Why Loving Your Work Is the Ultimate Act of Entrepreneurial Rebellion

By Tricia Scott

Here's something that has been keeping up lately (and as a girl who loves her sleep, this is not usual): 

Why do we keep doing things we don't like or that don't improve our lives in the name of our business? 

I see it all the time; somehow, somewhere down the line, we've learned that doing the stuff we enjoy for our work is fundamentally wrong and that, if God forbid, it feels like pleasure, It's got to be us dallying or faffing around not taking this work stuff seriously, and we're CLEARLY wasting time because good, serious girls do business the hard way. 

Riiigghhttttt...

This mentality is so gross. I've been there many times with genius levels of self-sabotage because IT HAS TO BE HARD AND FEEL HARD TO JUSTIFY MAKING MONEY FROM IT. This kind of toxic messaging is everywhere and is designed to make it feel so difficult that you hire the coach or buy the thing to be able to keep up when, in reality, you could have breezed through if you hadn't read it in the first place. 

We are taught from a young age that success is not deserved if it doesn't have the fun sucked out of it until it resembles a sad, shrivelled raisin. Look around you; busyness and suffering are worn as shiny badges of honour, pinned to the lapels of business people everywhere. 

You do not need to do that to yourself. 

 You have nothing to prove. Even if it feels like a big fat cheat code that you got from a dodgy internet site that allows you to have fun while you do the thing you chose for yourself, it really isn't all that unusual. In fact, (shocker) it's totally allowed!

Who are you trying to impress anyway? 

You started a business for a reason, and I'm guessing it wasn't to suffer in perpetuity, so let's agree that pleasure is an essential part of the good business/ good life equation. 

When you do what you love, your life stops being about suffering and becomes a work of art. Magnificent, glorious, and unapologetic to the masses who will try to convince you that it's not worth it unless it's mensa-level hard. 

One day, when you're looking back on your life, what do you want to remember? Will you recount days and weeks that flew by in a creative joy and abundance, free from judgement (mostly your own)? Or will you speak of how hard you worked, even though you hated every second of it, waving your shiny hardship badges in the air? 

What will you answer when someone asks if you lived well? 

If you really need a badge of honour, then make it about your unmatched and untouchable quality of life because, as one of my fave authors Ash Ambirge says, 'maybe, just maybe, aiming for pleasure is one of the most radical—and noble—moves you could make.'

I believe in you (always).

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Tricia Scott is a passionate startup business mentor and the Founder and Editor of The Female CEO - Create Evolve Overcome, a platform and digital magazine holding the space to showcase female entrepreneurs from all over the world. 

The Female CEO is gaining global recognition daily and Tricia is able to bring her own level of expertise as a start-up mentor and multi-company director to her very exclusive table along with her team of brilliant Guest Editors and Contributors. You'll usually find her with her MacBook in one hand and a coffee or a glass of something fizzy in the other. Reach out anytime!