How to Turn Setbacks into Your Biggest Breakthroughs
There’s something so much more important than frameworks, strategies and tactics. You can read every business book, take every business course, study every successful business, but if you don’t understand what makes you unique, have clear positioning, and the confidence to keep moving forward when things get tricky… none of that other stuff matters.
What Happened in December
As many of you know, I’ve been running a Pinterest experiment publicly since August last year, sharing everything as it happens, what works, what doesn’t and all the learnings.
Then December arrived. The end of The Base Notes second cohort. One-to-one calls about the six-month programme. School productions and carol services. My diary filled completely and I loved every moment of supporting people directly.
But Pinterest? Well, it fell by the wayside.
My impressions dropped dramatically from over 26,000 down to around 8,000. Consistency disappeared. Here I had a choice: spiral into “I’ve failed” or find the learning!
The Reality About Priorities
Here’s what I want to be really clear about: we can’t always do everything we want in our businesses. There are always priorities to decide on, and we need complete clarity to make sure we’re making the right choices.
When push came to shove, supporting people directly mattered way more than Pinterest consistency. And that’s okay.
I learnt something staggering recently: only 10% of podcasts make it beyond 12 months. Just 10%. All those hours to learn, start, and launch and most stop right when the hardest period is over.
It’s never as easy as those courses promise. You can never grow a business passively. You have to find genuine enjoyment in what you’re doing, work through tough periods, and have sheer determination to overcome obstacles.
But when you find that enjoyment, when you believe in yourself and have a clear purpose, that’s when setbacks become solvable rather than defeating.
Three Things to Do When Things Feel Tricky
Whenever things become difficult and I’ve been in these situations countless times, there are three things I do to get back to where I need to be:
1. Look for the Learning, Not Just the Loss
It’s easy to spiral into negativity. To see only what you lost, the time, the momentum, the progress.
But there’s almost always something valuable hidden in those setbacks.
I now have firsthand experience of exactly what happens when you drop consistency on Pinterest. That’s incredibly valuable information, not just for me, but for everyone following the experiment.
I also learnt exactly where my priorities sit. That clarity is so important.
When something doesn’t go to plan, ask yourself: What is this teaching me? What do I now know that I didn’t before? How can this information help me make better decisions going forward?
2. Get Really Clear on What You Actually Need
Step back and get brutally clear about what you actually need to move forward.
Not what you think you should need. Not what works for someone else. What you specifically need.
For me, I realised I needed:
- A way to maintain consistency, even during busy months
- Someone who could handle the time-consuming design work (if it made budget sense)
- A person who understood aesthetics the way I do and I’d enjoy working with
Once I got clear on that, the solution became obvious. Bring in a brilliant graphic designer.
But your solution might be completely different. Maybe you need to simplify your offerings. Maybe you need to drop a platform entirely. Maybe you need better systems.
The point is: get clear on what you actually need, not what you think you’re supposed to do.
3. Turn Problems into Collaboration Opportunities
This is the one that really transformed the situation for me.
When I decided to bring in a designer, it stopped being about “I failed to keep up” and started being about “I get to work with someone incredible.”
Suddenly I’m not alone. I have someone to be excited with. Someone who brings skills I don’t have and can make this part of the business far better than I ever could.
That shift from isolation to collaboration changes everything.
Now, collaboration doesn’t always mean hiring someone. It might mean:
- Reaching out to someone in your field to problem-solve together
- Joining a community where people understand what you’re going through
- Having an accountability partner who checks in
- Simply talking through the problem with someone who gets it
You don’t have to figure everything out alone.
Why This Matters More Than Tactics
Yes, successful business owners understand tactics and strategies. But most importantly, they’re able to take a negative situation and turn it into something really positive.
It’s not about only sharing methods. It’s about deeply understanding yourself so you can make the best decisions and love what you do. It’s about surrounding yourself with people who just get it, who are there for you on those bumpy days.
That’s what separates people who build thriving creative businesses from people who stay stuck.
It’s not that successful people don’t have setbacks. It’s that they know how to turn those setbacks into something positive. Something that moves them forward again.
And I truly believe that’s a skill you can develop.
Moving Forward
If you’re having any days where things feel tricky right now, where something hasn’t gone to plan, where you feel like you’ve lost momentum or made a mistake, you can use these three things:
- Look for the learning, not just the loss
- Get really clear on what you actually need
- Turn problems into collaboration opportunities
This is the stuff that actually makes businesses successful. Not just knowing the tactics, but knowing how to move forward when things get messy.
That’s what I’m here to help you with. Through this podcast, the weekly newsletters, and the programmes you’re so welcome to join, we’re exploring this together. How to deeply understand yourself, make decisions from clarity, and surround yourself with people who get it.
Because when you’re building from what’s genuinely true for you, everything gets easier.
Comments +