Finding Freedom and Flow as a Solopreneur

Freedom and Finding Your Flow as a Solopreneur

How do you find your freedom and flow as a solopreneur?

If you are like me and most of my solopreneur clients, you probably started your journey as a solopreneur with dreams of unlimited freedom and the time to do all the things you want in life- the things you never had the time to do when you were an employee.

In fact, freedom and being your own boss seems to be the #1 reason most solopreneurs start their businesses, besides a burning desire to serve others and make a difference in the world. 

I know that for me, I wanted the time to do everything my job kept me away from, but the reality of the early days of solopreneurship took me down rabbit holes of time wasters that made me feel everything but free.

It’s hard at first to find this freedom in your business. But you can create the life you want while doing good in the world with your business.

Let’s talk about freedom. What does it mean to you?

For me, freedom means having the power to choose what is best for my life and myself, and being a solopreneur means choosing to create meaningful work while making money and helping others. It means having the freedom to decide how I spend my time, energy, and money. 

I was talking the other day with a fellow entrepreneur whose mother was born in the early 1900s. She was an immigrant to the United States. At that time, her parents had 7 children, and several others who had passed away from the Spanish flu. 

Her parents needed to survive so it was an all hands on deck situation. She was the youngest girl of the family, and her parents were not kind to her. They decided she would work outside the home as a laundress and give all of her money to her parents so they could save it to eventually return to their home country. 

She was forbidden to speak to men, or even look them in the eye. She had no freedom to save her money or keep any of it for herself. One day, a man came into her shop and asked her to go for a walk with him. Her brothers and parents found out about it and beat her up as soon as she got home.

The young man, also an immigrant, felt responsible and asked her to marry him. She decided she’d better take this chance to get away from her desperate situation. She wasn’t necessarily in love, and she barely knew him, but she didn’t have much of a choice. 

She married him and ended up having 7 children, including the friend I was speaking to. He said that his mother told him he was lucky to be born as he was, with the freedom to choose his own life, and if she had had the choice she would have gone to law school, and then married and had children on her terms, when she was ready, instead of when she did. She had to do what she did to survive.

So, what does this story have to do with solopreneurship?

As a solopreneur you have choice and you have freedom, but you may not know how to really claim it. This could be because for centuries, many of your ancestors did not have choices or freedom for most things in life because their survival was at the center of most decisions.

For the most part, we humans still make our decisions based on survival, even though many of us don’t have to anymore.

First, to decide to leave your job and start a business is pure freedom, BUT, for so many of you who have been taught that your survival depends on working for someone else and keeping a “secure job” it can feel nearly impossible.

There are so many people who are tolerating their soul sucking jobs just because they feel like they have to.  There are plenty of circumstances that make it feel like there’s not really a choice.  It’s a hard choice that seems impossible to so many people.

Just making the choice to start a business is pure freedom because it is rare compared to the number of people who never take the leap and go to their graves with the dream of a business still inside.

Then, you may have taken the leap, but it is so easy to bring these old, hardwired beliefs with you into your business. Here are just a few of the many ways this can show up:

·       The need to hustle and work yourself into a frenzy from 5am to midnight every day.  This is not freedom. And it is not effective, and it’s not sustainable.

·       The need to say yes to every networking event or opportunity you get invited to.

·       The need to say yes to every speaking engagement, social media platform, or marketing opportunity out there. There are hundreds or thousands of opportunities, which makes it hard to say no.

You may be spending more time working now than you did in your job. This is not sustainable, and it doesn’t feel like freedom. But it’s not easy to figure out how to spend your time. Here are a few reasons why.

1. You may be in survival mode.

Sometimes this is called the stress response, or fear mode, but it is actually your brain trying to protect you from the uncertainty of something new.

Your brain thinks you may starve to death if you don’t do all the things from 5 am to midnight every night. 

The problem with this is you can’t think clearly when you are operating in survival mode. You won’t make clear decisions, or creative ones, and you certainly won’t be able to hear your intuition or be in your flow. 

The worst part is, operating in survival mode will block you from connecting to the people who need and want your services. They will just see you as stressed-out, hungry, commission breathed, graspy, needy or desperate.

They will sense that you need them as a client more than they need your service, so they probably won’t trust you enough to pay you for your services. Let’s avoid this.

2. You may not know how to set your schedule up in a way that gives you balance and freedom. 

This isn’t because there is not enough information out there on time blocking, time management, or scheduling and calendars, but because it can be scary to figure it all out alone. 

Remember, you are a pioneer. You may not have grown up around successful solopreneurs who have plenty of freedom and full control of their time, so it can be hard to navigate this alone.

Here are some of the ways I figured out how to organize my time:

·       Take at least one day a week for silence.

If you have small children, this could be a stretch, I understand.  But at least get a couple of hours each week for pure silence where you can hear yourself and take away all the noise that is cluttering up your brain. Declutter your mind and make it a priority.

·       Make a list of all your tasks.

What can you eliminate? Are there any “shoulds” on that list that are bogging you down? If so, put them on another list called “shoulds.” This way, you’ll have two lists, shoulds vs. essentials

·       Ask yourself, “what’s the most important thing I need right now? What’s the most important thing my business needs right now?

·       What can I cut out completely?

This could be time commitments, expenses, or false responsibilities. You may be saying yes to everything right now, not because it’s what you want to do or because it will bring you paying clients, but because you are afraid to say no. This is based on your survival brain trying to keep you from starving. 

When this happens, you are likely doing way too much, rather than not enough.

This makes your mind spin, and you waste time rather than working effectively.

·       Ask yourself, “What does my ideal day look like?”   Even if it goes against the world’s shoulds? 

For me, this means writing as soon as I wake up in the morning. I also don’t use and alarm clock because they are jarring and block my brain’s creative flow. It took me many years to stop fighting this.

The world and it’s “shoulds” told me productivity happens before dawn. Before I’d set my alarm for super early and start by forcing myself to do some strenuous exercise.

But not now. Now I am nicer to myself and feel more freedom. I just keep my notebook next to my bed and when I wake up, I start writing.  Ideas flow through me, and it is way less of a struggle. 

This just means as an entrepreneur, you get to be strategic about how you use your time.  There are thousands of things you could do each day, but usually you jump into solopreneurship in the same way you would as a good employee, doing it all. This is a recipe for burnout.

Maybe as an employee you did everything because you didn’t want to get fired. You can’t fire yourself.  You are the boss now. (Fire the mean boss in your head instead).

Take some time to dream and imagine what freedom looks like for you.

What do you want to create for your life with this business of yours? It is all yours. It’s your business and you get to decide what works best for you now, and in the long term.

It’s time to make your ancestors and grandmothers proud.