What I learned from my biggest business failure…
Goals are meant to serve you, not the other way around.
Our business coach, Jay Hidalgo, has had to remind Lance and me of this many a time because we can really get hyper-fixated on a goal and forget to check in along the way to determine if we still want it.
I recently heard Diania Merriam share this quote on the ChooseFI Media, INC podcast from Mark Manson (author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck):
✨ “Set goals. But treat them as experiments, not destiny. The point isn’t to achieve your goals. The point is to outgrow them.” ✨
Right before the pandemic hit, I got on a social media algorithm that made it very clear that I would be a complete idiot if I didn’t invest in a short-term rental.
A sure-fire way to make boatloads of passive income! Don’t leave money on the table! It’s impossible to fail! (And by the way, use our real estate company for your purchase.)
Long story short, it ruined our lives and cost us well over six figures and many sleepless nights before we finally offloaded it for a loss a couple of years later.
It took nearly two years from the time we started working with a real estate agent in Florida to actually getting an offer accepted.
During those two years:
▶️ Insurance costs skyrocketed in Florida due to many companies leaving the state due to high risk
▶️ Property costs skyrocketed all across the country during the pandemic
▶️ Mortgage rates also skyrocketed
▶️ We had our first baby
There were so many reasons that the original math no longer made sense by the time we closed on a condo.
But rather than stopping to ask if it still made sense, I HAD to accomplish this goal I set.
And it cost me a lot. Not just in money but in stress, tension in my marriage, and detracting from my first year of parenthood.
I learned a few lessons from the experience, but the biggest is that it’s okay to abandon a goal along the way if it doesn’t make sense anymore.
And that doesn’t make it a failure. The point of setting and journeying towards a goal is outgrowing the person you were when you set the goal in the first place.
That’s just as valuable as accomplishing the goal itself.