How to Forgive Yourself for Having a Painful Process

As I’m working with my first clients, I’m starting to see a recurring theme, their processes get the job done; however they were set up when they started out and have not been updated since.

So many of us small business owners create our processes at the start when we (unfortunately) have a lot of free time. We may only have 1 or 2 clients, so however long it takes to set up those clients in our systems or bill them, it doesn’t matter. We have a ton of time. Then we get 10 clients, then 15, then 100 and we’re crazy busy. We’re not going to say “no” to a potential client because working with them is why we’re in business and where our passions radiate.  However, now you’re stuck with a process that does not support your current business and you don’t have the time to research other options.  I mean, you’re human, you can’t work 200 hours a week (especially since there aren’t even 200 hours in a week! Trust me. I did the Math!) You have a family, friends, and passions outside of your business that you also need to honor. This crappy process gets pushed to the back burner and you painfully force yourself to complete it only when you absolutely have to. Not fun!




This happens to the best of us.  FORGIVE YOURSELF!! You can’t be good at everything, nor should you expect yourself to be. You are amazingly smart. Hell, you own your own business. How many people can say that?  You are in business because of your passion for whatever it is you are doing, not for business operations!  You are an amazing website designer, travel agent, plumber, electrician, accountant, chiropractor, etc. And that is what is important. Forgive yourself for making the same mistake that millions of small business owners have made and will most likely continue to make. 

One of my clients offered up the best advice, she said “set up your processes as if you’ll have a million clients, because eventually your business will take off and you’ll have more clients than you can handle.” This is great advice for those of us starting out. I have spent countless hours automating my processes even though, at this time, I have very few clients and could spend a day setting them up in the system and creating their custom solution proposal. One of these days my future self will be thanking me. I will be blessed with 100s (dare I say 1000s!) of clients who are vying for my time and the processes I set up today will make my backend setup and maintenance happen in the blink of an eye!!  

If this message resonates with you, have no fear, it’s not too late! Let’s move forward together.  Schedule an initial productivity session with me here and we’ll work together to move past the pain of having a painful process!


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