I Failed at Entrepreneurship. Now I'm Going Back to Work

Today is my last day working for myself. I know, usually that sentence goes the other way around.

I’ve spent the last five years trying my best to succeed as a self-starter, girl boss, entrepreneur- and guess what? I failed.

I officially got the news about an hour ago that I would be starting my new, entry level job tomorrow morning at 7am. I can’t remember the last time I was up before 7am, so I already anticipate this to be a challenge, but I’m excited. I haven’t had a job for someone else since I was 19- I’m now 24. At the time, I was doing what was necessary to make ends meet while holding onto the dream of someday doing what I loved. When I made the decision to quit my job and focus my time on online income streams, I did so because I believed entrepreneurship would give me the time freedom I needed in order to do what I really loved: writing.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

For the past 5 years, I’ve spent nearly every hour of every day desperately trying to make a business work. I’ve done everything from freelance modeling to amazon FBA. I spent every minute and every penny I had. I worked 16 hour days. I bought $300 worth of candle supplies only to discover after 1 day that a candle business was, in fact, not for me.

I tried everything I could to make the entrepreneur lifestyle work for me, but because my heart was never in anything, every venture would inevitably fail- leaving me to pick up the pieces of another fallen business idea. Most of which, also left me in debt.

So here I am, 24 years old with no degree and no serious career, about to start a minimum wage paying job as a plant packer. And you know what? I couldn’t be happier.

In today’s incredibly toxic “hustle” culture, it appears that most people are taught that working for yourself is the end all be all solution to a healthy work/life balance. Well I call bullshit. A healthy work/life balance means spending time away from work, and when you own your own business that’s nearly impossible. As sad as I am to admit this, I know now that I would have been better off keeping my part time job at 19, and spending my time off working on all of the writing projects I had in mind. No amount of pride I could have felt at a business success will ever make up for the fact that 5 years later, I still haven’t even written one.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t feel bad if working a traditional job is a better fit for you. There are way too many people online trying to push their idea of a perfect lifestyle onto everyone, when the reality is not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur. And you know what, that’s okay.

Obviously working for yourself has some amazing benefits. No one is looking over your shoulder, you can get up whenever you want, and (if you’re like me) you can spend your workday surrounded by your dogs. That part is great. And yes, ideally one day I will be back home, once again working from the comfort of my couch. But I hope next time I’m spending my work hours doing something I enjoy, rather than something I believe I must do.

In the meantime, you can catch me packing plants from 7-3 and sitting down to write as soon as I get home.