Getting in your own way: the real reason your creative business is stuck

When did you last feel genuinely satisfied with how your business is going?

I mean genuinely satisfied... with the direction, the momentum... that delicious feeling that what you're building is actually becoming the business you set out to create (and it wasn't just a good day "ticking off your to-do list").

If the honest answer is not recently, I want to offer you something that might be more useful than another productivity tip or a list of things to fix.

The problem, in most cases, is not your marketing. It's not your pricing, your niche, your website, or your workflow.

It's you.

Ouch! Okay, don't .scroll on just yet. Because that observation is genuinely good news.

The boss you never interviewed

I wrote a blog post a while back called "The biggest problem with being self-employed." The answer, I suggested, is your boss... i.e. you.

• They're answerable to no one

• They're often over-excited and overly critical

• They want everything perfect

• They're great at guilt trips

• And they always seem to notice how someone else is doing better than you

You hired them, of course. The day you decided to run your own creative business, you became them.

That inner monologue of self-doubt. That habit of raising the bar just as you almost reach it. That constant, niggling suggestion that everyone else has figured something out that you haven't quite managed yet.

That is getting in your own way. And it is far more common than you might think.

In my annual survey of creative business owners, 43% said that "I am not good enough" was the fear that resonated most with them. The most common fear for a third year in a row. And yet every single one of them is still in business, still showing up, still trying to build something they believe in.

The gap between how capable you are and how your business feels right now: that is where the work is.

Why it's so hard to see

Those fears have slowly built up over time:

• As perfectionism – "I just need a little more time to get it right."

• As procrastination – "I know what I need to do, I just can't get to it today."

• As comparison – "Look at what everyone else is doing. Why would anyone choose me?"

• As a vague, persistent sense that something is off (without being able to name what it is)

In my work with creative business owners, I call these the Four Fears®. And nobody I have ever shared them with has said "none of those apply to me". They apply at different times, in different combinations, at different volumes.

They are patterns. And patterns, with the right kind of attention, can be changed. The first step is naming them. You cannot reframe something you have not first noticed.

What happens when you finally see it

There is a moment that happens in almost every session I run. Someone writes something down, or says something out loud, and then pauses.

And then they say: "I've never said that out loud before."

Probably because the noise of running a business had got so loud that the one thing getting in the way had become unnoticeable. That moment – noticing the previously unnoticeable – is where things start to change.

Because a 'you' problem, unlike a market problem or a competitor problem or an algorithm problem, is something you have complete agency over. The solution is already in the room. It always was. And now you've seen it, you can do something about it

Something I am sharing on 28th April

On Tuesday 28th April at 2pm (UK), I am running a free 45-minute online session built entirely around that moment. It is called: "The biggest problem with running your own creative business? You".

In 45 minutes together, you will name what has actually been getting in your own way, with more honesty and specificity than you might expect. You will write down your 'Biggest Business Wish', the real one, possibly for the first time. And you will leave with two tools you can start using the same day.

There is also a wizard and a cave. Trust me on that one (or better still, come and find out for yourself).

By the end of the session, you will have said something (or written something down) that you have not let yourself say or write before. What you do with it after that is entirely up to you (although I am, of course, here to continue that conversation).

Reserve your place here

Tuesday 28th April, 2pm (UK). Free. Online. Bring a pen and paper.

Getting in your own way... a quick exercise

Whether you join us on the 28th or not, here is something worth doing today.

Write down your honest answer to this: when you think about the gap between where your business is and where you want it to be, what is the story you tell yourself about why that gap exists?

That story is where 'getting in your own way' lives. And naming it (even just on paper, even just for yourself) is the beginning of doing something about it.

Mark Franklin is The Four Fears® Guy: a transformational mindset coach who works with creative business owners across the UK.

If this post landed with you, join us on the 28th. It's free and it might be the most useful 45 minutes you spend this month. Or, if you're wondering where you currently sit on the Clarity vs Bravery Matrix, take the free Business Bravery Quiz and find out.