It’s not for the faint of heart. It puts “flight or fight” to the test every day. Being your own boss can deliver financial freedom or it could spell personal and economic disaster. As you take a deep dive into the entrepreneurial lifestyle, be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses – about your personality, self-confidence, willingness to learn and evolve, take advice and feedback, and your true level of determination (a.k.a. stubbornness).
You likely have encountered the “full experience” reaching the peaks of celebration and success, the warm glow of seeing a client reach their goal with
your help; as well as exhausting your energy climbing steep hills of mounting challenges and scrambling out of low pits of confusion and inertia. We all experience it.
Do You Recognize These Struggles?
Loneliness – even if you’re surrounded by employees, you are the one setting policy and making decisions. When failure comes, it’s on your shoulders to bear.
Anxiety – at some point, you WILL ask yourself, “did I make the right choice in working for myself? Will I be able to cover expenses and earn the profit to live the lifestyle I need and want?” And that may haunt you for months and even years.
Selling yourself – when you start a company, the business is YOU. Therefore, selling your product or service boils down to your ability to sell yourself – a concept that is undeniably uncomfortable.
Resilience – The economy and marketplace is a massive and strong river that changes direction constantly, and if you are not prepared or willing to go with the flow and navigate into the strong currents of today, then you’ll find yourself adrift and alone. Sustainability comes by being able to change course quickly.
Determination – Some entrepreneurs try for a few months or years, don’t immediately realize their dream goal or see sufficient progress toward that goal, and they give up.
Risk tolerance – An entrepreneur makes up the rules and accepts a huge amount of risk every single day. Risk taking involves understanding the facts and the probabilities and moving forward anyway, clearly accepting that it could fall down flat.
Why We’re In This Game
Of course there are remarkable advantages!
Freedom, in a word, is exquisite! We get to make our own schedule and design our product or service and choose our target audience. The freedom to set your own prices and your business process is powerful. Even if you’re not yet making the profit you desire, you’re all-in on facing those risks to achieve the ultimate freedom of designing your own career.
You get to use your talents to help customers. Without a boss to hold you back, you can realize your deeper goals of bringing transformative services to help people.
Finally, a beautiful yet unexpected benefit of embracing business ownership is the unfolding of your personal growth. As you see yourself meeting challenges, making decisions, welcoming risk and flexibility, you must take a step back and congratulate yourself for becoming stronger, more confident, and more skilled.
It’s a Massive Undertaking and We Can All Use The Help
We all have days when the strongest and most fearless among us can use a little encouragement and advice, even someone to listen. Sometimes a glorious success is just one step away, but that step can seem like a mountain. From one business owner to another, let me give you a hand.
Schedule a Strategy Session to move that block out of the way so you can get back to work. Start here: https://calendly.com/susana-f/strategy-session