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I am writing this on behalf of every entrepreneur, every small business owner, every hustling parent – pretty much everyone busting their gut for the own business. I know deep down, you have also had days where you want out of your business.

You want less stress, less hours, less hectic-ness, less fights with your partner, more happy times with your family, less constant struggles with balance and you want “normal” (whatever normal is).

“So I am going to say it out loud – this week I want out of my business. I struggle with balance, I am a secret workaholic (well not so secret now), I am not a natural entrepreneur, I struggle with managing the continued growth of my business, and I struggle to have it all in one nice cohesive package.”

There, I have said it. Now stop nodding your head and pretending everything is always rosey and say it out loud with me. It is ok to some days hate being in charge, hate being the one responsible for everything, hate being the one everyone relies on. It is ok to want to stop, take a breath and just bloody have a hot cup of tea in peace.

These past two weeks I have had all of these mixed emotions running around in my head. My business has experienced crazy growth over the past 4 years for a “teeny tiny boring accounting and bookkeeping business” that literally started overnight. Beyond my wildest dreams – I thought that it was everything I wanted when I signed up for that pesky ABN.

“But is it? Really? Is living the entrepreneurial dream everything it is cracked up to be? “

The past two weeks I am second guessing everything. Is my business going in the right direction, am I offering the services that I love to do, are my prices competitive yet reflect the value of my oodles of experience and knowledge, am I spending enough time training my staff, am I ensuring they love their roles and give them enough experience, should I outsource parts of my business overseas, do I sell my client base – flipping heck I have even discussed with hubby do we sell the house and move somewhere a bit further away to try to achieve more balance.

All those thoughts in just two weeks are running around in my head at once. Bloody dance party going on in my brain right now.

So here is my open and honest letter to each and every one of you reading this….try not to cry….we are serious entrepreneurs after all.

Dear Healthy Business Finances,

I never set out to run my own business. Never. The thought never crossed my mind. You fell into my lap after a pretty tough four years of my life – 2 pregnancies, 2 blood clots and 2 redundancies. Yeah, I was not sure I was ready for you – but you presented yourself and like the typical me, I took the opportunity and thought “what is the worse that can happen?”

I think you have taught me more about myself, my capability, my knowledge, my friends, the things I really care about, the things I really love to do, who my support base is and my confidence in those 4 years than I have in the whole 38 (ok, nearly 39) years of my life.

Sure, I am not on the Forbes rich list, BRW top 100 don’t know about me, heck I certainly haven’t featured on the front cover of any glossy magazine. And if you saw me crying in my sons bedroom late at night trying to get him to not be scared of the dark whilst I type this, maybe that will explain why I don’t make any of those “elite” lists. I don’t blame you for that. I signed up for this.

Poster girl I am not. But you know what – I think I am finally OK with that. I have realised that running a business is not a competition between me and everyone else on the internet. Whilst at times it feels like I am thousand years behind people in knowledge (heck, I only downloaded Snapchat about 2 months ago #addicted) other times I feel grateful that together we can help clients in the area of expertise I completely and utterly love – numbers.

I am not embarrassed that I am good at numbers. I am grateful that over the past 4 years we have helped a shit load of clients start to understand their numbers. We are part of their team and they rely on us for advice. Sometimes they share things they would only share with their inner circle of friends – baby news, takeover news, expansion news, new product launches and even divorce news – and whilst some of those things are sad occasions the fact our clients trust us to share those kinds of things makes my heart burst with pride.

My children see me working hard with you and I hope one day they realise that if you want to achieve things in life, sometimes you just have to go out there and freaking give it a red hot go. You don’t have to be the richest, you don’t have to be the fastest, you don’t have to have all the bells and whistles, you don’t need to have a million instagram follows and you don’t need to fit any stereotypical model of what life thinks you should be. You need to be yourself and trust that you have everything you need inside yourself to make the magic happen. And I think we have done this, and done it in spades

So have I fallen out of love with you and is this the end? Are we breaking up? Or are we just “having a break”?

To be honest, I don’t think it is any of those things. Whilst the last two weeks have certainly raised a few questions for me, I think, like any flourishing love affair, we have just hit a bump in the road (or maybe a few bumps plus potholes plus speed humps all at once).

I am not ashamed or embarrassed to have this conversation with you – as personally I think that makes me realise just how much you mean to me. Every business has rocky patches – but not many will openly admit it. Like any relationship, talking about the good, the bad and the ugly – will help us get through. It helps me to understand how to improve and how to bring the spark back between us.

So, whilst I have had a bit of a hiccup the past two weeks, I can honestly say you will need to do more than that to get rid of me. Healthy Business Finances – you and I are stuck together for a bit longer. I can’t promise there won’t be more tears at some stage in the future, but I think you and I are made for each other.

Love and kisses

Stacey