Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. The act of creating a business and selling products or services is just the storefront that people see; it’s the tip of the iceberg. Along with that comes a myriad of challenges that most (if not all) entrepreneurs/humans must contend with at some point: imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs, lack of confidence and/or self-worth, people pleasing, and self-sabotaging behavior to name a few.

I can talk your ear off about all the ins and outs of workflows and email best practices and organizing your CRM projects, but that’s not all there is to my (or your) entrepreneurship experience. There’s so much more happening below the surface, hard things that I (and I’m sure you at some point) have had to deal with.

This series is comprised of my personal journal entries as I do the work to overcome these hurdles in my daily internal experience. Over the course of my self-development journey, I’ve found so much clarity in reading and hearing others’ articulated vulnerable inner experiences. Not only did they give me the language to identify patterns in my own internal world, but they allowed me to feel truly seen for the first time in a long time — that visceral feeling of relief: Wow, I’m really not the only one.

I share my own entries in the hope that someone out there (you?) will reap the same benefits.

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Today’s topics:

Perfectionism, Indecision, Paralysis, Perception

WRITTEN ON

Thurs June 29, 2023 – Afternoon

To my subscriber:

Remember how I was just talking the other day about wanting to share the more raw and real side of me? Well, here goes:

I’ve been so consumed with doing this shop launch perfectly. To be clear, this is my version of ‘perfect’ and ‘right’. I know that I may look like I have it all together, and my status quo days might look, to you, as perfect. I work really hard to be seen that way. But there’s still a gap in my mind of where I am and what I want to do.

It’s been debilitating at times. Warring with perfectionism, your perception of me, reconciling my own struggle with my potential – it’s all left this launch on standby as my brain implodes. Everything comes to a standstill. My mind works itself into a frenzy over the possibility and all the directions I can go, all the things I can say to you. And soon after, predictably, it becomes overwhelmed by dizziness and drops on the spot. Rinse and repeat.

I’ve been caught in that cyclical web for months.

I’m taking this all so seriously. I struggle to remember (and more importantly, embody) my own words: Why not have some fun around here just for fun’s sake?

Why is it so goddamn hard to tell you all the things I already know in my head? To share excitement? To just say: here’s what I want you to know. Here’s where you can buy from me.

It’s the anticipatory loss I’m avoiding. Once it leaves my mind, it becomes part of the world. I’ll have given it to you, and it will no longer be the shiny object in my mind with glossy and unlimited potential. It will have expectations and disappointments and income reports and reality attached to it. 

My mind whispers: Things can’t stay the same forever.