The one thing you need more than anything else when starting your own business as a Highly Sensitive Person, is to have a way to bring yourself back to a state of trust.
Not blind trust, but trust that taking action will get you somewhere.
This is why self-care and emotionally savvy practices are a MUST when you run your own business. They are not a cute “option” for “when you have more time”.
Does Your HSP Business Plan Factor in Your Emotions?
Your business plan – and I am very very serious about this – needs a step by step way to bring yourself back to trust. Otherwise, you might have all the steps perfectly thought out in your head, but your emotional state will block you from turning your business idea into a reality.
When I say business plan, I don’t mean the kind of business plan you’d hand in to a bank of course! I mean the plan you make for yourself: what will you be doing, and how will you make it happen?
Many sensitive people will sit down and write out an impressive list of what they wish they would be doing. Business plans can be very ambitious! Yet what you need is a plan that really works for who you are as a Highly Sensitive Person – not for who you wish you’d be (the task robot who just gets things done without ever feeling hung up – for example)
As a Highly Sensitive Person, you bring both sensitive strengths and talents, and struggles and hangups to the table.
As a (future) business owner – YOU are the motor of your business. As a person, and a Highly Sensitive Person at that, your emotions are what fuel you.
For better or worse, you need to learn how to work with your strong emotions (and not fight them, ignore them or shut them down).
How you feel can create massive forward momentum in your business, or it can stop you from ever getting started at all.
As a Highly Sensitive Business Owner… (if you’re like me when I started and think it’s strange to call yourself a business owner, remember that a tiny one-person business is a business too!) …you need both a financially sound plan and an emotionally savvy plan for moving forward.
The 4 Ingredients for Creating Trust in Your Business
More often than not, profitable inspiration comes from taking action, not from anxiously pondering what ifs!
Without the trust to keep taking action when you’re starting your business, it’s easy to get stuck on a hamsterwheel of self-doubt, procrastination and a lack of results. Which all keep each other going!
To avoid getting stuck on this hamsterwheel, you need 4 specific things. Let’s dive into each below!
1. You need lots of good ideas when starting your own business
Without ideas, you don’t have a place to start from.
However, mix those ideas with fear, and you’ll convince yourself of all the reasons not to! Mix them with trust, and you’ll actually go for it!
Of course, not every single idea will be a winner when you’re starting your business. In fact, most of them won’t be! Some ideas might be outright unrealistic. So a little fear is fine. Dropping some ideas is necessary. Just make sure you don’t end up dropping all of them! (That’s called perfectionism)
Many Highly Sensitive People love love love coming up with good ideas. Chances are, you’re a creative person, so this probably isn’t the hard part for you!
The next point will likely be much more challenging (it’s where most Highly Sensitive People get stuck).
2. Keep taking action in your business
Without taking action, you don’t find out what works in practice. Often, there is no way to know for sure ahead of time! You need to go for it and see what happens when starting your own business, one step at a time.
This is where many Highly Sensitive People stumble! The not knowing what will happen can create stress and anxiety and get you to retreat into your head for some more thinking.
This seems like a safe bet, but it’s actually the worst thing you can do for yourself and your business.
Self-employment is diffferent from working for a boss. You are both the one deciding what needs to be done (the boss), and also doing it (as an employee, of yourself)! You don’t have someone else to push, motivate or “threaten” you when you’re stalling. This brings it’s own unique kind of challenges that you probably didn’t have to deal with before.
Which is also why it can be really really helpful to bring in another person to talk things through with. If you’re feeling stuck, you can Set up a Biz Clarity Call with me here.
By the way, if you associate taking action with dangerous risk – it’s not! (Though I totally understand that it feels that way!)
Savvy action taking also means having a plan B in case your plan doesn’t work. That’s not negative thinking! It’s just smart and allows you to keep going, even if many experiments fail – and they will!
Fear will tell you: “Every time something fails, that is proof that starting my own business will never work! I just don’t have what it takes!”
Trust will tell you: “Every time something fails, I am a little closer to figuring out what does work for starting my own business!”
3. Infuse your Highly Sensitive experience into your business
For your work to resonate with clients it needs to be about something real. Something you lived and that you know deep in your bones matters. In other words: your calling.
However, life experience can work for you, or against you! If you start revisiting the past from a place of fear, you’ll be reminded of everything that doesn’t work and all the reasons not to try.
If you revisit the past from an emotional space of trust, then you’ll see how all your experiences brought you something and it’s worth it to keep going, even if things work out differently than you expect.
As a Highly Sensitive Person, your sensitive observational skills will have brought you both unique opportunities, and unique conundrums. These are all part of your meaningful experience that you can infuse into your own business.
4. Recognize and shift when you’re stuck in Highly Sensitive procrastination and fear
Your emotional starting position can make or break your day, your week, and your business. So it’s important to know where you’re at.
Take time to get into a better-feeling space if you’re just going round and round the Fear Hamsterwheel.
You may also need some time to process how you’re feeling before you can get back to work.
Either way, trying to push forward in a panic, is rarely usefull! (You’ll probably end up making endless to do lists, worrying and fretting, rather than getting things done)
The Trust Model for Your Business
I made you an infograph to make the points above really clear.
(Click the image below to zoom in and/or print a copy as a reminder)
Need a hand figuring out how to get back to trust? Or have other self-employed & sensitivity issues that are keeping you awake at night? Set up a Biz Clarity Call with me to talk through it and get a new way forward. A way that honors your strong empathy, sensitive abilities and need for a pace that doesn’t overwhelm.
I have been a coach for Highly Sensitive People and Empaths full-time since early 2014, so I know my way around both having an online business, and being a sensitive person.
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