The Curse of Being an Entrepreneur

I’ve never considered myself as an entrepreneur.  Nope.  That’s not me.  Entrepreneurs are people who have some kind of new idea and work from the ground up to make their idea a reality and it changes the world.  I think of companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Uber that have transformed the way we live and the way we think within a matter of years.  I haven’t done that…in fact, there have been many Virtual Assistants before me and more keep popping up over the years as technology makes it easier to work and communicate remotely.  In a sense, I’m one in a crowd.

But Merriam-Webster defines “entrepreneur” a lot simpler than the grand ideas I have in my head:

Noun: one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise

Okay then.  Well.  Yes, I guess I would fall under that category.

And when “one” organizes and manages a business, it is the most thrilling, but at the same time, hardest risk you’ll take.  I worked so hard to get my business off the ground that when I finally reached a point of satisfaction monetarily, I thought that I would sit back, focus on my work, and be able to breathe out a sigh of relief.

Yes, that happened.  Then something else happened as well.  I’ve started to get…antsy.  I’m not bored – far from it, I love my clients and love what I do.  I’m not dissatisfied either.  It’s the need for a new challenge.

My business has continually challenged me from the moment I opened doors with the thought of, “Oh well, if it doesn’t work out, it won’t really matter.”  But it did work out.  I have had to navigate running a business while working full-time, growing my business to the point that I could quit my full-time job, maintaining a steady source of income when I was full-time, figuring out how to tell clients I was pregnant, find solutions for clients while on my maternity leave, learning how to run a business with a baby, and finally realizing how to take a step back and work with some subcontractors when I could not manage it all.

Now I’ve taken a step back and breathed a sigh of relief, but instead of being content, I have the thought: What’s next?

What can I do for myself professionally to make sure I’m challenged some more?  Do I focus on gaining more clients and more teammates to help?  Do I look into speaking opportunities for myself?  Do I continue to mentor future VA’s to help them go down the same road I did?

This was the moment I realized that I am, indeed, an entrepreneur.  It’s an entrepreneur’s curse: the need to continually push myself and figure out how to challenge myself with my business.  Yet when I was thinking about this the other day, I decided that perhaps it’s not a curse, but instead a strength that helps entrepreneurs succeed.

After all, the businesses that succeed are not the ones that are stagnant.