Coping and Persevering Through Failure as a Business Owner

To be a business owner is to fail.

And to succeed.

To try.

To stumble.

As much as we share our successes and our milestones, one of the things I don’t see too much about is our failures.

Failure is a big word, it feels scary because it is scary that we live in a culture of shame, to be told to only let people see us “win” when the most human thing we can do is fail.

So here are some of my “fails”, how I turned them into lessons, and why I kept going:

Keeping everything in my brain

Not only did this lead to burnout, it led to horrible client support. I had rapid expansion in my business in 2019 and it led to me forgetting deadlines, missing obvious things, and most of all, burning myself out. I implemented a system that worked best for me, my business, and my brain.

Inconsistent goal setting and stopping to measure

I remember about three years ago, someone asked me how many clients I could take on. I mentioned the number, but I didn’t actually have a plan on how to get there or why I wanted to get there.

Not niching down

When I started my business, I would work with anyone and any business. I realized this wasn’t the best way to do business so I had to niche down. It took me far too long to realize that. After much thought and looking at all my favourite clients, I found a consistent theme and that’s who I started focusing on.

It’s okay to talk about when we miss the mark, I’m sure reading those, you’ve had similar experiences, if not the same.

There’s a lot of risk with entrepreneurship, but there’s also reward. And even with all of the risks and stumbles, at the end of the day, you and your business are still worth it every time. Entrepreneurship is putting the confidence in your abilities, in yourself, to help customers and clients in whatever capacity that may be.

For me, that’s coaching, instructing, accounting and bookkeeping.

So while I do have many successes in my business, I also have failures, and I remind myself that it is normal, actually the most normal thing that could happen.

It’s just about how we grow from our failures.