Diary of an Entrepreneur in Progress : Navigating the gap between where I Am and Where I Want to Be
Diary of an Entrepreneur in Progress is a collection of stories, experiences, perspectives, and revelations, from myself and other women on their entrepreneurial journey. This year I've decided to create a series of blogs and resources here to detail and share my entrepreneurship journey. In real-time I want to dedicate myself to really uncovering the decisions, emotions, fears, challenges and rewards of becoming a fully sustainable entrepreneur.
For as long as I can remember all I’ve ever wanted to do was be a self-sustaining entrepreneur. Earning my own income, creating my own schedule, making my own decisions, and living a lifestyle on my own terms. I’ve seen people embark on this effortlessly with focus and diligence and I’ve seen people struggle to stay afloat. I am currently the latter who has started multiple entrepreneurial endeavours but hasn’t figured out making enough money to completely transition into entrepreneurship. Certainly, I can pinpoint 101 reasons why many of my ideas failed but more importantly I want to understand the deeper reasons why I am not where I want to be in my journey, and I don’t think it has anything to do with my business idea or work ethic. It’s deeper than that, and with that acknowledgement I am doing the work to understand my personal barriers and self-induced blockages that hold me back from where I want to be as an entrepreneur today.
So what does it really mean to be a fully sustainable entrepreneur and why is this so important for me and the millions of other people in this world trying to get there. This can look different for everyone, but my “why” is anchored in independence, flexibility, creativity, and ultimate freedom. Despite how challenging it is to run a business I am married to the idea of complete autonomy in the direction I take my work and how I live my life. Entrepreneurship for me is a lifestyle and I am intentionally designing a life that centers my most important priorities - my well-being - physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. It is about prioritizing the relationships that are important to me day to day, the people I care about, my self-care practices, and the experiences I value most -- travel, fitness, movement, music, family and friendships. Sometimes we do not have the thing we want because we simply are not ready, and there is still an energetic disconnect or deep rooted belief that contradicts our desire. For me that disconnect or contradiction is fearing that I cannot be a successful entrepreneur without labouring long and hard and centring work over all else.
The truth is I want to be a specific entrepreneur but I’ve only seen entrepreneurship as something that is hard to attain, strenuous, exhausting, time-consuming, and much more challenging than a 9 to 5. I see specific personalities and attitudes in business that do not reflect my values or perspectives which feeds into my belief that maybe I am not the right person for this path. I begin to self-doubt and sabbatoge myself and we know how unsupportive this process can be. So many of us are compelled by the lifestyle of wealth, prosperity and freedom but feel the price to pay is being burnt out, overwhelmed, stretched thin, and depleted. When our thoughts are so polarized our emotions around this desire also hold tension. The truth is I don’t want that exchange or sacrifice. How about I don’t want any sacrifice. Instead I want to live a lifestyle where my personal and professional lives are in harmony, but because I have not seen it for myself I don’t yet truly believe it for myself and this is where the gap lies. Most of us have adopted particular narratives about entrepreneurship that need to be questioned and re-envisioned so we can become the version of entrepreneurship that we currently don’t see. We need to be the belief we want to see.
Lately, I have been reflecting a lot and working into my own programs the concepts soft, feminine, and spiritual. The words soft life and divine femininity, have become very popular in speaking about a variety of experiences and lifestyles that contradicts the hustle and grind mentality or rat race. What I am embarking on now is seeing a different approach to entrepreneurship that is soft and led with more of a feminine energy approach, and even more revolutionary, the idea of bringing spirituality into my entrepreneurial vision and business practices.
My goal is to find the balance I need and create a way of entrepreneurship that works for me. Allowing my journey to stay true to a lifestyle that fosters my creativity, gives space for my flightiness, feeds my curiosity and thirst for new experiences. Ultimately, my entrepreneurship journey and what I am building for myself does not hold me hostage to financial gains alone but is rooted in my values and desire to travel, work, focus on family and raising my child, being of service to my community and doing it with joy and ease.
So with a strong why, why am I still where I am and not where I want to be? Well it’s because I am not ready to be where I want to be, there are so many things to continue to unpack, and this is what the journey is really about. Here are three reasons I am where I am and ways I am guiding myself to unblock my path. I encourage you to join me.
Unlearning, re-imagining, and changing our perceptions of entrepreneurship. I realized that at the core of my being I have only seen entrepreneurship done one way and that way is misaligned with how I want to show up in the world. Its important that we capture our beliefs and then create a new vision for ourselves as entrepreneurs. Here are some guiding question i’ve been reflecting on: What are my true beliefs and experiences of entrepreneurship? How can I challenge those beliefs and create a different story of my journey and practices as an entrepreneur? What does soft / feminine / spirit led entrepreneurship look like in my life in my business, and the way I do business? Are these concepts that truly capture who I am or who I am becoming? What is ideal entrepreneurship lifestyle?
Don’t get stuck, keep moving. The overwhelm and lack of clarity is real. There is so much work to be done and I don’t know where to begin. Nothing seems clear and I spend most of my time trying to figure out if the chicken came before the egg. How do we get ourselves to think about taking action and making progress even when we lack clarity? I can spend hours and days on a small task and feel I am just hitting myself up against a wall because of unproductive cycle of overthinking and over judging every action. I’ve learned now that anything that stays on my mind more than 20 minutes requires an action to take it out of mind. I try not to fixate on anything - if need be, I take my mind somewhere else in my business or outside my business. For me this looks like a music break -- sing a tune, dance it out. The ruminating on any subject is a quick way to stagnation and discouragement.
Self-doubt and lack of confidence. After working over a decade for various organizations you get very comfortable with someone paying you and securing your benefits. You know what time you need to be there and what is required of you, so you have a default confidence in the structure and your role. Transitioning into entrepreneurship feels foreign. You want to control your own schedule but you really question if your even capable. Many doubts and worries surface about how I can even get work done when I'm not on the clock of someone else. The bigger worry is who is even going to want what I am selling? Becoming a successful entrepreneur comes with a lot of unknowns and we need to find ways to build our own confidence and security during this transition. Constant reflection supports this process of thinking and remembering where you have been and how far you have come, and your contributions in all aspects — work, family, friendship, social. Creating praise file/folder listing the skills and gifts that you are confident in right now as well as the praise and acknowledgements you received from others will support your remembering and confidence building. Bring your entire self to the table and remember your accomplishments, remember who you are, really!
The above are just examples from my journey but nevertheless there are so many other examples that could be shared. What I know for sure this journey is one of patience and perseverance, and we need to find it for ourselves. One of my favorite quotes is "You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water - Rabindranath Tagore" Finding ways to reflect, challenge, and evolve our ways of thinking about entrepreneurship and being entrepreneurs will be transformational for what we are trying to build for ourselves. We have to not only do the work of building the business but the work of building a mindset, building our belief, and getting to the root of what hinders our success in this area. I am delighted to be sharing with you and hope the resources and insights can be used to support your journey as well. Let’s revolutionize entrepreneurship.
Forever Evolving Together,
Jessica