You don’t actually want freedom in your business. Here’s why ➡️

The online business industry is inundated with promises that all sound something like: “Grow a 6-figure business working 20 hours or less a week!”

In fact, that specific promise might be the most overused one of business coaches and consultants everywhere. And even if the figures change—7-figures instead of 6-figures, 4 hours a day instead of 20 hours a week, and some people add a time period, such as “in 5 months or less”—the assumption is the same: you are building your business to have time, money, and energy freedom.

In theory, this all sounds well and good. Who wouldn’t want total control over their time, energy, and money? Who wouldn’t want to be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, in whatever way they want? Especially if they’re coming from a personal history or current reality wherein they feel they have none or very little of that power, control, or freedom of choice.

In practice, however…

Building your business with a desire for freedom as your ‘fuel’ will almost certainly create burnout, not sustainability. This is because of the underlying source of your motivation—and the actions it drives—is, itself, unsustainable. It’s not the freedom itself that’s the problem, it’s building for freedom that is.

And if you really want to have your business ‘go the distance’—and do so in an aligned and sustainable way—you need to stop chasing freedom and find new fuel for your entrepreneurial endeavors. 

This article will show you how. But first…

_{This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you purchase through them at no extra cost to you. I only recommend things I genuinely believe in.}

The Truth Behind the “Freedom Business” Dream

I started my business searching for freedom. I was living in Australia on a Working Holiday Visa, and feeling the itch to not be “tied down” to one specific location; I wanted to travel! This was back in 2018, mind you, AKA the peak of the “laptop lifestyle” trend.

Plus, having lived most of my early childhood with plenty of money, and then losing pretty much everything that money could buy in the 2008 recession and my family never quite recovering, I had—let’s just say—a complicated relationship with money. I always wanted more of it, never felt I had enough of it, and also intimately felt the loss of ‘status’ that came with somewhat suddenly not having a lot of it.

Knowing that personal context, it should come as no surprise that when founders incessantly shared their beautiful trips to Bali and jet setting in daily posts all over Instagram, I pretty quickly—and fully—bought into the “freedom business” mindset.

(I’m also a Sagittarius sun, so there’s that.)

Even if you didn’t start your business at the peak of the laptop lifestyle movement like I did, you’re almost certainly still feeling the ripple effects of it. Because despite a global pandemic, US-funded genocide, and abundantly apparent fascism, we still have plenty of promises floating around the internet on the simple 8 step plan to make 6 million bucks in approximately 47 seconds.

And here’s the thing: creating time, energy, and money freedom makes sense as a reason to start your business. You’re probably in a job you dislike or are drained by. You’re living under late-stage capitalism, where—especially in the States—there are numerous systems in place to keep you poor or, at the very least, financially vulnerable. (Recommended reading: Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond) Of course you might start considering alternative pathways of earning money that theoretically will grant you a better, more fulfilling experience of your life. Of course. 

Not to mention: having the desire for more resource flexibility and freedom as one of your biggest motivations for getting started on your entrepreneurial journey is often highly effective because of how highly motivating it is. You’re the metaphorical frog who suddenly woke up and realized the water is boiling, and you know you need to make that leap before—as the kids say—you’re cooked.

The problem here then isn’t then that you want more freedom. It’s that this motivation has a time limit. It won’t last, because it was never intended to and our bodies quite literally can’t keep up with it. Which means that if you don’t intentionally replace it with a sustainable—or, even better, regenerative—‘fuel’ source, neither will your business.

The problem here then isn’t then that you want more freedom. It’s that this motivation has a time limit.

Why Survival-Based Motivation Works—Until it Doesn’t

The intense drive for time, energy, and money “freedom” that is regularly the primary motivation when someone starts a business is often—not always—indicative of physiologically being in a survival (“activated”) state. If you’ve ever heard someone use the words “fight, flight, freeze, fawn,” those are all activated states. Your body can and will move into one (or several) of these activated states in response to something “triggering.” (Note that what moves one person into an activated state may not move a different person into an activated state. The fact that different people have different “triggers” does not mean anything about the validity of their experience of those things.)

Author’s Note: I am not a trauma-informed educator or coach. I am at most willing to claim that I am trauma-aware. Additionally, while I am continually studying our physiological processes out of pure personal fascination with the subject, I owe much of my foundational understanding of trauma and its effect on our being to Parijat Deshpande—the inimitable trauma educator and founder of the high-risk pregnancy resource, Ruvelle. 

Think about the word “freedom” with me for a moment. This word is inherently in relationship to something limiting. Meaning: when you want freedom, you want freedom from something. This means that when freedom becomes your fuel, you are motivated to escape something that is in some way limiting you or causing harm to you.

When you want freedom, you want freedom from something. This means that when freedom becomes your fuel, you are motivated to escape something that is in some way limiting you or causing harm to you.

It’s not wrong or unhealthy to want to escape something that is limiting you or causing/going to cause harm. In fact, this is a very useful physiological response. For example: if a bear is chasing you in the woods, you of course want to escape it—perhaps by getting into your car and driving away.

