You keep going by protecting three things: your time, your energy, and your head. It doesn’t get easier. Surprise. What changes is what’s hard. Year one is hard because nothing works. Year six is hard because everything works and all of it needs you. Every stage of a business is your first time at that stage, so the answer isn’t to get past hard. It’s to build the habits and the boundaries that let you do hard for a long time without it costing you the reason you started.
Why do I feel like a fraud when things are going fine?
Almost every owner in every room has it, including the ones you’d never guess. The reframe that works isn’t “I’m great.” It’s “I’m the one who showed up.” You have customers because you solved something for them, and that’s the only credential that ever mattered. The Mickey Mouse stuff in your head about not being a real business owner needs to go, and the fastest way to make it go is to say it out loud to people who own businesses. It dies in a room. It thrives alone.
How do I say no without losing the client?
By saying it early, plainly, and with the alternative attached. “I don’t do that, and here’s who does.” “I can do that, and here’s what it costs.” “Not this month; the first opening is the 14th.” A boundary stated like a fact gets treated like a fact. A boundary stated like an apology gets negotiated. Most of what feels urgent isn’t. It’s false urgency, somebody else’s bad planning arriving in your inbox with an exclamation point. The client who leaves because you kept a boundary was going to cost you more than they paid. The ones who stay respect you more than they did before.
How do I protect my time when everything needs me?
Decide what’s yours before the week does. Rest time and creative time go on the calendar first, like a client meeting, because they are one: they’re the meeting with the person who runs the company. Then everything else fits around them, or it doesn’t fit, which is information. The reason to take Fridays off isn’t the golf. It’s that a business that can’t survive you being gone one day a week isn’t a business yet. It’s a job you can’t quit. Start with a half day. Keep it for a month. See what breaks. Usually nothing.
What do I do on the day I want to quit for real?
Don’t decide anything that day. Big decisions made from the bottom of the tank are almost always wrong, and the tank refills. Then get in a room with people who own businesses. Not friends, not family, not a spouse who has to live with your mood. Owners, who’ll tell you they had that day last month and it passed. Nobody taught you how to run a business, and nobody taught you how to feel about it either. That’s the one you can’t figure out alone. It’s your dream. Don’t grow it alone®.
Questions owners ask
Does running a business ever get easier?
No. What’s hard changes. That’s the good news, because it means the hard thing you’re in right now is temporary.
How do I stop working weekends?
Take one Friday off and see what breaks. Then fix that thing. Then take the next Friday.
Is imposter syndrome normal for business owners?
Yes. Almost universal. It gets smaller when you say it out loud to other owners and bigger when you don’t.
This is the sixth question nobody taught you to answer. The Small Business Owners Community exists for exactly this: owners figuring out what to do next, together, every Thursday, $19 a month. Six years in, that’s how I figure out what to do next. It’s why I get Fridays off.
More on this topic: Keep going answers from the Small Business Owners Community
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