Launching a business is scary. Especially during this pandemic. I started my team coaching business in February – not great timing – and stopped everything whilst we were locked down at home with 2 kids to teach/entertain/clean/feed and I relaunched in July once the wheels started moving again for us.

In my four short weeks since I launched this business with the publication of my book, ‘Getting Teamwork Right’, I am struck by some key feelings and themes as many people in my position will understand. I am as scared as I am excited, and I feel as incompetent as I feel competent. I reach sudden moments of laser clarity that are replaced as quickly by a dense fog of worry.

Life is currently a rollercoaster. The constant pressure of trying to get paying clients lives side by side with the excitement of getting to be my own boss and do the work that I love to do and which I truly believe will help make the world a better place.

I heard the England cricketer Freddie Flintoff talk once about confidence and pressure. He described getting ready to face his first ball at the crease with crowds of people and TV audiences watching in two ways. Some days, he would look up as the bowler was about to start his run up and all he would see was the wide open gaps between fielders where it was going to be easy for him to score runs. On other days, he’d only see the fielders, and panic about how he was going to get the ball past any of them.

Now, as I walk to the metaphorical crease for my business, I completely get what he means. I also know that there’s a lot of pressure to appear confident. Even if you are seeing the fielders rather than the gaps, people expect you as a business owner or entrepreneur to be entirely confident and competent. And you just aren’t. You may well be a subject matter expert and damn good at the work that you do, but nobody is perfect, right? There will undoubtedly be things you just don’t know how to do, and you feel a little bit lost and unsure of what to do.

There’s plenty about launching a business that I just don’t know how or what to do, and that fills me with fear. I also pretty much constantly hear the ticking of the ‘where’s the money coming from’ clock. I am trying to find answers or advice and work out what’s the best use of money and time. Some nights in the dark when my wife is sleeping and I feel alone, the demons of self-doubt are strong and present, and I question what on earth was I thinking to do this thing in the first place. ‘You’re going to fail’. ‘You’ll let your family down’. ‘Give up now’. ‘Who in their right mind is going to pay you’. ‘You don’t know what you are doing’ go the demons. Sometimes it’s hard not to listen to them.

Why am I writing this? Because I believe it’s OK to not be OK, and it’s also OK to admit it. We all can’t be amazing all the time. It’s exhausting trying to pretend you are something you are not. And although vulnerability might be scary, because you fear people might laugh at you or judge you, I think actually it endears you to people who will think things like ‘phew, I thought it was just me who had these thoughts – I feel better knowing I am not alone’ or ‘I appreciate his honesty’.

Being vulnerable and admitting fear, failure or doubt to others is healthy. I constantly tell teams this when I work with them on their levels of psychological safety, so I feel it is the right to do it myself. As I continue my journey, I am sure I will fail just as much as I succeed, and I want it to be OK to let people know this. I don’t want people to expect me to be perfect, and I don’t want to have to live up to an expectation I can’t achieve. I also want to share my thoughts with people who this resonates with and offer up some advice of what I am doing that is helping me figure it all out.

So, here’s some things if, like me, you are just starting out, or if you are further down the line in the life cycle of your own business. I don’t have all the answers. But I am trying, and I hope these tips can help you too.

Accept the Demons of Doubt

We all have the negative voice inside us, that does its best to talk us out of anything we want to do. At times it can be extremely strong and it’s hard to ignore. Rather than trying to shut it down, I let it say what it needs to say, and I am curious about what is behind it. Maybe there is something I need to hear? And when it has spoken, I say ‘I hear you, but now I choose to not let you say anything more’. I even think of it as a metaphorical being on my shoulder, and I physically brush it away. That helps me reduce its impact. I think we will always have a negative voice, so I don’t try to banish it – I just try to reduce its power.

Stick to Your Purpose and Passion

When you are in a fog about things and the doubt starts creeping in, just take a breath and remind yourself why you are doing this in the first place. Reconnect with your purpose and motivations, what you are passionate about and reinvigorate yourself with positive thoughts about the good you are doing and the impact you are making on the lives of others. It will help ground you and banish doubt.

Surround Yourself with the Right People

Whether it’s your accountant, a mentor, coach or peer going through the same things as you, customers o suppliers – choose the ‘right’ people. What do I mean by right? That you have to work out for yourself – people that you get on with and fit with you and your business, obviously people who are competent in their role but also are supportive and who will challenge you and hold you accountable. As I work alone having people hold me accountable to my decisions and plans is a really powerful way of keeping me motivated and moving forward.

Don’t Give Up

Times do and will get tough. You will feel doubt and tempted to just chuck it all in. If you truly want to achieve your dreams for your business, you must have grit and determination to not give up. We’re still in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic as I write this which is giving small businesses like mine a really hard time but we have to just keep going and trying harder and harder to get things done. Find those inner reserves of strength. When you are running a marathon and your mind tells you that you are done and can’t go on, your body still has 50% left in the tank. When you are tempted to give up, you still have reserves of energy left to go. Take a deep breath and keep going. The rewards will be all the greater if you can break through those barriers.

Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

Forging out on any new path will be uncomfortable. Most people resist change to some extent. Yes, some more than others, but we are hard wired deep inside to fear the unknown. Starting your own business will involve elements of the unknown, but we don’t have to listen to those primal instincts. We inherited these from our ancestors who roamed the savannah alongside dangerous animals, and a rustling in the bushes could have meant a deadly encounter. As modern humans, we must push those fears to the side and embrace the beneficial possibilities that the unknown now represent.

Get Organised

Some days I find myself spinning plates and running from topic to task and back. What am I doing today? What have I neglected or forgotten? Where am I meant to be? Help! Get organized. Choose the right software programs, manage your diary, create targets and goals that lead you in the right direction and are measurable, so you can tell where you are. Create a rhythm and daily, weekly, monthly habits of things that you need to do to drive your business forward. Be disciplined about your time and what you do with it. I like Bill Walsh’s book on leadership for the simple message the title alone tells us: ‘The Score Will Take Care of Itself’. Don’t chase the scorecard – get everything else right in your operation and the score will come.

Be GLAD

I try to finish my day with a moment of reflection where I am thankful for what I am getting to do, despite what might have happened that has demoralized me or made me want to give up. I use the acronym GLAD. Take a minute or two before you go to sleep to think ‘what am I GRATEFUL for, what have I LEARNED, what have I ACHIEVED and what do I need to DO NEXT?