Being The (Brave) Boss Is Hard

Honest Post About Being Self Employed and Bravery

I had a weird morning yesterday that started with me waking up in tears and slowly getting dressed and putting on make-up while intermittently sniffling and crying. I have been running at full steam for the past several...months, I guess. And yesterday it finally caught up with me.

Let me back up and paint you a full picture of me: I am a futuristic, ENFJ, Type A, Know-It-All, Perfectionist who rarely fails at anything. And when I do fail it comes as a huge disappointment and I'm way too tough on myself for not being awesome 24 hours a day.

My weird morning is starting to make a little more sense now, right?

I'm still exhausted and feel oddly teary (even though I really don't have a reason to be sad and yesterday was a fairly relaxing day). But I am realizing something....it's tough being the boss! And it's harder still to be brave all the time, in charge of other people, having all the weight of a business on your shoulders, and trying to shove it out of your brain during the off hours when you're supposed to be relaxing and resting.

When I was a kid my family had dinner together most nights and I remember my self-employed parents not being able to talk about anything BUT business at the dinner table. I asked my mom one night why they couldn't just talk about something else for a change. Her reply, "This is what we do all day long. If we stop the business stops. Besides, we couldn't push this out of our minds if we tried."

I am now learning she was right in every way with that response. I can't turn my mind off of business stuff no matter what I do.  

I'm exhausted by it, but it's all I can think about and talk about these days.

I could be out having the time of my life with friends and then I'll suddenly remember something that needs to be added to the to-do list and will frantically type it into my phone before my brain forgets that passing thought. And then, inevitably, I'll remember another thing and then another and another....

I recently won an award in my field for being an innovator which was wonderful. But if I'm being honest, I really wish that award had come with some sort of therapy or free pass to exhaustion rehab. Some days it feels as though the pressure is mounting and more things are added to my plate than I can handle. Other days, I feel like I'm on top of the world, the business is the best it has ever been, and nothing can go wrong.

Being self employed really has been the best thing I've ever done. But being self employed has been the one thing that I haven't been able to perfectly master and I'm learning (probably the hard way) how to let go of being perfect, fear of failure, and trying not let this super hard job trump the fact that this is the absolute best career I could possibly have right now.