You Can Crush Barriers That Tank Your Solopreneur Success
The Mogul Message Newsletter 22 June: Solopreneurship is filled with hurdles, here are 5 practices to overcome them.
Hi there!
First of all apologies for missing last week.
No excuses and I’ve reworked my schedule to ensure my readers get a newsletter each week.
The last fortnight has seen me on client work and discovering new paths. On the new paths, I’ll share more next week.
For this week’s newsletter, I’d like to share some practices on doing your own thing.
Being a solopreneur, founder, freelancer, or big-time entrepreneur ain’t no walk in the park. Hence, these tips to make your journey a little smoother.
Afterward, I’ll be sharing some good Substack finds.
Enjoy!
We all have tremendous potential waiting to be unleashed.
I honestly believe that.
Some solopreneurs utilize their potential to achieve amazing outcomes. On the other hand, others never realize what they’re capable of as they let their self-limiting beliefs get in the way of their growth.
When solopreneurs consider talent as the only measure of success and don’t give enough credit to effort, attitude, and practice, they construct an artificial wall in their minds that limits their visibility and makes them believe they don’t have what it takes to reach the other side.
It’s not the solopreneur's natural ability, but their attitude to learning that determines where they end up. Moreover, talent can give solopreneurs the direction to take but can’t keep them on the path to fulfillment.
To achieve greater things, solopreneurs need to break down walls, build the right skills, and open new doors to reach the other side.
A solopreneur can’t tell where he/she will land from where they begin. With the right opportunity and motivation to learn, any solopreneur can build the skills to achieve greater things.
For me, potential is not a matter of where they start, but of how far they travel. And, with the right techniques, motivation, and strategy, solopreneurs can build an extraordinary path to success and achieve greater things than they ever dreamt possible.
So, here are the 5 practices that can help solopreneurs, like you, reach their potential and perform at their peak.
Five tactics that will help you break down your barriers
I do hope that these practices can help you like they did for me:
1. Know how to be curious and adapt
Solopreneurs who actively seek information and find creative ways to put it to use outperform those who ignore information or filter it to match their expectations and beliefs.
Besides, curiosity makes solopreneurs search for information that’s otherwise hard to get.
And that information, the hard to get stuff, is what gives you a competitive advantage.
So, do you only accept what is in your field of vision, or are you proactive in seeking new knowledge, skills, and perspectives?
The goal you’re pursuing when they filter information is either feeding your ego or fueling your growth.
You get to choose.
As a solopreneur here’s how you can acquire information to fuel your growth:
Pay attention to the kind of information you seek. Ensure they’re absorbing information that matters.
Work smarter, not harder. Identify creative ways to achieve goals with less effort.
Take initiative. Be proactive. Take their learning into their own hands.
Adapt it to suit their context, circumstances, and the problem they’re trying to solve.
Solopreneurs become unstoppable once they learn to navigate information, filter the unnecessary, and adapt the rest to their needs.
2. Learn to embrace discomfort
Solopreneurs may give up on opportunities when they don’t feel prepared to take on the challenge — it’s uncomfortable to plunge into something they haven’t mastered yet.
But waiting to feel ready, trying to be certain, and rejecting anything with ambiguity prevents solopreneurs from reaching for their potential.
How can solopreneurs explore what they’re capable of if they never take the uncomfortable path?
Becoming a creature of discomfort can unlock hidden potential in many different types of learning.
Summoning the nerve to face discomfort is a character skill — an especially important form of determination.
Common ways solopreneurs may tend to avoid discomfort:
Doing things the way they’ve always been done instead of embracing novelty.
Playing safe and avoiding risks.
Procrastinating by doing easy and fun stuff over things outside their comfort zone.
Always playing to their strengths while ignoring or avoiding their weaknesses.
Refusing to practice the skill they need to build because practicing something they haven’t mastered yet is awkward and painful.
Some things come easy to winning solopreneurs and others don’t. It’s their unwillingness to lean into the discomfort, pushing those hard things away, and denying them their time and attention that limits their growth.
Solopreneurs have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable because their growth is one step outside their comfort zone.
How to embrace discomfort:
Reframe the feeling from anxiety to excitement.
Equate discomfort with progress.
Consider mistakes as a sign of learning.
Stop worrying about being judged.
Forget comparing to others.
Stepping outside their comfort zone will become a habit when solopreneurs consciously seek it in everything they do.
3. Strive for excellence, not perfectionism
Many assume that solopreneurs who are at the top of their fields are perfectionists — that they don’t ever settle for good enough.
