5 Reasons You Should Challenge Yourself When Your Business Takes a Downturn

I’m starting over from scratch.

And strangely, I’m not scared.

I’m ready.

There was a time when a downturn in my business would have sent me into panic mode. I would have immediately started questioning everything. Was the business broken? Had I chosen the wrong niche? Was the platform no longer working? Had I missed some new trend? Should I create something completely different?

Now I see downturns differently.

Business has seasons. There are periods when everything seems to work. Sales come in. Content performs. People are buying. Opportunities appear everywhere. Then there are periods when things slow down and you suddenly wonder where everyone went.

That doesn't necessarily mean you've failed.

Sometimes, it simply means it's time to move.

Whenever I've experienced a downturn in my business, I've noticed that I tend to become more experimental. I go all in with something different. I might publish more content. I might write about a completely different angle. I might experiment with a new content format. I might start posting on a platform I haven't used seriously in months.

This time, I'm doing something much bigger.

I'm starting from scratch with a new digital product page. I'm creating and selling new products. And I'm challenging myself to write 10,000 words every day for 33 days.

Today is Day 1.

It's around 4pm as I'm writing this, and I'm almost finished.

And sitting here, in the middle of the challenge, I'm reminded of something I've learned repeatedly throughout my years of building online businesses:

Sometimes the best thing you can do when your business goes backwards is challenge yourself to move forwards.

Here are five reasons I believe every creator and business owner should deliberately challenge themselves, particularly when things take a downturn.

1. A Challenge Forces You to Stop Waiting for Things to Get Better

One of the easiest things to do when your business slows down is wait.

You wait for the algorithm to change.

You wait for customers to come back.

You wait for your traffic to increase.

You wait for inspiration.

You wait for the market to improve.

You tell yourself that once things return to normal, you'll get serious again.

But what if "normal" isn't coming back?

The internet changes constantly. Platforms change. Algorithms change. Consumer behaviour changes. Business models become outdated. Something that worked brilliantly three years ago can suddenly become much harder today.

Waiting for the old version of your business to return can keep you stuck.

A challenge gives you something else to focus on.

Instead of sitting around wondering when things will improve, you give yourself a mission.

For me, that mission is 10,000 words a day for 33 days.

I don't know exactly what will come from it yet. That's actually part of what makes it exciting.

I'm creating my own momentum instead of waiting for external circumstances to create it for me.

When you challenge yourself, you stop being a spectator in your business.

You become an active participant again.

2. Challenging Yourself Forces You to Become More Resourceful

There's something interesting that happens when you make a difficult commitment.

You suddenly become much better at finding solutions.

If I decide that I'm going to write 10,000 words every day, I can't spend the entire day scrolling through social media and then complain that I don't have enough time to write.

The challenge exposes my habits.

It makes me look at my schedule differently.

It forces me to think about how I research, how I structure ideas and how I turn one thought into multiple pieces of useful content.

This is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can develop.

Resourcefulness.

You don't always need more money.

You don't always need more followers.

You don't always need another expensive tool.

Sometimes you need to become better at using what you already have.

When business slows down, resourcefulness becomes incredibly important.

You might have to find a new audience.

You might have to change your offer.

You might have to create more content.

You might have to learn a new platform.

You might have to find a different way to communicate the value of your product.

A challenge creates productive pressure.

It makes you ask:

"How can I make this work?"

That question is much more powerful than:

"Why isn't this working anymore?"

3. A Challenge Can Break You Out of Creative Stagnation

Sometimes your business isn't failing.

You're just bored.

And those two things can look surprisingly similar.

You create the same kind of content.

You use the same platform.

You talk about the same subjects.

You sell the same products.

You follow the same routine.

Eventually, everything starts feeling predictable.

That's when creativity can disappear.

One of the reasons I love challenging myself is because it disrupts that pattern.

When I commit to producing 10,000 words a day, I can't keep thinking about content in exactly the same way.

I have to go deeper.

I have to find new angles.

I have to explore ideas I might normally ignore.

I have to connect subjects that I wouldn't ordinarily put together.

And something happens when you create at that level.

You start discovering ideas that were hiding underneath the obvious ones.

The first few ideas are usually the easiest.

The deeper ideas appear when you keep going.

That's why I believe immersion is so powerful.

You don't necessarily discover your best ideas by constantly jumping from topic to topic.

Sometimes you discover them by staying with one subject long enough for your brain to start making connections.

A creative challenge can wake up that part of you again.

4. Challenging Yourself Changes Your Identity

This might be the biggest reason of all.

