If burnout, self-doubt, or emotional exhaustion keep stalling your growth, you’re not broken — you’re in survival. Here’s how to start building from safety instead.
It’s been just over a week since I hosted a 2-day mastermind and there was one moment inside that cracked all of us wide open on the first morning.
One of the women was sharing about how she grew up with a parent who was emotionally unavailable.
As a result, she became the responsible one.
The peacemaker. The caretaker. The mature, “we-don’t-have-to-worry-about-you daughter”, carrying adult responsibilities that weren’t hers.
She learned to have few needs and desires, and to take up as little space as possible, so as not to be a burden.
And now, as she embarks on building her business… she freezes. Not because she’s lazy, but because now she has to show up in her adult life and be driven by desires she learnt to stuff down, and exert energy that she no longer has to give.
“What did that younger version of you need an adult to say to you back then?” I asked.
She paused, then said:
“You’re allowed to have your feelings. You’re allowed to have needs. You can go play. You don’t have to take care of me.”
It was quiet for a moment because every woman in the container saw a version of their own experience in that moment.
While their specific stories may have been different, the threads were there, and as we dove in and unpacked it all, it became clear to everyone…
… why they feel burned out, stretched thin and a constant inner hum of anxiety
… why they have difficulty asking for what they need and don’t trust that others can truly hold them
… why they freeze despite knowing what to do and in spite of desiring more for their business.
… why they often default to over-functioning, pushing through, and subsequently avoiding what’s misaligned, despite wanting a more sustainable business.
… and why they feel like they’re failing if they can’t solve or control things in their business.
I know first hand that when you’re raised to find safety through being useful, desire can feel like unknown territory
Slowness can feel selfish. Indulgent, even. Even when it’s the very thing you crave.
You intellectualize instead of feeling, which is why it becomes hard to integrate what you know with how you show up, and it’s why setbacks stall you as much as they do.
You grew up performing calm so no one else would feel uncomfortable; and now that same tendency towards performing is partly why you’re so exhausted and constantly wobbling in your business.
Is it any wonder so many of us have created service businesses?
You know how to serve, give and cater to everyone but you.
This is what happens when the little girl who never got to have needs becomes a woman who can’t figure out what she wants.
And this is what makes so many highly capable women get stuck.
Not because they’re not smart.
Not because they’re not committed.
Not because they’re not trying.
But because their nervous system learned early that safety comes from being small, being useful, being in control — and their business is now built on those same survival patterns.
You can’t build a Life-First Business on a body that still thinks it’s only safe if it’s producing, pleasing, or proving.
Read that one more time.
You cannot build a Life-First Business on a body that still thinks it’s only safe if it’s producing, pleasing, or proving.
And until you address that, no strategy will stick.
This, my friends, is the real work, and so much of what we dove into in the two–day deep dive experience.
Not just building the business.
But becoming the woman who can actually hold it.
The one who doesn’t abandon herself to be seen.
Who doesn’t bypass her body to get things done.
Who doesn’t confuse being powerful with hitting a home run right out of the gate or being able to control or strong arm every situation.
Creating a profitable, sustainable business isn’t simply about having a concrete action plan – we are way more dynamic and nuanced than that.
We come with different histories, responsibilities, big “T” and little “t” trauma; different capacities, bandwidths and relationships and all of that plays a crucial role in the individualised work to be done to reach the heights you want to reach.
Because the bottleneck often isn’t the strategy — it’s the self-doubt, the dysregulation, the exhaustion behind it.”
And that’s why, as service providers, we need safe spaces to unravel and allow ourselves to be supported and truly work through some of these things so we can make meaningful steps from an aligned, and grounded place.
This is exactly the work we do inside Life-First Business. We don’t just map your strategy — we build the foundation you need to sustain it. And that starts with moving through some of the emotional and energetic resistance that’s been subconsciously holding you back.
If you’ve been waiting for the “right time” to do this kind of work…
You’re in it.
Every day you spend in confusion, over-functioning, or inconsistency is a day you’re not generating revenue in the way you’d like to, or changing much at all.
The market might be uncertain. Your schedule might be full. But you don’t create a Life-First Business once everything calms down. You create it inside the chaos.
Because the truth is: Your business can only grow at the pace your nervous system feels safe to sustain. And if no one is helping you address that — you’re not broken. You’re just unsupported and you’re empowered to change that.