But this isn’t true.
What makes them stand out isn’t perfection, but knowing which flaws to accept and which to let go.
Their work may appear to be impeccable, choices extraordinary and they may come across as supremely confident, but behind that perfectionist outlook are hidden many imperfections that others tend to overlook.
There’s a fine line between healthy striving and setting goals that make solopreneurs and others miserable.
The drive to excel is not the same as the drive to perfect.
They are two very different things. Excellence is about utilizing their and others’ potential to seek a great outcome.
Perfectionism is about obsession to the point of being self-destructive.
Unlocking hidden potential is not about the pursuit of perfection.
Tolerating flaws isn’t just something novices need to do — it’s part of becoming an expert and continuing to gain mastery.
There are a few things that perfectionists tend to get wrong:
They obsess about details that don’t matter. They’re so busy finding the right solution to tiny problems that they lack the discipline to find the right problems to solve. They can’t see the forest for the trees.
They avoid unfamiliar situations and difficult tasks that might lead to failure. That leaves them refining a narrow set of existing skills rather than working to develop new ones.
They berate themselves for making mistakes, which makes it harder to learn from them. They fail to realize that the purpose of reviewing their mistakes isn’t to shame their past self. It’s to educate their future self.
How to get over perfectionist tendencies:
Know when it’s important to push for the best and when to settle for good enough.
Learn to accept flaws that are necessary to move ahead.
Pay more attention to large problems. Don’t neglect them at the cost of tweaking and refining small things to the point of obsession.
Anyway, my point here is that striving for excellence is the key and something to be mindful of.
4. Get your support in place
Unknowns, obstacles, and uncertainties emerge on the path to reaching great heights. They can disappoint solopreneurs, demotivate them, and prevent them from even trying.
In some such moments, solopreneurs can’t do it alone, and having the right support structures in place can help them overcome obstacles that stand in the way of their growth.
Having your support in place is essential because it unleashes hidden potential by helping solopreneurs forge paths they couldn’t otherwise see. It enables them to find motivation in the daily grind, gain momentum in the face of stagnation, and turn difficulties and doubts into sources of strength.
How to leverage your support:
When solopreneurs are feeling stagnated or stuck, identify what kind of support they need.
Look within their network or people at work. Whom can they turn to? Who can help? Who can give them guidance and advice?
Do they have a coach or a mentor? They can often create visibility on things that are otherwise invisible to them.
It’s ok to acknowledge your limitations. We need to remember to seek the right support. Don’t let temporary setbacks get in the way of growth.
5. Blend elements of deliberate practice and free play
Mastering any skill requires hours and hours of practice. Deliberate practice is important to achieve mastery in anything, but all practice and no play can make the daily grind exhausting, and boring. It can even lead to burnout.
This is where the idea of deliberate play comes into the picture — combining elements of deliberate practice and free play to make skill development more fun and less taxing.
Deliberate play often involves introducing novelty and variety into practice. That can be in the ways solopreneurs learn, the tools they use, the goals they set, and the people with whom they interact.
How to make practice more fun:
Achieve self-mastery instead of competing against others. Trying to improve instead of trying to win makes learning more rewarding and hence more fun.
Mix multiple skills and alternate between them. Research shows that interleaving adds variety to learning which breaks the monotony and uplifts motivation.
Introduce breaks into the practice routine to reduce fatigue and increase performance.
A solopreneur’s great potential will remain hidden unless they make practice appear more enjoyable and less of a burden.
Final thoughts
Potential truly knows no bounds when solopreneurs shed self-limiting beliefs and embrace a mindset centered on growth and resilience.
By focusing on effort, attitude, and continuous skill development, solopreneurs can dismantle the mental barriers that obscure their path to success.
This shift away from solely valuing talent towards recognizing the power of persistence and learning opens up new avenues for progress.
It's not merely about where solopreneurs start, but how they choose to navigate and leverage each opportunity that defines their journey.
With the right approach, the path to extraordinary achievements becomes not only visible but attainable, encouraging solopreneurs to reach beyond their perceived limits and truly excel.
Some useful posts I read during the week.
Here are some new posts from others that I’m sure you’ll like:
On solopreneurship
How I went from being a broke-ass clothing designer to a well-fed writer from
The One Thing Standing Between You and Your Breakthrough from
On startups
Other cool things
Thank you for reading!
Until next time, take care and stay well.
And, have a great weekend!
Got any thoughts? I'd love to hear from you! Share your experience in the comments.