that same vein, take a moment and ask yourself if there are other applications you hadn’t anticipated that can spring from the thing that did not work out. Or better yet, what is the message that is being sent to you when you keep arriving at a certain destination. Break it down to the most elemental point and then ask yourself how it can be expanded in your favor.
Develop a very thick skin
Recognize that most people do not have vision and that you have to work to help others see what you see. Just because one person, or a group of people for that matter, have told you it can’t be done, does not fit with their plans, or is simply too “out there” for them does not mean what you are trying to do can’t work for them. They just might not see it in the terms you’ve provide. One method to accomplish this is an old sales technique. Often we describe something and think the person on the receiving end has made the mental leap to understand the significance of what you’re describing. Most times they don’t. So for every feature you give, explain how it will help them accomplish a goal or task. Help them see the benefit to them! By doing this you provide the imagination most people lack and increase the chance they will understand the true significance of what you are proposing.
Be persistent to try and keep trying
Along with that thick skin should also come a desire to try and keep trying. Go read the Tipping Point. The most important point from the book is that an ongoing assault can develop critical mass, but it will take time. Do what you have to do in the meantime to survive, but keep pushing your idea over, under, and around the roadblocks that inevitably appear. Recognize that there will be times when you are at your lowest point, build those in, so when they arrive you know them. This is where stepping back helps to give you the courage to get back up and keep going. I firmly believe in visualization as a tool to keep you focused on where you hope to go, but more importantly, you have to keep traveling your road in order to get to the there you’ve imagined.