In this time of possibility, when anyone can launch a business from home in their PJ’s, with absolute freedom, we paradoxically see entrepreneurs struggling to make their business sustainable, to realise the vision, are working long hours and the dream has turned into worry and burnout.
Images for entrepreneurs (we searched a lot of these when building our website) often reflect the ‘solo’ nature of the work, and in fact the term soloprenuer that describes the entrepreneur that runs the entire business themselves, so no co-founders, no employees, is commonplace.
For the struggling soloprenuers and entrepreneurs two issues are arising:
You’ve heard the sayings ‘if you want something doing, give it to the busy person. And you’ve experienced it, when you have lots of time the task fills that time, and when you give yourself a short deadline, you get it done in a fraction of the time (thinking back to my dissertation there, in which my best work was done in the last 2 days). When left alone, with an ocean of time and potential in front of you, you literally kill motivation and action.
Freedom doesn’t create entrepreneurial successes, structure does. Creating deadlines transform your ideas into project plans, they make it concrete; working with someone to relieve the mental isolation, to bounce ideas off. As Jack Dorsey (Founder of Twitter) once said, “Constraints inspire Creativity”.
The second, and very related factor at play is how a lack of human connection affects our motivation. A paper by Ryan & Deci, 2000 discusses how connectedness with others and social accountability is an essential condition for intrinsic motivation in Self-Determination Theory.
People pay for personal trainers each week because they want someone to keep them on track and motivated. ‘White coat compliance’, is an increase in adherence behaviour in medical changes observed with regularly visiting a health care provider. Both are the result of the power of social accountability.
We are social creatures (yes even if we’re introverts or love time alone), who have literally evolved our self awareness and ability to self-regulate from being with people as part a community. (Scheier & Carver, 1977) (Silvia, 2002).
We experienced this affect ourselves, going from two solopreneurs not quite reaching what we wanted, to weekly supportive catch ups, where we’d discuss our businesses and goals and started to collaborate. This forced us to set goals that the other held us to account for by the next coffee date. It worked!
We need a structure in our entrepreneurial freedom, with trusted allies, because we perform at our best when we feel connected and supported.
This is what we offer; a personal trainer for your business. Someone with knowledge, who can help you get clarity on the right work to do for maximum impact, to support and empower you, kindly hold you to your goals and help you set productivity rituals. Autonomous accountability is where we’re headed.