The ‘All or Nothing’ Entrepreneurial Approach Isn’t Sustainable
I’ve been working as a freelance writer and content marketer for the last 4 years. The clients I serve are all Entrepreneurs. I fitted nicely into this world as I was always such a fan of personal development writers, and loved the whole ‘self-starter’ vibe.
But there is a toxic undercurrent to this segment of the economy. Where I live in the UK, 660,000 new start-ups are registered each year. Yet 20% of them don’t make it past their first year of trading, and 60% don’t make it to their third birthday.
And those start-ups are often small teams of experienced, dedicated people with funding behind them. What about the Solopreneurs who build themselves from the ground up, working all alone with a bootstrap budget and burning the candle at both ends?
From my own observations and connections, I’ve witnessed just how much hard work goes up in flames, and how many souls go with that.
Now that our Economy is shakier than ever, and the world seems to be going through a mass awakening to what’s really important in life — I wonder if now might be the perfect time to reassess the way that we throw ourselves into the all or nothing culture of Entrepreneurship.
Could we find another way
If you are hoping for a brilliant mathematical model or a tried and tested system, then let me disappoint you sooner rather than later! I don’t have the answer — rather I have a question that I think we should all be pondering.
I’ve recently had to pivot in my own freelance work, in other words, I’ve changed the services that I offer in order to bring in enough revenue without burning myself out. I’ve switched from offering a range of content marketing services to several Solo/Entrepreneurs, to offering only content writing services to larger companies with more budget and greater regularity of work for me.
The root of this decision was that I was burnt out from constantly task-switching, and I was not earning enough either. Sticking to one form of work, my favorite form too, allows be to be in flow more often. Plus, did I mention that the money is a…
