The Honest Truth About Burnout and Pushing Through

✨Everyone Wants to Be a Business Owner Until They Realize It Isn’t "Instagram" Easy

If you spend even ten minutes scrolling on Instagram, you will be convinced the entire world is running a business from a poolside cabana. The feed is full of laptops on beaches, iced coffees next to rose-gold MacBooks, and captions like “Just closed a 10K client while eating brunch”. Everybody looks booked, busy, blessed, and bathed in soft lighting.

We all know social media is mostly smoke and filters, but we still get pulled in. Then reality shows up and taps you on the shoulder with the tenderness of a brick.

The truth is this. Running a business feels a lot less like a photo shoot and a lot more like assembling IKEA furniture without the manual and three screws missing (there are ALWAYS at least 3 screws missing). Instagram never shows the part where you are crying in the car after your third client cancels at the last minute or the moment your website crashes for no reason other than pure spite or the fact that it is Tuesday.

Here is what is really going on behind the pretty posts and polished captions.

✨You Don’t Clock Out, You Just Fall Asleep Accidentally

Business ownership sounds like freedom. No boss. No office. No rules.
Until you realize you actually do have a boss. It is you. And she is relentless.

👉🏽 You will be answering emails at midnight (or 2AM).

👉🏽 Updating Canva files at dawn.

👉🏽 Googling “how to write a contract” during lunch.

And somehow your “day off” turns into “just a quick task” that lasts six hours.

Instagram shows the brunch. It never shows the burnout.

✨Sales Are Cute Until You Actually Have To Sell

Online, selling looks as simple as posting a graphic that says “Doors are open!”
In real life, selling feels more like hustling in Times Square, where you are competing with a thousand other voices and half the crowd acts like you do not exist.

👉🏽“Send me the info” usually means their phone entered the witness protection program.
👉🏽 "I’m interested” is often followed by silence so loud it echoes, like they got raptured mid-conversation
👉🏽Some people negotiate your prices like they are shopping at a yard sale on a Sunday afternoon.

Instagram shows the Stripe notifications. It never shows the ghosting.

✨Consistency Is Glamorous Until You Have To… Be Consistent

Everyone loves the idea of “showing up every day.” It sounds powerful. It sounds disciplined. It sounds like something you would write next to a vision board.

But showing up every day means writing content when you do not feel inspired.
It means promoting your offer even when nobody liked the last three posts.
It means staying visible even when you want to hide under the bed like a toddler avoiding bedtime.

Instagram shows the viral posts. It never shows the drafts you scrapped because they sounded unhinged.

✨You Will Wear Every Hat Until You Question Your Life Choices

Marketing department? 👉🏾 You.

Operations? 👉🏾 Also you.

Customer service? 👉🏾 Definitely you.

Finance? 👉🏾 You, with a calculator you found in a kitchen drawer.

Instagram shows CEOs in cute blazers sipping matcha in fancy cafes.
It does not show CEOs unclogging their printer, resizing logos ten times, updating their website, and crying over tax filing deadlines while cursing at QuickBooks.

✨Growth Takes Time, Money, Mistakes, and Prayer

Yes, prayer. Even people who never prayed before suddenly whisper, “Lord, I know we haven’t talked in a while, but if you could help me not overdraft my account today, I’d appreciate it.”

Entrepreneurship will test your patience, pockets, confidence, and peace.
You will fail. You will learn. You will adjust. You will grow.

None of that is glamorous, but all of it is necessary.

✨So Why Do We Still Do It?

Because even with all the chaos, confusion, and caffeine dependency, there is something deeply empowering about building something of your own.

▪️There is pride in the hustle.
▪️There is joy in the wins, even the tiny ones.
▪️There is purpose in building a life you do not need a vacation from.

Entrepreneurship is worth it, but it is not easy.
So if you are in the trenches right now, questioning everything, trust me. You are not alone. You are just building the parts Instagram never shows.

Keep going. Your Instagram moment comes later.