This one totally breaks my heart to write but it’s so ridiculously true and uber common that I can’t ignore it. 

Self Employment Destroys Self Esteem. 

I know that for stacks of entrepreneurs they come into self employment scared, scared but excited – scarited if you like.  They have often arrived at the world of self employment through a previous career journey.  A career that they may not have truly loved but a career that never made them question their very being.  A career where they could go into work, work perhaps 70% of the hours that they were contracted to work, get paid annual leave, sick leave, perhaps other bonuses as well as a paycheck at the end of the month.  They may well have felt competent or even confident in themselves and their abilities.  They had a life outside of the job.  They left their workplace at the end of the day and disappeared off with an air of possibility and potential in the air.  

THEN a whiff of self employment comes their way.  “Wouldn’t it be great to not work for anyone else, set my own timetable, rules and be the master of my own destiny.”  Now that’s a ridiculously exciting proposition is it not?! 

AND THEN self employment begins, that heady ground of getting going.  

You start to consume all the things.  I know that when I started out I became an absolute student of all things business.  I was bombarded with messages about the hustle and how it would be super easy to make money, live the life and be uber successful.  

YEAH, I’m willing to put the work in. 

It would then trickle through that there was this whole world of “self development” that you absolutely couldn’t miss out on.  For me, I actively observed this world and whilst I’m a HUGE believer in developing yourself the self development industry often seemed very stuck and sticky.  It seemed that for lots (not all, but lots) being in self development meant that they were invested in people staying stuck and that kinda stank to me. 

I see so many entrepreneurs who quite literally feel that self employment has absolutely kicked the shit out them.  They arrived as confident and competent peeps and rapidly had every single ounce of self esteem drained from their very being.  

This has multiple angles – which I’m going to dive into in this blog BUT before I go any further there’s something I want to address first…. 

This is important. 

YOU are the most important part of your business.  Not a whizzy funnel, strategy, tactic or trick.  YOU are fundamental to the success.  I know that might sound burdensome if you’re feeling like you’re the last person you’d bet on right now.  Let’s relieve that burden because I want this to be super empowering for you.  It’s in your hands and that’s super exciting.  

We can get you back in your groove and get ya zing zinging again.  

In the mix of this self employment malarkey it’s easy to forget who the fuck you are.  

You get your nose down. 

Your business becomes your baby. 

You feel more restricted by your business than you do a baby if we are brutally honest.  At least with a baby you could go out and meet other mums, you could go to colourful and noisy places and look empathetically at others in the same boat, you could go to a coffee shop guilt free with your pram in tow. 

Now you’re self employed every single moment where you might be remotely still has become a source of guilt.  “I should just…..” may well come out of your mouth OFTEN. 

Now, your business is part of you, but not all of you. 

Remember back to further up where we talked about leaving the office and having the potential and possibility of doing other shit – yeah that! 

Your business does NOT need you to be chained to it in order to be successful. 

It’s important that you do things aside from working, reading about work stuff, learning about work stuff and listening to stuff about work stuff. 

It’s important for YOU to have that break and time away.  It means that when you do sit down to work you can do that work full of energy and vigour, you’re not an exhausted flump all of the time and you are able to gather and gain different perspectives, ideas and creativity away from your desk.  

Come on lovely, what do you love to do? 

What lights you up? 

My #rockstardares to you is to write a “light up list.”  Now this list doesn’t have to include extremes or extravagances BUT it needs to include the shit that makes you feel fab. 

You then need to pick shit from that list to do regularly. 

Guilt free. 

Going guilt free is easy, just decide that you ain’t gonna feel guilty about it anymore. 

Your business isn’t milk, it ain’t gonna spoil if you leave it on the side for a little while.  

Let’s start with ~ pressure is for tires. 

YUP, I totally get it when you’re feeling under pressure to make money in order to pay bills and to maintain your standard of living, I truly do.  I’m not going to get all flippant on the ass of this one.  I see some people talk very flippantly in this regard and they either simply don’t get it or they are so far removed from it that they forget – either way, it’s fucking rude and disrespectful 😡 rant over. 

When you’re feeling financially under pressure then it’s important that you don’t spiral into negativity and feeling incredibly lost.  The good news is that it’s always in your hands to start to ring the changes. 

The most important journalling prompt that I give people is what would it take for me to…………and there you can explore what action you can take in order to get the money rolling.  I also have a totally FREE programme called ~ Revive Your Money Moxie ~ that you can take and it’ll support you to get the pennies rolling in.  >> you can click here to get hold of it << 

The second thing I always talk through with people is “are you actually safe?” Is the pressure actually real? Pressure can really easily consume you and can be irrational.  Take some time to just work out whether there’s a real pressure or whether it’s something that has become bigger than it is.  Again, I don’t want to sound in any way flippant on this one but it’s a useful check in.  

Pressure also shows up as having to get things right, not mess up, be visible blah blah blah.  Here’s the thing, you can’t get it wrong! No-one has ever been out there and ran your business, your way before.  Let’s remove the pressure.  There’s no set of rules or standards that you must adhere too AND we all mess up from time to time.  

I have to say that with the sucking of self esteem of course it’s super difficult to be visible.  I work with stacks of people through this and just saying “get visible” isn’t helpful.  It’s a whole package of work that needs to go into that.  From you getting back to grips with who you are, getting over the overs (which we will talk about shortly), practice and ditching the rules.  

💗 Stop putting so much pressure on yourself! 💗

Chances are if you release the immense pressure magical things will happen!

I spoke to a lady a little while ago who used the word “pressure” when we talked about her work. We decided that that word needed reframing. She needed to look at things a different way.

Overwhelm, overthinking, over analysing – all the overs! They can be utterly exhausting.  

I always say that overwhelm is a choice.  Again, I know that could cause an eye roll 🙄 but it’s totally true.  We can decide on whether or not we can feel overwhelmed.  You might be shaking your head and saying, ack, but I have so much to do.  Let’s examine that one…

🌟 The Danger Of The Long To Do List🌟

Ok so I might have started this post with a bit of a misleading headline because having a long to do list is actually a good thing 💞 YES, REALLY!!!

Well, I’ve written a whole blog on this one. 

You can read that here >>click here<<

I don’t think I need to add anything else to that 😘

So, I could go on and on and no wonder so many entrepreneurs feel like their self worth, self esteem and confidence has been sucked out of them. 

I can absolutely do stacks more on this one and what you can do about it. 

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way and whilst there’s stacks of external influences and factors you have a choice to deal with it in your way and walk out the other side with your zing in tact.  

I ask you one favour, ok well 2; 

① If you get this then please comment on this article – even if you just pop “I get it” in the comments then it might just make another gorgeous Rockstar less alone 

② Share this article with other entrepreneurs in your network, it’s super important 😉

Thank you 😘

In the meantime, just yell if I can help & support you further or if you have any questions.