I Never Really Wanted to Start a Business

I think many over-achievers come to find when they're trying to build a business or a life with more freedom, is that even though your goals may have changed - the approach of how you get there also matters. And if you're still operating on beliefs that you have to strive, chase, and work hard to get what you want... it's tricky to really feel free, even if you're "supposed" to be building freedom.

I've been feeling really conflicted lately between the part of me that's been feeling overwhelmed, unclear, and wanting more structure so she doesn't have to "figure out what to do" and instead just gets to do it, and the part of me that wants more creative freedom, ease, for creating to be the accomplishment and where not everything has to be "productive" or "effective."​

When I first started Saqe, I was exploring, learning, testing, just seeing what this idea of starting a business might be about. And I wasn't really focused on a business, making money, or getting views or "engagement." I had given myself permission not to because everything was still so new, no one had really seen me yet, there was no expectation - it was exploration.

Then with time, I started to "learn" from "experts" that "everything could, should be better, faster. perform, fit, speak to my "ideal" customer." I was once in a masterclass where the host made a remark about people she'd see two years into business, still not with a sale, and how it was such a pointless thing and how she had her business up and running, making sales in 3 months.

I was two years into starting a business, still with no sales... and I had felt so proud of everything I'd learned, explored, created, discovered, unlearned in life, healing, and business and yet there I was being told that was (apparently) a complete and utter failure.

I feel like somewhere along the road, in small, gradual shifts - while healing from burnout and autopilot as well as childhood abuse, trauma, and toxic relationships, and finding myself again - all the "tips" that were supposed to bring me "success," the reasons why I hadn't "succeeded" yet according to "experts," the awkward conversations with family members asking the only "entrepreneur" in the family "so, have you made any money yet?" because apparently that's still all that matters the same way getting perfect grades mattered in school, the lack of being able to push my health and body into jobs, the inability to even get jobs, the financial pressure of not making money from a business that supposedly is just a hobby until you can live off it, not being able to keep up with jobs that were ruining my health and wellbeing, not being interviewed or hired for the jobs I saw as remotely possible to not be horrible, the guilt of living a life not as who I "should" be based on who everyone told me to be......... it all just led to so much expectation for things to "work."

"I just want this to work out" is something I hear myself think over and over again.

There's always a little wise mother voice asking me "what does it even mean for it to work out, when everything always works for you?" but I usually try to ignore her by focusing on something else...​

When I first started, and I had no expectations, just space and permission for exploration, I felt like creating was the accomplishment. I would be so happy on a day that I had recorded a batch of videos, created a landing page, brainstormed about something... and I would live with complete freedom for my day, allowing my body to guide me on what it needed and my desires on what I wanted.​

Truth is, it felt okay because I told myself it was temporary. It was only temporary that I wouldn't be earning my own income, that things would have less than 50 views, that I was speaking into a silent void... so it was okay. It was okay to explore because eventually... it would "work."

I was reading a post from a creator I adore and she wrote about imposter syndrome and how most creators and visionaries will experience that as long as they're trying to be something they don't really want to be. When they're trying to live up to expectations (decided by themselves or others) of what it means to be a writer, entrepreneur, friend, mom, daughter, creator, YouTuber, you name it. When we have stipulations that require something of us that isn't our true selves, we feel like an imposter in something we could be (and often are) actually really good at.

I don't think I feel like an imposter in terms of making money. But I do in the idea that making money is the only, or the biggest, thing that matters. ​​

Sometimes I think to myself: What if the world was built in a way that we could do, create, or say anything and we had no idea how others reacted? No idea how many views, clicks, or comments it got. No idea what someone else is doing on a Wednesday morning. No idea how many calories an "average" person eats per day.​

Plus, we had money coming in every month covering our needs and wellbeing. Allowing us to buy the cup of coffee, or the trip, and took care of the bills with ease. Maybe we even lived in a world where money didn't exist, but that's another topic.​

How much easier would it be to do the thing, create the thing, be the thing?

Yet, if over-achieving, performance, and hustle culture hasn't done enough damage, we continuously live in a capitalistic society that says "money is required to be well. Alignment, health, and truth is all nice but money is the only currency we are interested in." So we don't only feel like we should be performing, but our wellbeing is also dependent on that performance.

It's a shitty trap.

​Before sitting down to write this out, I was reflecting on all this and thought to myself: I don't think I ever really wanted to start a business.

What I wanted was to move through the day in a pace that felt good to me and gentle on my body. To live with ease, joy, and freedom. To serve and make an impact in the world, to make it a better place than when I first came into it. To use my voice and share my truth. To be seen for my true heart and wisdom.

A business just seemed like the best vehicle to make that happen.

But while I'm battling productivity and CEO decisions versus creativity and desire to just be who I am and for that to be enough... I'm not sure a business is what I want.

Which brings me back to the imposter note from earlier. Maybe what I don't want is what the world tells me is a business. Which is why I had to put "entrepreneur" and not entrepreneur earlier in relation to those awkward family conversations because I can't justify for myself that I am an entrepreneur and not an "entrepreneur" since I still haven't made any sales from this "business" (or business?).

It also reminds me of a role model I adore, Sara Blakely - founder of Spanx. Her story of when she started the company includes how all the men who were founders at the time would tell her "business is brutal, it's all about competition" and she thought to herself "no, I think it can be different than that."

She had intuition, a deeper truth within her that what everybody told her "had to be" was actually optional and there was another way. One that felt more easeful, enjoyable, aligned. One that brought her massive success, by the way. And I meant that without the quotation marks.

​​So I wonder if we must also redefine what all these different things really mean to us. Maybe even choose not to define it by just one thing or label.

So that we can stop feeling like imposters in a box we don't even want to be stuck in, and we can focus on what we really want instead.

I have to be honest, I don't know if I want a business or if I'm currently operating a "business" or a business. But I do know what I want it to be, to mean. I wrote it earlier, it was what I wanted. The label that became a box that turned out to be a trap is the only thing that complicated it.

So I wonder, if I shift my focus onto that instead and ask, what would be in alignment with that? Maybe I would feel less conflicted, less like an imposter, and more like my true self.

And if on top of that, I celebrate being my true self as the accomplishment, believe that's where my true power lies, and trust that the Universe supports me in that because me being well and thriving means another part of the Universe is well and thriving...

I wonder if life all together couldn't just change in an instant.