A practical look at structure, capacity, and sustainable solo business design.
You’ve got ideas. Maybe even some skills, some plans, a handful of tools or templates.
But somehow, building your business still feels like a mystery wrapped in fog.
You try to take a step forward and just… stall.
Not because you’re not trying.
Not because you’re not motivated.
But because every time you try to get momentum, something feels off.
Maybe it’s decision fatigue.
Maybe it’s the weight of doing it all alone.
Maybe you’re caught between knowing how much you could do and not having the capacity to actually do it.
I’ve been there.
After building a business from scratch — one that was profitable, well-known, even a bit envy-worthy — I found myself completely unable to start over in the same way. Not because I didn’t want to. Not because I wasn’t “cut out for it.” But because the internal engine that used to push me forward was gone.
And in its place?
Fog. Resistance. Indecision.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I wasn’t broken.
I was burnt out from trying to force a business model that no longer fit.
Every Business Has a Model — Even If You Didn’t Mean to Build One
Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re starting out:
Every business runs on a model.
Whether you intentionally designed it or just cobbled things together as you went, your business has a structure. It has a way of bringing in income (or not). A way of delivering your work (or draining you). A way of finding customers (or not).
And if that structure doesn’t fit — if the model isn’t aligned with your capacity, communication style, or creative rhythm — it’s going to feel hard. Not in a “growth edge” way. In a “why does this feel so unsustainable even though I care deeply about my work?” kind of way.
I used to think I had a capacity problem.
That I just needed to get better at managing my time.
That I had to push through, find motivation, or create more discipline.
But the problem wasn’t me.
It was the model I was trying to run.
I was putting my limited time, energy, and focus into a structure that wasn’t designed to support or sustain my needs. So even when I did have energy to give, it kept leaking out – just as the model was designed. That’s the thing – without intentional choices based on our capacity, it’s so easy to build a model, even a successful one (in terms of profit), but not be able to sustain it if it requires what you can’t continually give it.
Once I started looking at my business through the lens of function instead of just feelings, everything changed. I realized it wasn’t about fixing myself — it was about designing a model that actually worked for who I am right now (and the parts of me I’ll likely carry with me into the foreseeable future).
That’s when I started mapping out the six core pieces every solo business needs — not just in theory, but in practice.
Burnout or Broken Business Model?
It’s easy to assume the issue is personal when things feel stuck or unsustainable.
You might wonder if you need to finally get consistent, figure out your “why,” streamline your offers, or just stop overthinking. And sometimes, those are the pieces that need tending.
But other times, what’s causing the friction is more structural.
You might have an offer you love, but there is no clear way to reach the right people.
You might be doing good work, but your delivery system drains your energy.
You might be trying to grow, but the foundation you’re building on can’t support the weight.
What looks like procrastination could actually be a delivery method that doesn’t align.
What feels like a visibility problem might be a marketing approach that exhausts you.
What seems like a lack of confidence could be a missing connection between your audience and your offer.
It wasn’t that I needed more willpower. I needed a clearer view of
- what was working,
- what wasn’t
- and what was never set up to work for me.
The model I built did work. In fact, it worked really well. It was profitable, productive, and proven. However, it just wasn’t built to support how I work best in this season of my life, and eventually, I couldn’t keep running it without running myself into the ground.
I realized that what was making everything feel so hard wasn’t about motivation or missing skills. It was that there was a misalignment between me and the business model.
This clarity opened me up to look at things differently, which broke open a world of options.
What Sustainable Actually Looks Like
Let’s talk about sustainability — not as a buzzword, but as a lived experience.
A sustainable business isn’t one that runs at full speed, flawlessly, all the time. It’s one that holds up when life gets lifey. One that doesn’t fall apart the moment your capacity dips, your energy wavers, or something unexpected happens.
In a sustainable business, you don’t have to perform at 100% every day to keep things going.
You don’t have to show up on social media constantly.
You don’t need endless energy or motivation to stay consistent.
Instead, the core pieces of your business work together — supporting you, rather than depending on you to constantly push.
That might look like…
- An offer that’s easy to deliver even when you’re having a low-capacity week
- A marketing method that feels natural and doesn’t rely on constant output
- A way of selling that doesn’t hinge on real-time performance or endless live calls
- A system for reaching the right people that builds momentum over time
Sustainability doesn’t mean the business never needs attention or intention. But it means the model can hold steady without pulling all its fuel from you.
For me, sustainable started to mean a few simple things:
- A business that didn’t rely on my physical energy most of the time. With my care duties at the sanctuary, physical energy is my most sacred resource.
- A business I could step away from when needed (aka when life gets lifey) and know it would still be there when I got back.
What Happens If You Step Away?
If any part of this post has resonated with you, or if you’ve felt that tension between wanting your business to work and needing it to work differently, here’s a gentle place to start.
Before we get into what a business model is made of, it can help to pause and notice where you are now.
Here are three quick questions to reflect on:
- Do you know what you’re selling and who it’s for?
- Are people consistently finding out about your work?
- If you had to step away for a week, would your business still be doing anything behind the scenes?
Depending on your answers, you might already see what’s working or where things are a bit off.
That’s what the next step is for.
See What Your Business Is Really Built On
If you’re curious about what might be missing — or misaligned — in your current business model, I’ve put together a quick, no-fluff self-assessment that walks you through the six core pieces every business needs to function sustainably.
It has
- A simple framework that outlines all six core pieces
- Reflection prompts to help you see what’s already in place
- A printable worksheet you can keep beside you as your business evolves
Basically, it’s a simple tool to help you:
- spot gaps,
- notice what’s working,
- and start thinking about your business as a system that can support you, not the other way around.
If that sounds like something you’d love to dig into, you can download it here.
The last thing I’ll say in this post is this:
If things have felt harder than they need to, and you’re starting to suspect it’s the structure, not the effort, looking at how your business functions through the six core pieces can reveal a lot.
I know you’re cooking out good things that the world needs to know about!
Most importantly, access to this kind of information (the real, unglamorous details of what different business models actually require) can be the difference between building something that fits or getting swept into something that was never going to work for you in the first place.
That’s what almost happened to me. I spent a long time trying to make a service-based model make sense. On paper, it looked like a perfect fit: low overhead, work I was good at, seemingly simple. But it quietly required things I didn’t have steady access to — like predictable time, reliable energy, and a social battery that could handle regular real-time interaction.
Could someone with a similar mix of needs and constraints make that model work? Absolutely. But between rejection sensitivity, low social energy, a fluctuating schedule, full-time care responsibilities, and the kind of marketing required to keep one-on-one client work steady, that model would’ve failed me — no matter how motivated I was.
That’s why this kind of clarity matters.
Not to chase the “perfect” model but to build a business that’s beautifully suited to you without compromising on profit, reach, or whatever your deepest desire looks like when you think about the impact you want to have.
You don’t have to scale what you wouldn’t want to sustain.
Until next time,
