4 reasons not to start a business + 1 reason to do it anyway

To start you own business is such a brave thing to do! It is to stand up and say “I have something valuble to offer, and I beleive in myself and my offering.”

To start your own business is to beleive in yourself and your offer before anyone else does so, and without any guarantee or proof that others will see it as valuable.

You beliving in yourself and your offer is enough of a reason to start a business, but there are some pitfalls along the way and reasons NOT to do it. I’ve gathered them here for you with ways to work with them if you do decide to start a business or maybe you already have one and you want to make it work better.

So … pour a cup of tea, get your journal, take notes because this is important!

1. Your have no interest in the business side of business 

Hate to say it, but if you start a business you will have to work on your business not just in it. Running a business is a skill, and you can learn that skill, you can make business skills part of your craft. I would go as far as to say that if you have a business that offer your services to others, business has to be part of your craft.

If you, when you hear words like … marketing, conversion rate, CTA, ROI, strategy, SMART goals, SEO, CTR, budget, revenue … either scream and run to the end of the world to jump off the edge, or dissociate and go into shutdown, don’t start a business!

Unless…

…you are curious about your strong aversion towards those particular words, words you hardly know the meaning of. And you want to befriend those words to conjure your personal meaning of them so that they can support you as you are building your business.

If you are genuinely curious about how to build a business that works for you, even if you at the moment feel hesitant towards all businessy stuff, go ahead and do it.

2. You want stability and predictability

A business can become stable and to some extent predictable, but that is not where you start, unless you already have a strong reputation and client base that you know will continue to work with you.

If you want to know exactly what’s going to happen, when it will happen, what your days will look like and when you will get paid. If you want a stable, predictable, and certain path from day one, and you want guaranteed results and a clear map with an X marking the spot where your success lives. Don’t start a business!

Unless…

…you are willing to develop a different relationship with uncertainty. You truly want to learn how to stay close to yourself even when you don’t know what will happen next and what the results will be. You are curious about letting your business be a living experiment and relationship rather than a machine you can perfectly control. If that is you, go ahead with your business dream.

3. You don’t want to be a leader

Having your own business means that you are the leader of it, together with the soul of your business and all the good ancestors, spirits and guides involved. As the leader of your business you are the one who communes with the soul of your work and all the others involved. And, at the end of the day you are the one who makes all the decisions.

If the thought of having to lead, make all the big decisions yourself and having to figure things out through trial, error and evaluation feels excruciatingly exhausting, and you would much rather have someone else tell you what to do, when to do it and how to do it. If this is you, don’t start a business.

Unless…

…you are fully aware of this tendency of yours and you are curious about digesting the pattern of outsourcing your sovereignty to others, and instead practice owning your choices, trusting your knowing, and rising into your embodied self-leadership…no matter how long it takes.

You want to become the leader you’ve always longed for in your life. The leader your child self, your teenage self, your young adult self needed, and the kind of leader you envision for the world at large. If you are willing to walk that path, go ahead and make it part of your business.

4. You want easy money from day one

Once your business is established, after 3-5 years of consistent relationship buidling, making money should not be hard, but counting on easy money from day one is a set up for disappointment. Building a business requries a particular blend of delusion, optimism, and realism. You have to believe that it will work before you have any evidence of it, you have to keep an optimistic attitude towards it and at the same time be able to look at what is really happening.

If your plan for your business is that you have an idea, you share about it one time on social media, people buy, and your get paid. Everyone lives happily ever after and you will not have to be transformed by your own work in any way. If this is your business plan, don’t start a business.

Unless…

…this is your dream vision and you are willing to let yourself be a beginner before you get there. You are willing to try things that don’t work to get more skilled. You are willing to listen, learn, adjust, experiment, refine and try again.

You understand that building something steady and meaningful takes time, and that part of the process is your own transformation. You becoming the person who can build that business is part of the work. You can hold both your big, delusional, optimistic dream vision and what is happening day-to-day, and not be discouragade by that even when things are not working out as you hoped they would.

One reason to do it anyway…

…your soul keeps calling you to do it, and you are willing to work it until it works

You know in your bones and blood that you are here to birth, build and lead this business. And, you are willing to take one step at a time without a foolproof plan, without knowing exactly what you’re doing, without any guarantees that it will be successful. You are willing to take one step at a time because your soul keeps saying …

This offering wants to exist, and it wants to come into existence through you.

Because of that you are willing to meet the uncertainty, discomfort, learning, visibility, mistakes, money questions, leadership and all the places where you will be asked to grow and keep going.

Because your soul business is not just something that you are building, it is also something that is supporting you to become who you are meant to be in this life.

The best way to approach your business is with a lot of curiosity and willingness to experiment, grow and evolve over time. Combine that with deep devotion to your craft, love for your people, and dedicated inner work and you are good to go.

To support you in the process I’ve created a free offering called Move Forward with Clarity. It is a reflective journaling and evaluation process that helps you get clear on what’s working, what’s not working, what kind of support you need and what you skills you want to develop to move forward with more clarity.

Download it below to get the clairty in your business that you long for ✨