Breakdown Before Breakthrough

Have you ever felt like your whole life was starting to fall apart?

It often starts with some small setback which comes out of left field and blindsides you out of nowhere.  Maybe you lose a big client at work, get reprimanded by your boss, get sick, end a relationship, get into a car accident, lose money in a bad investment, or some kind of other mini-setback which really feels like it couldn’t have come at a worst time.

Then after a short while, just as you’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel again you get hit with something again, except this time it’s even worse.  Instead of losing a client, now you lose all your clients, or you get laid off or fired from your job, seemingly at no fault of your own.  Or that bad investment turns into a major financial setback.  Or that bad flu you had turned out not to be just a flu, but something a lot more serious than that – something life changing.

A lot of people are experiencing this right now.

Whether it’s a financial setback, a health setback, a business setback, a relationship setback or anything else – if you’re experiencing this right now, trust me you’re not alone.

The Truth About Personal Development

From day one of starting this Blog I have always publicly shared my previous “failures” in life, such as how I almost went bankrupt in my early 20′s.

The reason I choose to share personal details like that about myself when I could easily omit them is because I want my readers to understand that going through periods of “breakdown”, whether it be financial or relationship or health related are a normal part of life.

Now, more than ever, people everywhere are going through periods of “breakdown”.

In fact, going through periods of “breakdown” is a normal part of personal development.  It may not feel good, but it’s often necessary for a real “breakthrough” to happen.

I learned this concept of “Breakdown Before Breakthrough” from a coach I worked with in the past and it’s really helped out in life since then.

Examples From My Life

Here’s an example from my life.  A couple of weeks ago, Google banned one of my AdWord’s accounts.  The result of this is a financial loss of about $3,000/month in profits for me personally.

Why did Google ban my account?  Well, it’s not for anything I’m doing right now, but apparently for some campaign I ran at some point in the past 12 months that they disapprove of.  I was testing some affiliate offers in the diet niche about 8 months ago and I believe that may have been the trigger in their algorithm.  I’m not alone in this, as I’ve heard they’ve banned over 100,000 AdWord’s accounts in the last two weeks alone.

This isn’t for doing something illegal or even something that breaks their rules.  It’s something their algorithm tells them I may have done at some point in the past which they deem to be providing a “low quality” experience for their users.  The campaigns I was running in the diet niche are one of hundreds available on all the CPA networks that every other affiliate marketer has probably tried in the last few years.

What’s even more surprising is that another one of my campaigns was slapped the other day as well, and this was in an AdWords account which I haven’t promoted any kind of CPA offers that break any Google rules now or ever.  The reason they gave me for this one was:

“Site profits off of sending users to another site through affiliate links.”

In other words, Google AdWords can slap any campaign or even ban your account for being an affiliate marketer.  Any website that contains affiliate links qualifies under that definition and there’s really nothing you can do about it.

So what does this have to do with “breakdown” and “breakthrough”?

Well, I have often seen this pattern in my life where whenever I am about to go through a period of time where I experience a big growth phase and a “breakthrough”, it is often preceded by a period of “breakdown”.

Right now I’m being challenged and going through a “breakdown” of my current income streams in the affiliate marketing side of my business.  At the same time, however, as the Google door is closing for me, other opportunities are showing up on the horizon that could be huge for me in 2010.

For example, I’m starting to learn about more diverse and profitable traffic sources that I could use besides Google AdWords and other PPC search engines.

Also, I’m starting to see other much more “Lightworker Aligned” ways of doing affiliate marketing emerge.

This is just how the process works.  The same thing has happened to me in business more times than I can count.  A period of “breakdown” happens and it seems the only thing to do is panic, but then shortly afterwords there is a moment of “breakthrough” and your life completely changes.

I believe that these periods of “breakdown” and “breakthrough” are orchestrated by our spiritual selves to help us grow during periods of time where we’re not growing due to being too lazy and comfortable, or because we are paralyzed by some kind of fear.

For some people the “breakdown” happens in their financial lives.  For others it happens in their relationships or health.  Either way, it’s a wake-up call from the spirit world trying to keep us on track.

The important thing is not to freak out and panic.

If you’re going through this right now, and things keep breaking down no matter how much energy and effort you put into trying to fix things, then you’re probably going through “breakdown before breakthrough”.  Don’t give up.

Look back over your life and think about similar situations where you were challenged and realize that in the end things turned out OK.  In fact, most probably in every case, things turned out better than they began.

New opportunities could be on the horizon for you.  When one door shuts, another one opens soon after.

I just wanted to share this today because I am seeing a lot of people going through this right now, and I want everyone to know that it’s a normal thing that happens to everyone – including me.

I know a lot of people who are fairly successful in life, and they go through the exact same thing.  In fact, the people I know who are the most into personal development are the ones who go through this the most.  The reason for this is because they push themselves to take their lives to the next level and in order to do that they need to experience the next “breakthrough” and that is almost always preceded by a “breakdown” of some sort.

Have a chat with any successful person and ask them about the periods of “breakdown” that they went through before experiencing success and they’ll share dozens of stories with you that will probably make you feel a lot better about any situation you may be going through right now.

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