It's Time To Get Off the Struggle Bus

I was stuck in the struggle.

I realized this while taking a shower this past February. (Because all of the best insights happen in the shower, right?)

I was thinking over my business. Things were good, but not great, and I wanted them to be great.

So why weren’t they great?

My business was generating enough money to support us, but without much left over at the end of the month.

My small coaching group had a solid set of participants, but wasn’t growing beyond that.

I was doing some excellent planning, but wasn’t seeing those plans come to life.

I had adapted to an ‘almost there’ mindset – almost ready to launch, almost done with the new offer, almost ready to sell.

And while it felt somewhat frustrating at the time to stay in a constant state of ‘almost’, it was also strangely comforting.

Struggle had become my Comfort Cave, and I know I’m not alone in this because I was doing the exact thing that I help almost every one of my clients avoid – staying stuck in the struggle.

Why Struggle Feels Safe

I’ve noticed a common thread in the world of solopreneurship: many of us choose to stay in a state of struggle. We don’t do this consciously or because we want to suffer. (Because that would be crazy, right?)

We do so because struggle is familiar, and if there’s one thing our primal brain likes, it’s familiarity.

Our primal brain — the part of our brain that’s wired to keep us safe — thrives on keeping everything exactly the same. Anything unfamiliar basically freaks it out.

It knows exactly what to expect from struggle, and there’s a strange comfort in that.

Struggle feels both yucky and oddly okay at the same time, because at least you know the outcome. No surprises. No risks. No proof that you either can or can’t do the thing. Just struggle, which keeps the primal brain happy.

But staying in the struggle keeps us playing small, and playing small feeds two fears at once: the fear of failure and the fear of success.

If you never fully commit, you never fully fail. And if you never fully succeed, you never have to deal with what that success might actually ask of you.

So struggle becomes a holding pattern. A story your mind tells you. An excuse that feels more like a reason.

And before you know it, you’re riding the struggle bus to a destination with no location.

How to Know If You’re Stuck in the Struggle

You’re treating preparation like it’s the same as progress.

Sorry to say, but reading books about launching your business is not launching your business. Mapping out a second version of your offer before you’ve sold the first one isn’t momentum. It’s avoidance dressed up in productivity clothing. When you’re always preparing but never doing, you feel busy without ever moving forward, and the results cant show up.

You’re waiting for certainty that isn’t coming.

Try as hard as you might, but the plan will never be perfect. The timing will never be ideal. The fear of getting it wrong will not disappear before you start. Waiting until you feel ready is one of the most common ways small business owners stay stuck, because “ready” is not a feeling. It’s a decision.

You’re choosing comfort over the version of yourself you actually want to be.

This is a tough one to admit. There’s a version of you that plays it safe, stays predictable, doesn’t rock the boat, even internally. And there’s a version of you that knows, without any doubt, that you are capable of more. The gap between those two versions isn’t a skills gap. It’s a willingness-to-try gap.

You’re calling hesitation “being responsible.”

Responsibility is important, but there’s a difference between being responsible and using responsibility as a reason to never commit. Sure, business owners are a responsible bunch. But we cannot let responsibility get in the way of our growth. Never taking risks, not taking action before you have a failproof plan, or constantly second-guessing every decision is not being responsible. It’s stalling and choosing struggle over progress.

Ready to Get Off the Struggle Bus? Chat with Jen

The Moment Something Shifts

There’s a moment a lot of my clients describe that sounds something like this:

“I just couldn’t keep doing it the same way anymore.”

It’s not a dramatic crisis or a rock bottom drop.

It’s just a quiet, clear knowing of what’s been happening because of the choices they’ve made.

They get to a point when waiting has stopped serving them.

The gap between the life they were maintaining and the life they actually wanted had grown too wide to ignore.

That was the realization I had in the shower this past February.

I realized that the choices I made to stay in a state of ‘almost there’ were no longer serving me, and it was time to make different choices.

I had to release what was comfortable and known for the opportunity to grow, and I have to admit, discovering what this looks like has actually been a lot of fun.

You Don’t Need All the Answers

That moment of realization that you’ve been stuck in the struggle, like the one I had in the shower, isn’t going to arrive with all the answers about what you should do next.

That’s not the point.

That moment is about deciding that the discomfort of staying stuck is now greater than the discomfort of moving forward.

Remember that the struggle bus doesn’t have a lock on the door.

You can get off whenever you decide to.

Ready to get off the struggle bus? 

I can help. Click here to schedule a time to chat with me about your options.