The Dumbest Enmeshment Mistake That Smart Solopreneurs Make

When I first started my solo biz in 2022…

Every fiber of my being wanted to succeed.

It was all I thought about. All I focused on.

I was even going to bed at 9 PM to wake up at 5 AM every single day.

My biggest driver (besides money) was to prove to myself and my family I could do it.

There have been very few entrepreneurs in my family, and 0 that have gone the online business route. But that only added more fuel to my fire.

After about 9 months into my journey…

I fell into a dangerous enmeshment trap.

I became so obsessed and so close to my solo biz, that I started to tie my self worth with how successful my business was.

Every failure felt like an attack on my self esteem.

Every mistake made me doubt if I was good enough.

And every client rejection felt personal.

It was as if my business wasn’t an extension of me anymore… it was me.

It wasn’t hard to see that if I kept going like this, I was going to burn out or quit.

So what I did first to change this was set clear boundaries and detach my self worth from my business and its success.

When 4 o’clock hit, I was done work. I wouldn’t go back to it, I’d do my best to stop thinking about it (which is something I still struggle with), and I allowed myself to go do other things that brought me joy.

I also started to look at everything as feedback and data vs reacting emotionally.

Detaching gave me the space to do it faster than expected.

What happened next was pretty cool…

For one, I started to enjoy my business more. It was nice getting some distance from it because it gave me a clearer perspective on what needed to be done and solutions to certain problems.

It also made me appreciate it more because I kind of missed it. When I woke up in the morning, I was excited to work on it again which wasn’t the case when I worked on my business until bedtime.

Secondly, I became happier in general. I was socializing in the evenings more. I was doing other things that brought me healthy pleasure again.

My life felt more well rounded.

The next year in 2024, I went on to hit my first $100K (yes, even while working less). I owe a lot of that year’s success to realizing this enmeshment trap.

Since then, I've coached over 40 solopreneurs one to one and many more in group settings.

This same common theme appeared with them.

To be clear, when I say I learned to detach my self worth from my business and its success…

It doesn’t mean my obsession died or I stopped caring.

(You need obsession. It fuels your hunger)

What I actually mean is your self worth can’t be your engine. This will and can only lead to anxiety and living in survival mode. Which will force you to make emotion decisions and become needy with potential clients.

Eventually you’ll push leads away, have less creativity, and lose your strategic insights… and slowly you’ll burn out.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself:

“Isn’t building a solo business and brand about me? How can I be authentic if I’m distancing my 'self' from my business?”

We have to make a distinction here.

There is a massive difference between sharing yourself and story vs being the story’s outcome.

Sharing your story = being authentic and sharing even the vulnerable stuff.

Being the outcome = your self worth fluctuates with your business success. Every daily win or loss takes you up or down with it.

You are NOT your business. It is an extension of you.

I don’t want to downplay the stakes here, especially if your solo business is your full time income. If your business fails… you can’t pay rent.

I get it.

But here’s why it still doesn’t have to be personal to your self worth…

The financial and physical burden of running your solo business are heavy enough.

Stressing about expenses, client flow, upcoming bills, it’s a lot.

Same thing goes for the physical aspect…

Stress from uncertainty, working long hours, sitting down a lot… it adds up.

So why add the personal attack on your value as a human?

It doesn’t make sense or serve you in any possible way.

Understand that separating your worth is not quitting.

You can still be all in. You can still care about winning and success.

How?

Because being all in is a commitment, not an identity.

You can still have a high standard for yourself without having to live on an emotional rollercoaster.

The key is to feel the highs. Feel the lows.

While remembering they are not you.

This solo journey is going to bash you around a bit, it’s fine…

It comes with the territory.

But real freedom doesn’t come from running your own business, it comes from running your own internal state.

And that starts with understanding your business success and self worth are NOT the same.