The Temptation To Quit

When you work for yourself and live alone, there’s a certain kind of silence, this temptation buried deep in the back of your mind that whispers all the reasons why you should quit.

It’s the silence of a Tuesday afternoon when the pipeline feels thin, there are no client calls scheduled and somewhere a voice whispers: “what if this just… doesn’t work?”

Since nobody puts that in their highlight reel, it’s easy to believe everyone is fully booked and super busy all the time in the early days as an entrepreneur.

When I started this journey, I was not prepared for how loud my own head would get. 

I’d open up social media looking for inspiration and instead found that everyone seemed to have it all figured out.

They had the polished brand, the full client roster, the confident voice and I had a lukewarm cup of coffee and a calendar filled with networking calls but no paying clients. 🤣

So I let anxiety take the lead and my solution was to just work longer hours, into nights and weekends.

And I started to run straight into a wall called burnout. 🥵

Burnout was an all too familiar experience for me. It’s why I left corporate after finding myself laying in an ER hospital bed one night after my body, mind and soul just completely shut down.

I promised myself I’d NEVER let that happen again in my new business. (My new business that started the next day after my corporate layoff….what  the hell was I thinking? 🤣)

Insert picture of me jumping from the frying pan into fire.

🤸🍳🔥 

Apparently my brain didn’t get that memo about the promise I made to put my health first and old corporate habits were creeping up in my new business.

So I just…stopped. 🛑

I gave myself the time I needed to heal, to finally breathe. 🧘‍♀️

I reflected…a lot. 🤔

I took baby steps towards new habits, healthier strategies.

I stopped comparing my CHAPTER ONE to someone else’s CHAPTER TEN.

What REALLY saved me wasn’t a productivity hack or a new business strategy…it was engaging with “my people”.

I found a safe community where people were really honest enough to say:

“Hey, I’m struggling too.”

And more importantly I could be vulnerable enough to say the things that scared me too.

Things like, “I went from a six figure corporate salary to only making $3000 in my first year and now I’m on Medicaid and Snap benefits.”

To say that out loud is a risk. I might be perceived a certain way. How could I possibly be a great business coach if I’m not rolling in cash right now? But that’s just not true. Building a business takes time, and I wasn’t giving myself that grace. It doesn’t mean I’m not an amazing coach.

That kind of honesty is rare, because not too many people want to admit the realities of the first year and they’re scared and think about quitting all the time.

Within community, I found seasoned business owners who had weathered the uncertainty, slow months, and self-doubt, and they came out the other side. 

They didn’t sugarcoat it.

They told me it stays difficult for a long time. Even many years in, a big part of the job is always looking for the next client.  But they also told me something I really needed to hear: 

“It’s all worth it.”

You wake up and the work you’re doing is work you chose. 

When something goes well, it’s yours. 

When you solve a hard problem for a client, there’s no one above you to hand the credit to. 

The shots are yours to call.

So if you’re somewhere in the messy middle of it right now, find your people. 

Let them see the real version of what’s going on, support each other and just keep going.

Because every time I fantasize about quitting, I remember how miserable I was in corporate and that night in the ER when I promised myself I would never go back there again.

If things are going to be hard, I’d rather bet on myself.