A challenge isn't only about what you produce.

It's about who you become while producing it.

When you tell yourself you're going to write 10,000 words every day, you are making a statement about your identity.

You're saying:

I'm someone who can commit to something difficult.

Every day you complete the challenge, you reinforce that belief.

And every day you struggle but continue anyway, you're building evidence.

This matters because creators often underestimate the psychological side of business.

You can have an excellent product and still hesitate to sell it.

You can have great ideas and still procrastinate.

You can know exactly what you should be doing and still avoid doing it.

Sometimes the problem isn't information.

It's identity.

You have to start seeing yourself as the person who follows through.

That's what challenges can do.

They give you evidence.

You don't have to tell yourself you're disciplined.

You demonstrate discipline.

You don't have to convince yourself you're a writer.

You write.

You don't have to convince yourself you're an entrepreneur.

You build.

You don't have to convince yourself you're capable of starting over.

You start.

And eventually, your actions become proof of the person you're becoming.

5. A Downturn Can Become the Beginning of Your Next Chapter

This is the reason I'm not afraid of starting again.

Starting over sounds terrifying when you think about everything you've lost.

But it becomes exciting when you start thinking about everything you can build.

A downturn can force you to examine parts of your business that you might otherwise have ignored.

It can make you question whether you're still excited about what you're selling.

It can make you discover a new audience.

It can push you onto a new platform.

It can lead you toward a completely different product.

It can force you to become better.

Sometimes the thing you desperately want to recover isn't actually the thing you need anymore.

Maybe you're supposed to build something different.

Maybe the old business model served you for a particular season and now you're ready for another one.

That's how I'm approaching this new chapter.

I'm not trying to recreate everything exactly as it was.

I'm experimenting.

I'm creating new products.

I'm building a new digital product page.

I'm writing more.

I'm exploring different content.

I'm immersing myself in subjects that genuinely interest me.

And I'm giving myself 33 days to see what happens.

Starting Over Doesn't Mean Starting From Nothing

There's one thing I've had to remind myself throughout this process.

Starting over doesn't mean I know nothing.

I have years of experience behind me.

I've created products before.

I've written thousands of articles.

I've built audiences.

I've experimented with platforms.

I've made mistakes.

I've had successful periods.

I've had difficult periods.

I've learned things that I couldn't have learned any other way.

So although the page might be new, I'm not.

And that's an important distinction.

When your business takes a downturn, don't automatically assume that you've lost everything.

You still have your skills.

You still have your knowledge.

You still have your relationships.

You still have your experiences.

You still have the lessons from everything that didn't work.

Those things travel with you.

Sometimes all you're really starting over with is the strategy.

And strategies can change.

Your Downturn Might Be an Invitation to Experiment

I'm not going to pretend that business downturns are fun.

They're not.

There are real financial pressures that come with them.

There are moments when you question yourself.

There are days when you wonder whether all the work was worth it.

But I've learned that fear doesn't have to be the response.

Curiosity can be the response.

Instead of asking, "Why is my business failing?" ask, "What can I try now that I couldn't see before?"

Instead of asking, "How do I get back to where I was?" ask, "What if I build something better?"

Instead of waiting for the old version of your business to return, give yourself permission to create the next version.

That's what I'm doing now.

I'm challenging myself because I don't want to sit still.

I don't want to spend months analysing the downturn.

I want to use it.

I want to see what happens when I create at a completely different level.

I want to see what happens when I commit to 33 days of intense creative output.

And perhaps most importantly, I want to remind myself that I'm still capable of surprising myself.

Day 1 Is Almost Done

It's 4pm as I write this, and I'm almost at the end of Day 1.

I have more words to write.

More ideas to explore.

More work to do.

But something already feels different.

I'm moving again.

And sometimes that's all you need at the beginning of a new chapter.

Not certainty.

Not a guarantee.

Not proof that everything will work.

Just movement.

If your business is going through a downturn right now, maybe you don't need to panic.

Maybe you need to challenge yourself.

Try something you've never tried before.

Create more than you normally would.

Learn a new skill.

Experiment with a new platform.

Build a new offer.

Write about a new angle.

Give yourself a deadline.

Create a challenge that forces you to become more resourceful, more disciplined and more creative.

You might discover that the downturn wasn't the end of your story.

It was simply the moment that forced you to write a new chapter.

And sometimes, the most exciting chapter of your business begins when the old one stops working.

Join the 33 Immersion Method challenge here by downloading my 33 Immersion Method e-guide.