Unpopular Opinion: You secretly hate solopreneurship too

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Do you ever wake up in the morning and the first thing you think about is all the tasks you have to get done?

Do you go to bed feeling defeated that you got little done during the day?

Is your business feeling like something that is taking your time away rather than giving you more time to enjoy things in life?

You'd be surprised to hear that you're not alone. I, like so many other people, have had these similar challenges in the past.

I remember the "first" time I had tears falling from my eyes, my body on the floor sobbing with wails, and full-on meltdown; let's just say ya, girl, over here did not look so pretty. Do you know what's worse? This was on Thanksgiving (2019 y'all, we've learned a lot since then), my brother had just come into town from New York and he was really excited to spend time with my family and I, but I got so held up last minute prepping for Black Friday that I said "no" again to spending time with them. I was cooped in my room until 5 am trying to fucking figure out how to create a god damn sales page from scratch (never again) - as you can see the memory of this doesn't really "light me up".

Have you been in a similar situation before?

Saying no once more to the people you love because you're spending time on your business, hoping it will help you create more time with them in the future?

Yeah, me too.

From what I've learned from that experience, is that we will never truly "be off" with our business; so, instead of sacrificing time now in order to create more time in the future, why don't we actually just take the time to learn how to create balance? To create a business that works around our life, rather than have our life fit around our business?

With that being said, let's unfold all the secret reasons why you hate solopreneurship…or at the very least, rethink your efforts from now on.

#1 Doing it all is not a badge of honor

Have you ever heard of a one-man business that scaled to a million+ dollars?

Yeah, no. It doesn't exist. If you find one, send them my way, I'd like to learn from them.

Jokes aside, if you're reading this article, then you know that deep down you've been running yourself and your business to the ground if you continue to keep going on by yourself. Now, I know that hustle culture promotes this idea of working 24/7, that you always have to be "on", that money never sleeps, etc., etc., but let me ask you this, what is all that effort for if you continue to feel miserable in the process? Honestly, our bodies are not meant to always be "on", we actually need to take the time to rest; and no, that does not mean laying in bed and still continuing to think about your business. If we don't take proper rest, eventually we will hit burnout.

I explain this more in-depth here.

As you may have noticed, I'm very anti-hustle culture. I believe you can have an amazing life and an amazing business at the same time. But in all seriousness, wasn't the reason why you quit your job is so that you can work less? Remember that.

But yet, you put over 40 hours into your business, it's more like 40–100+ hours if you consider how much "thought process" goes into it.

So what gives?

How did you get here?

How can we actually work less and accomplish more?

Well, the first thing you need to do at this point is go back to the reason why you started this business in the first place. Whether it be for more time, financial freedom, or just for the plain old fact that you love what you do, go back to those roots. Remember why you're here.

Once you remember that, ask yourself what you need to do today in order to get to where you want to be?

I can almost guarantee that version of you and your business is not doing it all alone.

#2 You've been carrying too many hats for way too long

Are you the marketing, admin, sales, customer service, and operations person all in one?

Can you really do all those tasks to the best of your abilities?

More than likely the answer is no, or if you are at a place where you're doing all of that, then more than likely you're half assing every category.

Are you catching my drift here?

You are the CEO.

You are meant to translate your vision into action.

You are meant to find the talent to turn that action into a reality.

You are meant to translate your vision into action.

You are meant to find the necessary talent to turn that action into a reality.

You are meant to translate your vision into action. You are meant to find the necessary talent to turn that action into a reality.

So stop being the goddamn talent, go hire them already.

Yes, I know it will cost money.

Yes, I know it's scary to hire your first team member.

Yes, I know you could do the task you're hiring out for.

Yes, I know that you're afraid to hand off your baby (read: your business) to someone else.

I get it. Shit's hard. But why would you continue to sacrifice your precious time doing something you hate when you could do something that you love?

I'll give you an example. Today I was thinking about hiring a virtual assistant to help me with some content scheduling and admin tasks. Initially, I thought to myself:

"Why would I? I could just do it myself?"

But then I got to thinking about my goals and where I want my business to look like in the next year, and I asked myself a very important question:

What would the future Tina (who's accomplished all the goals I have in mind) do?

More than likely, she would not second guess the hiring element and put out a job posting for her business needs.

You know what I did that very next hour?

You guessed it; I put out a job posting. I am so excited to be sifting through applications and have this dreaded task on my to do list leave me!

If you continue to be a solopreneur, then you're literally prolonging your business' success. The individuals that you hire will be an asset to your company. You get to leverage another individual's talent and time so that you can spend your time focusing on doing what you love. How much better that sounds, right?

#3 Creating a turning point

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So this begs the question, how do I actually get started with hiring and offloading my to do list?

Why, that's such a brilliant question!

I actually really love to start with this exercise, I call it:

"The things I hate to do sheet"

Literally, create a whole damn list of all the things you absolutely HATE to do in your business.

If you hate creating social media posts, put it on the list.

If you hate cold outreaching clients, put it on the list.

If you hate cross-posting your writing content to social media outlets, put it on the list.

The few above are some of the things that I absolutely hate to do.

Once you have your nice and shiny list in front of you, I want you to start small - especially if this is your first time hiring out someone.

Take the time to identify tasks you can easily outsource and delegate out to.

Circle it

Create a job posting on either Upwork or Fiver (Upwork is my personal favorite)

Post it.

Congratulations you've made your first job posting!

You are one step closer to saying "bye bye" to all the things you hate doing.

From there, you can sift through applications, conduct interviews, and onboard your new team member.

If you think you're going to need more help with the team member training process, highlight this sentence and I'll consider writing a high level article on how to do this.

. . .

Being a solopreneur is not sustainable long term. It will leave you feeling drained, exhausted, and burned out. You can no longer continue being a one man/woman show. It's important for you to stop carrying all the hats in your business. You are not good at everything, so stop trying to be. You don't have to hire a full on team in order to get your business to where you want to be. Remember, it all starts with one. I know this process can be scary, but trust me when I say that you would have wished you started this outsourcing and delegation process sooner. Are you with me?

What's the #1 thing you absolutely hate doing that you would love to outsource?

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