I’m celebrating my 10 year business birthday this month.
On a day to day basis it doesn’t feel like much, I’ve just kept going, working hard and step by step got myself to the 10 year mark. It has flown by, but as I stop and reflect I think to myself WOW! I feel quite emotional that I’ve reached this milestone. I’ve found the work, and the working life, that makes me feel happy and fulfilled. WOW. So I think to myself ‘gosh I’m so lucky’ but as my coach said to me recently it wasn’t luck, she reminded me that I leant into the hard work that needed doing and I kept at it.
As I pondered what to write for my business birthday I did a bit of research and found this interesting statistic – most female founder businesses in the UK have an average life span of 4.5 years. This certainly pleases me from a personal perspective that I’m exceeding the average but it’s very disappointing from a wider societal perspective – that’s a topic for another article.
So how did I get here? I started my business after a long career in HR, 25 years to be precise. I was ready for something new but I wasn’t really sure what that was, so after I left my job I decided to take some time to really think about what next. An obvious option was to find another HR role but something in my gut was telling me that wasn’t the right thing to do. And so it began a long voyage of self-discovery and experimentation and it continues today.
It was fascinating how many people told me they thought I was brave when I left the corporate world and started working for myself, but there were many times of uncertainty when I interpreted ‘brave’ as ‘are you mad, what are you doing?’. I’ve had plenty of experience of managing imposter syndrome in the last 10 years I can tell you.
When I started out I wasn’t very clear about what I wanted my business to do and to be. I was playing it safe and sticking closely to my HR knowledge initially but as I developed my coaching skills, and myself as part of my journey, I allowed myself to focus on my passion – empowering others, most importantly women, to achieve their potential. What I do and how I do it has changed and developed along the way. I’ve experimented, tried things and moved on but I’ve never had any regrets, every day is a learning day as they say. It’s evolving as I’m evolving.
I’ve learned a lot along the way so I thought I’d share some ‘learnings’ with you.
As it’s a 10 year celebration here are 10 of the things I’ve learned
- Doing something you love and being paid to do it is an unbeatable feeling. I love the feeling that it’s my business and I can do it my way.
- Running your own business is bloody hard work but it’s worth it. My experience has been that the sooner you realise it’s a winding and confusing journey, not a neat set of steps forward, the easier you find it.
- It’s important to be kind to myself and to celebrate all my achievements, all those little achievements are steps towards the big ones.
- Having people around you to support you is essential – for me the first supporter I had, and the one who is always my cheerleader, is my husband Miguel. I’ve built up my ‘team’ of supporters over the years and couldn’t do what I do without them.
- It can be a lonely place. I loved being part of a team when I was employed and I’ve tried to replicate that in various ways as I’ve developed my business
- You need a lot of determination to get you through the difficult days and there can be many of those difficult days.
- It has wonderful freedom and flexibility, I’ve finally got to work 4 days a week and plan my diary in the way that works for me not for everyone else.
- You have to be pretty self-motivated to make your business a success. It’s a stark contrast to working in corporate life where there are always goals and someone to be accountable to, when it’s your own business you can do what you like – that is a double edged sword!
- It’s ok to ask for help, in fact it’s essential. There are so many things that I didn’t know when I first started this journey. Some of the obvious things that I’d never come across in my HR career, like sales and marketing for a small business, but also things like how to manage yourself on the emotional rollercoaster of business ownership.
- You still have to do some work that you don’t enjoy much – for me it’s the admin, the finances, the running of the business – ideally I’d just work with my clients all day long!
I’ll finish by saying thank you. I’ve worked with so many wonderful people over these last 10 years – clients, coaches, ‘team’ mates, mentors, supporters – thank you to each of you for the part you’ve played.
I wonder what the next 10 years will bring?