When starting your entrepreneurial journey, whether as a side hustle or jumping all in, there will be a lot of uncertainty.

This is a powerful, negative emotion that leads to self-doubt. And I am here to tell you that:

It is ok.

It is normal.

It is a healthy realization that you have a lot of unknowns in your life, and when you are starting something as big as starting a new business, there are going to be a lot of unknowns.

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That being said, there are a few unhealthy responses you can have when self-doubt starts to creep in.​

1. Believing “More is Better”: You don’t need more marketing ideas; you need less executed consistently. You don’t need to create 1,000 pieces of content; you need to create a smaller amount of high-impact, high-value content.
2. Quitting: Most failures are a result of quitting. And quitting a project like building a new business or side hustle is easy. “No big deal, I will return to what I was doing.” The problem is that you are reinforcing this negative behavior and training your mind to avoid pain and quit when things get hard.
3. Snacking: I once heard someone say, “we live in a culture of snacking.” Short-form content, short videos, micro-courses, etc. Society encourages you to jump from one thing to the next without sticking with one thing for any period of time and achieving any real proficiency.
4. Chasing Shiny Objects: Full disclosure, this is where I struggle the most. When things start to get hard, I let myself get distracted with a new tool, idea, book, etc. It creates a non-stop cycle of starting and stopping things, and nothing meaningful ever gets accomplished.
5. Complaining: A response that benefits no one. People don’t want to hear it; even worse, it is awful for you. In a 1996 study, Stanford University found that people who complain tend to complain more. It was also found that the hippocampus shrinks over time in people who complain consistently.
6. Multitasking: Doing too many things at once is the enemy of momentum. Not only that, but it is impossible to do effectively. More and more studies show how ineffective you become when your focus is spread thin. You also fall victim to the negative effects of context switching, which happens when your brain is forced to switch from one task to the next.​

It’s normal to feel uncertain when starting something new. But it’s essential to be self-aware and avoid unhealthy responses. Stay clear about your direction and strategy,

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