These days, I see people sharing their struggles everywhere on social media feed; Job rejections, failed launches, hundred unanswered applications. The kind of honesty that would’ve been career suicide a decade ago.
I scroll through these posts and feel something unexpected: jealousy.
Not because they’re struggling—because they’re admitting it. When I started my architecture practice over a decade ago, I didn’t tell anyone when things got hard. Not because I was private. Because I thought struggling meant I was failing, and failing meant I wasn’t cut out for this.
So I kept quiet. I figured out pricing alone. Learned marketing through expensive mistakes. Sent proposals into the void and pretended the silence didn’t sting.
Looking back, I blamed a lot of things for those difficult years: the economy, my lack of connections, the mysterious way other architects seemed to get clients. Classic entrepreneurship struggles.
The biggest obstacle in my business wasn’t external. It was the beliefs I’d created about what my struggles meant about me. I wasn’t just dealing with rejection and uncertainty—I was turning every setback into evidence of my inadequacy.
And because I believed no one else felt this way, I never asked if I was right.
Turns out, entrepreneurship is hard…really hard. But not because of what I thought.
“I am the only one who is going through this” belief
I knew this belief was irrational. I’d even counseled friends through their own versions of it—layoffs, breakups, career setbacks. “You’re not alone in this,” I’d say, rational and calm.
But when it was my turn? Different story.
Here’s what I didn’t admit to myself at the time: I needed to believe I was the only one struggling. Because if other entrepreneurs were struggling too, then my problems were just…normal business problems. Solvable. Common.
And if they were common, I had no excuse for not solving them.
Thinking I was uniquely cursed gave me an out. It meant the problem wasn’t my lack of skills or effort—it was some mysterious force working against me specifically. Other architects seemed fine. They must have connections I didn’t have. Knowledge I couldn’t access. Some advantage that explained their success and my struggle.
I never called them to find out.
Because here’s the uncomfortable part: I didn’t want to discover they were struggling too. If they were, I’d have to admit my isolation was a choice. That I’d picked feeling special and cursed over feeling ordinary and fixable.
The weirdest thing about these conversations with yourself? They don’t need facts. You look at someone’s polished LinkedIn presence and decide they have it figured out.
You see their new client announcement and ignore that it probably came after twenty rejections. You build an entire story about their ease and your inadequacy, and you never once check if it’s true.
Because checking would mean risking the answer you don’t want: that everyone struggles, you’re not special, and you’ve been isolating yourself for no reason.
“It is impossible” belief
This belief showed up constantly. New project type I’d never done? Impossible. Client’s tight deadline? Impossible. Fixing a website issue as a non-techie? Definitely impossible.
Years ago, I was stuck trying to update a page on my website. The Google instructions might as well have been in another language. I sat there, frustrated, convinced this simple task was beyond me.
Then an old friend called. He’s tech-savvy, so I vented about my impossible website problem. He told me to push a few keys in a certain order. Problem solved in thirty seconds.
Here’s what bothered me afterward: the problem was never impossible. I just accepted the feeling of impossibility as fact.
That’s the trap. When you’re figuring everything out alone, “I don’t know how” quickly becomes “it can’t be done.” There’s no colleague to ask, no team to consult. Just you and the problem, and somewhere along the way, your lack of knowledge transforms into proof of impossibility.
I never questioned whether the thing was actually impossible. I just felt stuck, and feeling stuck became my evidence. Never mind that a simple phone call—or even a promise of buying dinner—could solve it.
I’d already decided it couldn’t be solved, so I didn’t look for solutions.
The dangerous part? This belief doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in quietly, disguised as realism. “Be practical,” it whispers. “Know your limits.” Sounds reasonable, except it’s not about limits—it’s about avoiding the discomfort of admitting you just need help.
“Everyone else seems they are doing well but me” belief
Social media made this belief worse. Suddenly, I could see everyone’s perfectly organized home office, wide-angle shots of spotless living rooms, constant work wins. Meanwhile, I’m looking at my messy desk thinking, “How do they even function like that?”
That inadequacy mixed with jealousy is hard to shake.
But here’s what I figured out after years of scrolling: I wasn’t comparing my business to their business. I was comparing my behind-the-scenes to their highlight reel. And then getting mad at myself for not measuring up to a performance.
The belief wasn’t really “everyone’s doing better than me.” It was “everyone has something I’m missing.” Some secret ingredient. Some natural ability to keep their desk clean and their clients happy and their life together.
What I didn’t want to admit? They probably had messy desks too. They just didn’t post those photos.
I was using their curated success as proof of my authentic failure. Taking their best moments and my worst moments and deciding that gap meant something about my worth as an entrepreneur.
The exhausting part wasn’t even the comparison—it was the constant mental math. Scrolling, calculating, feeling behind. Then feeling guilty for feeling behind. Then scrolling more to distract from the guilt.
These days, I don’t buy the theory that everyone’s doing better than me. Age helps. So does realizing that wearing track pants to Zoom meetings doesn’t actually mean my business is falling apart.
Final Thought
Entrepreneurship is hard, but not for the reasons I initially thought.
The hard part wasn’t the economy, or finding clients, or figuring out pricing. It was me—my beliefs built on feelings instead of facts. I turned normal business challenges into proof that something was wrong with me. Then I isolated myself to avoid confirming it.
With age and experience, I think more rationally now…most of the time. I still catch myself slipping into those old beliefs occasionally. The difference is I recognize them faster and question them harder.
And honestly? I forgot to appreciate the actual perks of running my own business. Setting my own hours. Tackling projects my way. Taking on side work when I want. And yes, wearing track pants to Zoom meetings without anyone judging me—or at least, not to my face.
Life Outside of Design Studio 