3 questions to ask when you’re feeling anxious about your business

As someone who’s recently launched their business, I get it. It’s stressful to put your work out there. To see if anyone actually wants to use the thing that you’ve poured your evenings and weekends into for months.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I should approach these feelings. One of the most helpful approaches I’ve found has been journaling. It’s helped me to pause and find a new perspective on whatever anxious thoughts might be troubling me.

If you’ve got something you’d like to work through, grab a pen and a piece of paper. Here are 3 journaling prompts that have helped me when I’ve felt anxious about my business.

What’s the worst that can happen?

Is the thing that scares you as bad as you think it is? If you’re worried about your latest SaaS not taking off as planned, will it actually be the end of the world?

As a maker, you likely have some very marketable skills. You could find a position as a developer, designer, or marketer for an established company. At least while you build up the energy for another shot at making it as an indie hacker.

What’s the most likely to happen?

It’s good to take a step back and get real with yourself. You might be setting yourself up for failure if you're expecting to make it to the top of Product Hunt.

The reality, which is perfectly ok, is that your product might not be an immediate success. Launching an app is hard work! It’s a long game that requires persistence. If you can set your expectations ahead of time, you will save yourself a lot of stress along the way.

Does this matter as much as I think it does?

You may find yourself stressing out about something that is not nearly as important as you think it is. What if that reporter doesn’t write about my app? What if I don’t get a response to my cold email? It will be ok.

It’s tough to find perspective on this in the moment. A useful idea is one proposed by Oliver Burkeman in his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Cosmic Insignificance Therapy is the idea that if you zoom out far enough, you’ll realize that we aren’t as important as we think we are. Thus, our problems can’t be as important as we are making them out to be. This may be a frightening thought at first, but once you let it set in you can find some comfort in it.

---

Feeling better? If this type of exercise helped you, consider checking out Second Thought. It’s a free guided journaling app that I built to help make this exercise a regular part of my own routine.