When you become a female business founder, you enter into a different world. While this may sound a bit hyperbolic, I have repeatedly found this to be true in my experience as a female founder. Navigating the intricacies of business is an incredibly tough task, but even more so when you are a female. To shed some light on just how tough it is, it is important to note here that less than 2% of female founders ever make a million dollars in revenue. To survive in the business world, which is taxing, stressful, cumbersome, and ultimately a giant learning curve every step of the way – one of the best things female founders can do outside of finding community and genuine support is to look inward at their mental wellbeing. Mental well-being and mental health can often be forgotten when growing and sustaining a business. Still, your mental well-being should be prioritized as much as your day-to-day operations.
As a member of this elusive 2%, I have ridden the high of running a successful business and what that entails. Quickly, though, a duality comes into play in which you begin to make trade-offs. As a founder, these trade-offs often come as sacrificing time, balance, and portions of yourself. Every little bit that is traded is deducted from your overall mental well-being. At first, this is manageable – you may not even notice for a bit. As these deductions progress, you will inevitably start to feel the weight these hold. Suddenly, maybe you’re agitated a bit more than usual, or you are not sleeping either. These tiny deductions from your overall mental well-being start to add up. What results is the last thing you are trying to accomplish: it diminishes your capacity as a founder and business owner. Your ability to think clearly and make solid strategic decisions and your flexibility are weakened.
So, the question becomes: How do we not only prioritize our mental well-being as female founders? But also, what are the best ways to support our overall mental health? First and foremost, you must be aware that you are not your business. While you may run a business, you and your business are separate entities. This means that you should take inventory of the things you value most in life and ensure that those things are occurring in the life that exist for you outside of your business. Having a life outside my business felt impossible, but I am forever grateful that my mentor pushed me to do so. This will allow you to pause, ground yourself, and remember why you likely started a business in the first place: time and money flexibility/freedom.
One of the best ways that I have found to support my mental health and my business growth was through having a solid support network. When you’re a female founder and already vastly in the minority of the business world, you need people surrounding you who just get it. I joined multiple business groups solely for female entrepreneurs to learn from others and have friends to lean on when growing a business felt difficult. Having different perspectives and lenses on my business became an invaluable tool.
Lastly, one of the easiest ways to support your mental well-being is the concept of self-compassion. Remember that you are going against the odds from day 1 in business as a female founder. You are the literal epitome of ‘you can do hard things.’ It is a normal part of the process to have fluctuations in your business and, alongside that, emotional volatility, too. Having the baseline understanding that this is just part of the process can relieve a lot of pressure and anxiety. For me, self-compassion – though easier said than done, of course – was a game changer. It made me a more confident founder and human in all areas of my life.
Sarah Michelle Boes founded Sarah Michelle NP Reviews (SMNP), one of the leading names in nurse practitioner board preparation services. As a nurse educator, Sarah’s ultimate passion is to propel the lifelong learning journey of the nurse further while also bringing heightened awareness to the importance of mental health in the entire nursing education space. She founded SMNP to help nurse practitioner students achieve two goals: dampening their anxiety levels, building confidence before taking boards, and ultimately transitioning into practice. Her relatable, transparent, and innovative approach to nursing education has struck a chord with thousands of students worldwide. After her company was acquired in 2022, she now serves as the Chief Nursing Officer of Blueprint Test Prep. Sarah Michelle is ranked Top 100 podcast hosts in the medical category with her podcast Becoming A Stress-Free Nurse Practitioner, which deep dives into helping students prepare and pass their AANP & ANCC and hone their craft as new nurse practitioners. She earned her BSN from the University of Kentucky, her MSN in Nursing Education from Western Governors University, and her post-MSN-FNP from Eastern Kentucky University.
