Self leadership may seem like an oxy moron because leadership is often thought of as leading people, but with entrepreneurship on the rise and a surge of solopreneurs, it is becoming an essential skill for success. You have probably heard business owners complain about managing staff and perhaps you have assumed managing yourself would be the easiest person to take on, but the dynamic complexities of solo entrepreneurship is proving to be challenging.
The Challenges of Solo Entrepreneurship
With the economy changing and companies hiring more consultants to avoid paying benefits and saving on salaried employees, skilled professionals are choosing to be their own boss and become entrepreneurs. The lure of simplicity, speed, and seamless decision making makes solopreneurship an inviting professional call. Yes, you even get full control of everything in your business which begins as an exhilarating temptation,but can quickly move to an exhausting reality. If you have ever worked under a manager, within a team, or for a company, you may be brushing off the idea of working solo as challenging to be an absurd statement. You may think there is no complexity in working as a one man show; however for all those solo entrepreneurs out there, they will attest to a unique and different set of challenges they experience daily.
Ironically, if you are a solopreneur and you were asked what are the challenges of running your own show, many of us would only list a few with isolation, motivation, and having to do everything ourselves at the top of the list. We may not complain much because the pay off in freedom is worth every ounce of struggle or juggling doing it all on our own. Lurking in this irony of rarely complaining, is a hidden threat that some solopreneurs are not even aware of and that is our very own blind spots.
You know the blind spots that are unconscious, the ones that are not even on our radar that we are completely unaware of as even existing. It is these very blind spots that limit our results, slow our progress, act like chains holding our potential down, and prevent us from performing at our peak ability. Sometimes these hidden saboteurs are in our personality, they are our habits, conditioned long held beliefs, and in our way of being.
In a team or working for someone else, there is variety of personalities where strengths can be pooled and collaborated upon. Even the opposing personality types will challenge people to adapt and grow, but on your own, all you have are your own strengths. In addition, when you work with other people in a company, there are external motivating drives through goals, sales targets, competition, strictly enforced deadlines, and regulated budgets that guide decisions.
None of those are present when you are a solo entrepreneur unless you are a highly intrinsically and self motivated, structured, and competitive person who can completely self regulate without external triggers. A person with all these traits is not only rare, but also to even exist would take extreme mastery of self regulation, training, and utter disciplined dedication.
Struggles Solopreneurs Face Daily
- Motivation
- Isolation
- Lack of Collaboration or Diversity of Ideas / Strengths
- Personality Paralysis
- Mindset Mania
- Small Business small vision thinking
- Doing it all Dizzy Daisy, No one to Delegate to
- Accountability Issues, Ambivalent and Wandering Targets
- Structure, Lack of strict structure depletes results
- Burn out or fatigue due to full on responsibility and zero support
- Energy creation is singular
Self Leadership for Solopreneurs
Well by now you are probably wondering how any solo entrepreneur can survive when they are facing all those struggles and perhaps now looking at the ones that are doing well as super beings!
This is where self leadership becomes a skill that every solopreneur needs in order to succeed. Learning and developing self leadership is a tool that brings productivity, efficiency, and progress to entrepreneurs running their own business solo. You see as a solo entrepreneur managing yourself involves self awareness to the blind spots that could be damaging your business, scheduling and time management around your needs and goals, structured plans and deadlines, and strategizing motivation for peak performance.
Self Leadership Success Tips for Solopreneurs
If you are a solopreneur already or beginning your journey with being a solo entrepreneur, here are some self leadership success tips for you:
- Set up a daily and weekly schedule with specific time blocks to achieve your business goals and stick to it. Be non negotiable here.
- Know yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, your personality, and what you need to succeed. Being self aware empowers you to know where you may need to ask for help, support, & guidance.
- Discover what motivates you. Do you need to set sales targets? Do rewards of vacations, time with your loved ones, or a prized possession motivate you? What do you require to be motivated?
- Give your business structure especially if you are not a structured person and if you cannot do it, hire someone to help you. Structure some deadlines on projects, structure your year, structure your systems for efficiency.
- Create opportunity for social interaction, collaboration, and partnerships to avoid isolation and infuse yourself with stimulation
- Establish an accountability partner with a colleague, coach, or mentor
- Lastly, but not least, lucky number 7, to get out of small business thinking, and build a bigger vision, you need to live large and expand your horizons. Get out there and do something in the great outdoors, or something that scares you, something that expands your experiences and knowledge, and something new that challenges you! Big ideas and big thinking come from exciting, new adventures that challenge and inspire the soul and spirit.
Solopreneurs face a lot of obstacles working alone, but knowing how to deal with the challenges with self leadership strategies will smooth the entrepreneur roller coaster.
What strategy of self leadership will you implement right away to improve your business? Leave a comment below and if you need a self leadership strategy for your business, contact Jody at [email protected] to get started.
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