Hey, It’s Okay to Not Have It All Figured Out

There’s a particular kind of Sunday night where your brain starts loading tabs faster than your laptop can handle. You sit down to plan the week ahead and suddenly you’re bouncing between a half-built content calendar, that lead magnet draft you promised yourself you’d finish, three different email threads with clients asking for updates, and a sinking feeling that you missed something important but can’t quite remember what.

And in the middle of that chaos, a voice (a very quiet but persistent voice) slips in and says: “You should have this figured out by now.”

That voice is a liar.

But it’s a convincing one.

The false promise of “figuring it all out”

Most of us start businesses because we’re good at something. We have a knack for writing, for coaching, building, advising, teaching, fixing. What we’re not usually trained for is running the machine that delivers that work. We also didn’t really get into the kind of work we did because we wanted to manage the systems, generate the visibility, build the audience, make the sales, deliver pipelines, or do the marketing. We built what we built because we wanted to do more of what we’re good at.

So, in a desperate attempt at finally feeling like we’ve figured it all out, we reach for what we’ve been told works: the plans, strategies, blueprints; all the fancy downladables that promised management freedom. We Google phrases like “30-day content plan” and “how to automate your business” at 11:47 PM while eating whatever was left in the fridge. And we get fed a tidy narrative: if you just map out the right steps, you’ll feel in control.

But small business life rarely offers that kind of stillness. The plan that made sense last month doesn’t quite fit now. Your audience surprises you. A client derails a timeline. You finally carve out a day to write, only to spend half of it dealing with tech issues or rescheduling meetings. And when things slip, that old shame creeps back in… If only I were better at this. If only I had it together.

What no one tells you is that “figuring it all out” is a moving target. Most of the people you admire are still editing their plans as they go. Not because they’re unprofessional, but because they’re paying attention.

What you actually need instead

That’s the part we don’t see on Instagram, in the case studies, or in those tidy LinkedIn updates that seem to wrap every messy journey into a neat little bow. We don’t see the ongoing edits, the things that used to work but no longer do, or the choices made on gut instinct rather than a five-step plan. But that’s what most small business life actually looks like. It’s a series of decisions made in motion. Which means the goal isn’t to finally arrive at a place where everything runs without you, the goal is to build enough steadiness to keep going even when the picture changes.

So what does that look like in practice?

1. A reliable way to decide what matters now

Not everything can be urgent. Not everything deserves your best energy. Build yourself a way to ask:

• What’s the next most useful thing I can do this week?

• What are my current constraints? Leads, trust, conversion, delivery capacity? That will tell you where to focus. Every other brilliant idea can wait.

2. A system for capturing what can wait

You don’t have to ignore the rest; just contain it. Whether it’s a Notion board, a whiteboard, a notebook, or voice notes to yourself, you need to get those ideas out of your brain and into a holding pen. This lets your nervous system off the hook. You’re not dropping anything; you’re postponing it on purpose.

3. A way to notice when you’re spiralling

That moment where you go from “I haven’t posted in a while” to “my entire business is crumbling and I should just apply for a job at Aldi”? That’s not a strategy. That’s stress. You need to learn your own signals. When the thoughts stop being useful, step away. Take five minutes to breathe and distance yourself, then return with a clearer mind and fresh ideas.

4. Enough infrastructure to not keep reinventing

I know it’s tempting, especially in the age of AI, but you don’t need automation for everything. You do, however, need enough repeatable processes to avoid making every small decision from scratch. One client onboarding template. One content format that’s easy to drop into. One offer that you can explain in under two minutes. These pre-made documents remove so much of the emotional energy needed to run your day-to-day and protect your sanity.

A quick story from my own business

There have been stretches of time (whole weeks, if I’m honest) where my content plan was a loose set of notes in a half-used notebook. Ideas would come to me after client calls or during walks, and I’d jot them down in the moment, fully intending to turn them into something. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t. But I was always thinking about the business, always holding the threads in my mind, even if they never made it into a calendar or system.

I remember feeling uneasy about that. Like I was just reacting, making it up as I went, while everyone else seemed to be pulling from perfectly colour-coded planning boards (thanks, TikTok). It didn’t matter that the work was steady or that results were happening; I just couldn’t shake the sense that, because it wasn’t systematised, it somehow didn’t count.

It’s taken time to undo the belief that structure is the only measure of seriousness. To undo the belief that visibility only matters if it’s executed according to a plan.

These days, I’m more willing to let the smaller things count. A quick note to a client that becomes a post. A conversation that sparks something worth sharing. A quiet week that still moves things forward. It’s not always tidy, but it’s real. I do actively try and implement structure in what I do, but I’ve stopped waiting for the day when everything feels finished before allowing myself to be seen or allowing myself to feel worthy of sharing my knowledge. 

The “Steady Yourself” List

If any of that feels familiar, you’re in good company. It’s easy to assume that progress only counts when it comes with a plan. But often, the work is already happening; it just doesn’t look the way you thought it would. When things feel a little scattered or uncertain, the next step doesn’t have to be a strategy. Sometimes, it’s just finding your footing for the week ahead.

What follows is something I return to when my brain feels noisy and I need to find a sense of shape again. It isn’t a master plan, and it doesn’t require one. It’s a way to notice what’s working, what needs attention, and what can wait.

Ask yourself:

• What am I avoiding that would take less than 30 minutes to finish?

• What have I already done that I haven’t shared, reused, or told anyone about?

• What’s my biggest friction point right now, and can I solve it with a template, tool, or human help?

• What used to work that I’ve drifted away from?

• If I only did one thing this week that moved the needle, what would it be?

Write down:

• Three things that are working (no matter how small)

• Two things you can press pause on without consequence

• One thing you can do today that future-you will thank you for

Then act on just one thing.

Not the whole list. Not the entire strategy. One small decision that keeps the wheels turning.

You’re allowed to build as you go

There’s a kind of peace that comes when you stop waiting for the final version of your business to arrive. When you realise that no one else has it all figured out either, they’re just making decisions, fixing what breaks, and coming back to the work that matters.

Your business isn’t broken because you’re still deciding. It’s just alive.

So if you’re in the middle of one of those weeks, where everything feels like too much and not enough at the same time, this is your reminder:

Hey, it’s okay to not have it all figured out.

You’re still building. And building is allowed to be messy.