The Harsh Reality of So-Low-Preneurship
It’s not all sunshine and roses (but what is?).
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Every once in a while, I’ll feel like a steaming sack of horse doo-doo.
I don’t know precisely what causes it. It just seems to happen.
One day I’m fine, all jazzed up to work and build my self-driven business, and the next I’m flat as a pancake. Low energy, low confidence, low productivity. And it’s hard as heck to drag myself back out of that funk.
The only good thing about it is that I’ve come to expect it. It no longer surprises me when those brief gloomy periods start. I know they’ll end just as soon as they got going, and I’ll be back to normal.
But still, they suck.
So-low-preneurship
I suspect it’s got a lot to do with my working situation.
I’m a solopreneur, working from home, rarely in direct contact with anyone else except for my wife and two pooches. Some days, I spend most of my waking hours alone.
That lonesomeness opens you up to all kinds of negative thinking, most of which stems from completely fictional, imagined scenarios.
Am I doing this all wrong?
Is everyone else on the right path, and I’m actually lost in the weeds?
Who the heck am I to advise anyone else, anyway?
Whisperings in your ear, telling you you’re not good enough. They’re always there, but sometimes, they get too loud to ignore.
That’s the downside of being self-employed and spending most of your time working alone. That’s the harsh reality of solopreneurship the Twitter gurus tend to sweep neatly under the rug.
Why talk about the dark, crappy moments when you can brag about numbers with lots of zeros at the end? Who needs to know that solo business isn’t all sunshine and roses?
Everyone. That’s who.
You need to hear this.
Solopreneurship is tough. And hear me when I say this: it’s absolutely not for everyone.
You need to have a thick, fast-healing hide if you want to go the distance by yourself. And I’m not talking about being able to brush off the odd snarky comment from some keyboard warrior living in his mum’s basement on the other side of the world.
I mean the times when you feel utterly, hopelessly overwhelmed by it all. When you can’t see how you’re going to make it work. When that one snarky comment could be enough to snap your spine in two and send you running back to the first minimum-wage 9–5 role you find on LinkedIn.
You need inches-thick skin to be able to deal with that. And the only pathway there is through the ringer, several dozen times.
If you’re willing to get hurt on occasion, stick at it. If the thought of experiencing those decidedly less-than-optimal days sends a shiver down your spine, keep your traditional employment options open.
I repeat: solopreneurship is tough, and it’s not for everyone.
Before you go any further…
Consider this before diving into the solo business world:
As a solopreneur, the buck stops with you. There’s no-one else to blame if things go pear-shaped. You won’t be able to point the finger at a fellow employee (or even your boss) and say “It was them! Leave me alone!”. You’re the boss. You’re as far as the buck goes.
Your working day doesn’t end at 5 o’clock. You can’t shut down your computer, drive home from the office and ram it all to the back of your mind until 9am the next morning. You carry it around like a weighted backpack everywhere you go, even when you’re supposed to be resting. Sometimes that pack’s filled with gold, and you feel good carting it around. Other times, it’s just filled with lead, and you wish you could dump it somewhere. Either way, it doesn’t come off at the end of the working day — you’ll always find yourself thinking about your solo business, even when you really don’t want to.
You don’t get paid when you stop working. Passive income is the dream, but it’s not entirely of the real world. You can make most of your business passive, but it’s extremely difficult to automate the entire thing. You can’t take annual leave from work, go on holiday to Barbados for two weeks and still earn the same paycheck at the end of the month. If you want to keep your income steady, you’ll have to account for that time, either by working more in advance or after the fact. And because solopreneurial work days don’t feel like they end at 5pm, they also don’t respect holiday boundaries. You will think about work while you’re on holiday, no matter how hard you try not to.
Some weirdos will hate you. When you put yourself out there on the interwebs, most of the people you encounter will be cool, supportive and fun. But every so often, someone will read your words or notice something about your business and decide “I hate this person now”, and that’s that. Nothing you do will change their mind. And you have to be ok with it. You have to be at peace with someone else hating your guts.
Everyone’s journey looks different. No matter how many guide articles you read or courses you take, you’ll always end up doing things slightly differently than everyone else. You have to forge your own path in the business world and be ok with the unpredictable time it takes to do so.
Tipping scales
Yes, I know there’re a ton of caveats to all this. Some businesses really do run largely on autopilot, and if you can get really skilled at managing your time, you can create a nice work-life balance.
And there are just so many perks to solopreneurship that the bad days rarely feel that bad. Personally, I love it, and I could never go back to working for someone else.
But be prepared to have your skin thickened if you want to go the distance as a solo business person.
It's definitely not a lifestyle that fits everyone, but I can't imagine a better lifestyle that fits me.
So true! I also 'expect' those low points and don't lament them as much any more. I know it'll pass and I'll be back to normal. I can get all too comfortable by myself so those low points can also be a reminder to connect with people, meet a friend for lunch or a simple phone call.