The path to entrepreneurship
About 6 months ago I decided to re-embark on the path of entrepreneurship by becoming self employed. This isn’t my first time – I did it in 2019 – but back then I had no idea what I was doing and had picked the option by default. Needless to say it was a very stressful period where I couldn’t fully embrace this status. In 2024 it was a completely different scenario: after careful consideration and wondering what I wanted to do next with my career, I decided I would give it another go.
With my 40th birthday on the horizon I asked myself: what do I want for the next 20 years of my career? Do I want to be in a corporate office job? The answer was no. I wanted to give myself a chance of pursuing the things I love and giving it a go – no regrets. Now I realize, 40 is still young and there’s plenty of time to do the things you always wanted to. 😉
With that in mind I decided to pursue my idea of becoming a life coach – something I’d been wanting to do since 2018. I thought that being able to blend my communications and marketing skills as well as being a coach would be the perfect mix. I also wanted the opportunity to pursue my artistic goals related to dance, and thus the journey started.
What is a mindful entrepreneur?
First things first, what do I mean by that? Well, here I am: a life coach and a mental health activist. Someone who has recovered from burnout and advocates for a healthy work life balance. After all – another one of the reasons I decided to become self-employed was to create a more balanced, well-rounded life for myself. So it stands to reason that if this is everything I believe in and aspire to, one of my main goals as an entrepreneur should be to live a healthy, well-balanced life with low pressure and good self-care. Right?
What’s more, being self-employed gives me the freedom to create a healthy routine and not push myself to burnout. Unlike in jobs where I was an employee facing pressure from a boss, the company, deadlines, risking having my boundaries overstepped etc. – I am solely responsible for myself. Since I know my limits, this means I know how to self-manage and protect my time so as to avoid overworking myself and burning out.
That is the “mindful entrepreneur“‘s life, the person who can be self-employed all while being a model of wellbeing. Or at least – this is the image I had in my mind and I believe I should embody. 😅
Does it really work?
The truth is: there is no such thing as a mindful entrepreneur. It’s not real, it doesn’t exist. And before I hear you protesting and falling off your chairs in shock because the dream is shattered: it’s not possible! This is just my opinion of course but let me elaborate.
The reality of being self-employed
As anyone who is self-employed knows, the reality is that all of a sudden you are wearing more than one hat. While you have the freedom of being your own boss and doing what you want, you also have to take on more roles than you used to when you were an employee. You are doing:
- Admin & accounting. Invoices, filing reports, tax returns, keeping track of your expenses (perhaps tracking your hours) and more. In your work week you have to find time for these tasks that allow you to stay on top of your business.
- Marketing. How else will people know you exist? You have to market your business and your services, and in today’s environment it’s a lot of work to cut through the noise!
- Content creation. A sub-section of marketing you might undertake, to grow and solidify your business. It’s a solid strategy but extremely time consuming.
- Sales. Sometimes you are cold calling people, doing outreach, other times you are answering requests for work or developing proposals with no guarantee things will go through.
- Networking. An important part of your sales and marketing, perhaps you’re spending time going to networking events or generally working your network to make sure you’re top of mind.
- Work. The actual job you’re hired to do and where your expertise lies.
As you will know, as soon as you spend more time on one of these tasks, the others suffer. It’s a tough balance to maintain, even though some of the tasks like admin need to be done on an ongoing basis – it’s time consuming and takes away from your actual work so how do you juggle it all? Furthermore, you rely solely on yourself for income which is stressful to say the least.
Mindfulness and work
Back to the question: how to remain a mindful entrepreneur? I aspire to the freedom to work whenever and wherever I want. More importantly, the freedom to structure my days how I want to such as having a slow morning, going to dance in the middle of the afternoon or allocating time to study Dutch. The last thing I want to do is push myself to burnout, so what’s the harm in taking a day off, taking some me time, sleeping in… Isn’t that the point of this lifestyle? This is the hardest part!
First of all, it’s tempting to work all the time – not least for all the tasks just outlined above. If you need your weekdays to work, why not catch up with admin and marketing on the weekends? If you’re short on money why not work 3 jobs and work harder for a bit? You’re passionate about your projects and your job, and you want them to see the light of day so you invest extra time when you can. It’s easy to fall into the trap of working all the time and not resting, because of the pressure of being a one person business…
Second of all, when you take time to rest, it’s easy to start feeling guilty or worry about all the tasks you’re not doing that are piling up. Sure you can come back to it another day and it’s not urgent. But what are the consequences of delaying the task? This directly affects your job, your income and your livelihood. So any minute you spend not working, essentially is a dollar lost. Sounds brutal but it’s the truth. So in addition to worrying about the jobs to be done, you’re worrying about your income, how you will make ends meet and more.
This means that any time off to rest and be mindful is essentially wasted income. Time invested in yourself is time not invested in your business, and that’s tough. Rationally I know I need to be mentally well and rested in order to perform on the job. But it’s hard to balance that reality with the pressure of sustaining yourself, not to mention the costs of running your own business, no matter how small.
Even though this comes with a healthy dose of risk-taking and faith, at the end of the month bills must be paid. That means that even if you take time for yourself, you might still end up worrying about the choices you make and their consequences…
That’s why being a mindful entrepreneur isn’t possible, because the two very concepts are at odds with each other.
What can you do about it?
The best we can do is live aligned to our values, and do our best to show up every day the way we want to. It also takes awareness and acceptance. Understanding what it is you aspire to, and accepting that it won’t always be possible. Sometimes you’ll have to grind, other times you’ll have to deal with earning less… I really feel like adaptability is key here.
So long as you are able and willing to adapt it will be fine. Things won’t always go as planned that’s not possible, that’s why I believe the key to being successfully self-employed is one’s adaptability. It’s a beautiful skill and it’s a job that really teaches you the art of letting go like no other. I’m not upset that being a mindful entrepreneur isn’t possible, I’m learning how to make it work for me.
If I return to the workforce, I’ve already learned so much from these past 8 months – I have no regrets. If anything I feel like I’ve gained and developed a whole new skill set.
What’s your experience, do you think it’s possible to be a mindful entrepreneur?