Be Ridiculously Kind to Yourself When Starting a New Business

Starting a business is fucking hard…and totally worth it.

When starting my new business, I heard all the warnings about how hard it would be, so I tried to “mentally prepare”.

I made lists of all the common traps for new business owners. I naively thought that would help prevent any future pain. Hahahaaaaaa! That’s not a thing. 😂

The online advice was everywhere…as a newbie you will:

😬 Doubt every decision

😩 Have weeks where nothing moves and you wonder if you made a HUGE mistake

😒 Compare your day one to someone else’s year ten and feel like a total fraud

I quickly learned that arming yourself with information is not enough. None of that works. You’ve just got to FEEL IT. You need to experience it and adjust as you go.

Every day, it’s just you, your laptop and a busy brain with a whole lot of uncertainty. That’s exactly when most people turn on themselves. That voice in your head can be pretty mean at times and it will tell you you’re not cut out for this when you’re at your most vulnerable point.

I’d have a slow week and my brain would immediately think I’m not doing enough. The silence in the down times can be debilitating. That’s when I would book more networking calls. Leaning into community really helped.

Or I’d watch someone else land a client and wonder why they weren’t flocking to my inbox. That fearful sense of lack would hijack my nervous system. Instead, I would get honest about the feeling, get grounded and then start doing tasks that were focused on client acquisition.

Sometimes, I’d sit down to write or film something and agonize over every word before posting. That’s when I knew my perfectionist brain was acting up, so instead I posted “good enough” instead of perfect. 🎬

Newsflash: You will consciously know about these traps, but they will happen anyway. Silly rabbit🐰, you can’t THINK your way out of them! The important thing is not to beat yourself up for it when it happens.

You need to adopt the attitude of RADICAL KINDNESS with yourself. Surround yourself with people who are also new to this game, and have a good laugh about it together.

Building takes time and patience. Patience with yourself and trust in the process can save you a lot of agony. That’s why it’s SO IMPORTANT to remember your wins. Even the little ones. Especially the little ones.

Building a new business requires a level of grace toward yourself that most of us were never taught.

Radical kindness is actually the most strategic thing you can do.

So if you’re in the early days of building something, give yourself credit for showing up every day. Be radically kind to yourself.

Learn the art of patience.

Over time you’ll come to trust yourself. And you might even HAVE FUN in the process.