Have you ever felt the helpless frustration of not knowing what to do when a sweet, adorable bunny in recovery from losing a leg and dependent on you suddenly won’t eat?

The inevitable worries and stress start to take over:

“Well, he was eating EARLIER…”

“Wait. Did he eat earlier? I think so…”

“Crap. I’m not sure.”

And so on… until you hop over to google and see the 1,462 articles and the unhelpful AI summary…

So you just decide to call the shelter and get him checked out because you have no idea if this is an emergency, or even normal?!

That Stressed, Panicked Feeling Has a Reason

It’s happened to animal parents, human parents, and of course business owners too! 

It’s because you haven’t experienced a certain event before, and it feels scary af. When your entire business is experiencing change or change is happening often, then these feelings just keep compounding into overwhelm – and taking action feels so much harder. 

Sometimes things happen that haven’t happened before in your business, and you have to guess why. 

Sales suddenly drop

Employees are unhappy

Sales suddenly spike

There’s massive engagement with your post

Complaints are up

Retention nose dives

Attendance is WAY up

The Real Problem Isn’t Effort—It’s Uncertainty

Uncertainty is one of those stressors that hijacks our ability to take action – it feels risky. 

Research shows that loss aversion happens when we feel we have to make decisions under risk.

We stop playing to win, and we start playing to not lose – especially when we aren’t clear on why things are happening. 

What Changes When You Can Finally See What’s Happening

When unexpected things happen – you don’t have to keep playing the guess & wing it game. 

You can put your data to work to help you see why and give you more clarity. 

Here’s my process on how I help my clients when they aren’t sure why something is happening:

• Look for patterns. Has this happened in the past? Could it be seasonal?
• Look for change: Did something change? What are the potential levers that could have affected this? New marketing promo? New vendor? 
• Was there stability before, or has it always been pretty chaotic and this month is just an amplified version of normal?

The Benefits of Clarity

Here’s what happens when we start to look at the data to understand:

• The stress drops because we are able to see what’s really happening. 
• Owners can stop ruminating and focusing on “why” and start coming up with plan of attacks, priorities, and next steps with more information
• We are able to collaborate and keep an eye on change – and track how it’s going
• There’s clarity that informas decision making – and it changes the posture of owners and frees them up to focus on what to do next. 

If You Want Help Getting Clarity, Start Here

• Start asking questions and look at your reports or any data that can help inform you
• Did something change?
• Is there a pattern to this?
• You can decide that you don’t want to do this alone, and take a free data assessment to start putting your data to work