Do you feel enough support from your loved ones in what you do? Do you feel that they are cheering you on? Are they okay with you investing money, time and heart into your business? And are they willing to discuss your ups and downs with you? If you do, congratulations. Because it’s more of an exception. Most women entrepreneurs in particular don’t feel very supported by their loved ones. This goes for partners, extended family and often close friends.
So entrepreneurship often becomes a rather lonely long-distance run. We plan, struggle and create on our own. While those around us ask us questions like:
- When are you going to start making money?
- Do you really have to invest so much?
- Are you going to work weekends again?
- Can’t we talk about something other than your business?
- Don’t you want to get a regular job?
What not being supported looks like
The word support means something different to everyone. Similarly, different forms of “non-support” are different from each other. Everyone can experience them in different areas. For example:
- Material: you cannot use common resources such as a car, money or premises to run your business.
- Time: it is difficult to arrange with your partner to take over childcare, for example, when you need to work.
- Mental: you feel that your partner is not a fan of you, is not interested in your business and has no desire to talk to you about it, or your business at home is the impetus for arguments or a quiet household.
What’s behind
There’s usually more than one reason why you’re missing support. Rather, it’s a combination of factors.
1. Feeling threatened
Lack of support usually hurts the most from those closest to you. Which is usually the partner with whom we share both our lives and the economic costs of the household. But what if what we perceive as distrust from our partner may be a quite ordinary feeling of threat?
For example, your partner may be afraid:
- That he won’t be able to meet the costs alone if you don’t do well.
- That you won’t be enough if you start to be successful.
- That you’re putting all your energy into the business and there’s none left for him.
- That you won’t have time for household and community projects.
- That the money you put into the business will never come back.
- That the project will fail and you will be disappointed and unhappy.
It certainly makes sense not to build on assumptions. Instead, try to establish an open conversation with your partner. Ask how he or she is feeling and what he or she would need. And in return, share what you need and how you feel.
2. Unspeakable enthusiasm
Business is a rather specific world. You have literally trampled your business out of the ground. So it’s not surprising that you care extremely deeply about it. You’ve put a lot of sweat, blood, tears and sleepless nights into it. And even if you didn’t, you still have a special relationship with it.
It’s just something that’s hard to explain, especially to employees. They don’t understand what you’ve invested in your business. They don’t understand that your business is connected to your mission or the difference you want to make in the world. And they certainly don’t understand how connected your business is to your self-worth, your vision, and your dreams.
It helps to understand that our passion is hard to share. And that the level of emotional commitment we experience ourselves towards our business is hard to ask for from someone else.
3. Crab bucket theory
If you put one live crab in a bucket, it usually manages to escape. But once there are more crabs in the bucket, they’ll probably stay put. This is because as soon as one of them tries to get out of the bucket, the others will pull it back in by the leg. This phenomenon is called crab mentality, or crab bucket theory.
It explains why our successes, in particular, are sometimes misunderstood by friends, neighbors or extended family. When you want to move up the ranks, get more expensive, make more money, provide better service or have better clients, you try to climb out of your bucket. And your neighbors will often pull you back in good faith.
The solution is to change the bucket. Surround yourself with people who have similar goals and similar ambitions. And accept that some people are just a short walk through life.
4. Scarcity mentality
Business feels like a zero-sum game to many people. Resources are limited, so if someone is a little better off, that means someone else must automatically be worse off. It is the fear that if one is successful, others will not be able to keep up that is often the reason why the world does not wish us great results, joy and success. And why we sometimes don’t wish them on others.
It helps to believe that resources are not limited and there is plenty of room for everyone in the world and in the marketplace.
5. Prejudices and stereotypes
The traditional division of roles, with the man acting as the breadwinner and the woman as the primary caregiver and keeper of the family hearth, doesn’t help matters much either. It puts pressure on women who have ambitions to be entrepreneurs and leads to feelings of guilt or frustration. “Women’s entrepreneurship” is also often seen as a hobby or a sideline rather than a serious career.
As more and more women are entrepreneurs and women’s business is increasingly becoming a subject of public debate, various prejudices and stereotypes are beginning to change and disappear. So let’s keep our fingers crossed.
How to have more support
There are a number of reasons why we don’t feel enough support. Another question is what we can do to experience more of it in our daily functioning. Three things come to mind.
1. Let’s learn to accept it
Sometimes we deprive ourselves of support unnecessarily by not being willing to accept it. We’re so used to managing and grabbing everything ourselves that we don’t notice any support coming to us. Even receiving is a skill that most of us need to practice.
2. Let’s support others
Another way to increase the overall amount of support in the female entrepreneurial world is to provide support to others. Recommend, praise, share, cheer and like.
3. Let’s use paid services
Support can also be accessed through paid services such as coaching, mentoring, mastermind or counseling.
Photo Robert Stump on Unsplash
