For those of you wanting to take the leap from corporate into doing your own thing…..
Before you can build a solopreneur mindset, you need to recognize the corporate behavior embedded deep in your brain. And then realize that a lot of that behavior doesn’t translate.
Here are three behaviors, specifically, that I had to unlearn.
Behavior #1: Busy equals productive
In my tech roles, looking busy mattered almost as much as being effective. If your calendar was full, you must be important. If you were always in meetings, you must be a valuable employee.
But as a solopreneur, being busy all of the time is the enemy of progress. The goal should never be to fill your time with activities. It’s to focus on the 20% of work that actually moves your business forward.
Behavior #2: You need permission for everything
Want to try a new approach in corporate? There’s a chain of people to inform and get permission from. Want to take Friday off? Submit a PTO request. Want to leave early? Make sure everyone knows you’ll be “back online later,” or run the risk of being seen as less valuable.
When you work for yourself, there’s no one to ask permission from. This sounds great until you realize how paralyzing it can be. I see a lot of new entrepreneurs look around, realize they don’t have a boss, and find someone else to ask. A friend. A parent. Someone they follow online. You find yourself looking for approval that may never come, and isn’t even necessary.
Behavior #3: More resources equal better results
In corporate, the solution to every problem was usually more: more people on the project, a bigger budget, more time to make the presentation perfect.
In solopreneurship, constraints force creativity. Unless you’re making a lot, you can’t throw money or people at most problems. You have to think your way through them and make sacrifices. Surprisingly, this often leads to better outcomes.
As a solopreneur, you get to define everything. What success looks like. What progress means. What enough feels like for you. You don’t have to grow. You can see a quarter of declined revenue, and if you planned everything effectively, it might not matter. There’s no performance improvement plan coming your way unless you create it yourself.
This freedom is terrifying. It’s also the whole damn point.