Those of you that know me life know that has been sending a fairly substantial wicker basket of lemons my way and it’s really got me thinking.  Have you heard the saying about “When life throws you lemons make lemonade?” Is that really the best approach? When that happens in business, should you be reaching for the juicer?

I’ve spent far too much time in the doctor’s surgery recently and the amount of conversations I’ve overheard where to put things simply the conversations go something like this;

“How are you then Sue?”

“The cancer has spread and the leg has got to come off above the knee now”

“I’m so sorry to hear that Sue, that’s awful, so how are you and hubby coping?”

“Not really, the house will have to go, and that cruise we were planning won’t happen, but hey you mustn’t complain – worse things happen at sea right?”

Sorry, why shouldn’t we complain?

Why can’t you say “god this is crap, this is getting me down.”

Bear with me here there is a point to my ranting for all you lovely business women out there.

While I genuinely appreciate the benefits of seeing the bright side, sometimes the negatives being thrown at you outweigh the positives by a 10 ton truck load. I had a business friend who lost 3 members of her family in a short period of time, had a serious health scare, her husband lost his job and she was wondering why her business was suffering?

The fact is we have been so bamboozled by the need to be positive and the constant barrage of happy, positive messages with sunsets or moon rises plastered across social media, that we fear we will get hunted down and disowned if we so much as suggest that things are going very much awry.

Ask yourself this – if things are really THAT bad, is it a good idea to get up every day and not acknowledge how tough things have become?

Yes you need to have a positive mind set.

Yes you need to set small achievable goals.

Yes you need to accept that there are things that make your big dream goals unrealistic right now, but hang on to them and be determined that you WILL achieve them.

But ask yourself this, if your best mate told you how tough their life was, would you tell them to bottle it up and keep aiming for the stars? What would you say and do for them?

A good moan with a good friend, or a business colleague that is part of your inner mentoring group of trusted people you know are as intent on success as you, and want to help you achieve it, is a great way of airing what’s going on. And in doing so, it stops everything that is happening to you from overloading your brain and stopping you from progressing. It stops the midnight staring at the ceiling, the inability to see the solutions, and it stops you from feeling alone.

Business woman’s success relies on many things – so the next time Lemons are being thrown at you so damn fast you could make lemonade for MacDonald’s – you are perfectly in your rights to throw a few back – your success will love you for it!