However, physiological activation—the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response that is ‘triggered’ by a threat of some sort—is not a state we as humans are meant to sustain. This physiological response works really effectively—but only for just long enough to get us out of a bad thing. We do not want to live our entire lives in a physiologically activated state. Not only is that ultimately limiting what we see as being available to us—e.g. it’s nearly impossible to imagine what you really want in your life and begin taking steps to make that happen when you’re metaphorically or literally running from a bear—it is exhausting. It thus leads to burnout and/or many longer-term health consequences, which compound the difficulty of the whole experience. This is especially true for micro-business owners, whose bodies and brains are in many ways their business infrastructure.

(Unfortunately, many of our systems across society are built to persistently keep us in this survival state. Addressing that fact would require a totally different piece of writing.)

Relating all of this back to business: if a large motivation for starting or growing your business is to create freedom for yourself, that can work really well in the early stages of growth! You’re tapping into that escape energy, and therefore accessing a well of superhuman strength: the kind that enables everyday people to lift cars off of loved ones, or keep walking when they’ve barely eaten for weeks in an effort to leave some form of a genuinely dangerous situation. Your focus is heightened, your sense of urgency is immense, you become resourceful, and your vision narrows exclusively onto solving the ‘problem’ of business success. But this superhuman strength is not meant to be sustained, and what you really need is to tap into a motivation that’s indicative of—and only reliably accessible to—a non-activated physiological state.

Instead of building your business out of a motivation to escape, you need to figure out why you’re motivated to expand and what you’re motivated to expand into. Only when you find and utilize that expansive motivation will you be able to genuinely sustain your business over the long-term—as you’ll now be able to do so without relying on those survival states to keep you going, and therefore without constantly experiencing founder burnout.

When “Freedom” Finally Arrives (and Still Feels Empty)

Many founders reach a point where the very freedom they built for no longer fuels them. This can be extra disorienting precisely because many of us have been sold “freedom” as the dream.

If your entrepreneurial experience has been anything like mine, you’re probably reading this having already spent years relying on physiologically activated states and reactive forms of motivation to keep your business going. You may have already experienced entrepreneurial burnout. In fact, you might have found your way to us here at WholeCo because our focus on sustainable business finally resonated after years of building, efforting, trying, and not experiencing the stability or expansion you were effectively ‘guaranteed.’

Some of you may have already created some level of ‘success,’ too! Which, from personal experience, can then make the burnout, breakdown, or urge to burn everything down even more bewildering. Because what do you mean I’ve just reached a milestone I’ve wanted for years…and I kind of hate it?

What do you mean I’ve just reached a milestone I’ve wanted for years…and I kind of hate it?

When freedom is your fuel, achieving it means you suddenly have none left.

I often look to my own ‘mountaintop moment’ as the turning point in my founder journey. It was January after a comfortable 6-figure year, and I made $80k (sales) in something like 20 days. I went on that year to have my first multiple-6-figure year—just under $250k in WholeCo—while also building a second 6-figure business at the same time.

For all intents and purposes, I had achieved the “success” I set out to create back in 2018. I had time freedom, financial freedom, energy freedom. I had scalable offers, a highly engaged audience, money that paid for a nice apartment on the beach. The only problem was…once I got there, I couldn’t help but ask, “Is this it?” I didn’t realize I had made freedom my fuel, but it quickly became clear that, at best, it had offered me an escape from parts of my old life. What it could never offer was a compelling, aligned direction I actually wanted to build toward and stay devoted to—for the long-haul.

What freedom could never offer was a compelling, aligned direction I actually wanted to build toward and stay devoted to—for the long-haul.

Thus began my years-long exploration into what I truly wanted—for myself and my business.

Why You Aren’t Satisfied by Your Success

Remember earlier when I shared that operating from a survival or activated state makes it physiologically impossible to access what you truly want? Reaching a “mountaintop moment” in business—or life—is often the direct outcome of having built primarily from that state. You pour massive effort into creating ‘freedom’ as an escape from something limiting or harmful, and in all that effort, you never really pause to ask what you actually want to expand into. On the rare chance that you do officially “escape”—that is, you attain some version of freedom and no longer have anything to run from, fight, people please, etc.—you can finally see what you’ve built with clearer eyes. And often…

What you’ve built doesn’t align with what you actually want. Instead, it matches what you were taught to want. It’s a cruel irony: the world congratulates you for achieving “success” (assuming they aren’t also tearing you down in a bout of tall poppy syndrome), while inside you’re thinking: “Shouldn’t I feel thrilled right now?” Yet, you don’t.

“But wait, Carly. I reached this ‘mountaintop moment’ even though I wasn’t primarily motivated by time, energy, or money freedom. So what explains the mismatch between what I built, how proud I expected to feel, and how drained I actually felt once I got there?”

In all likelihood: the mismatch comes from a different survival-based desire or belief that’s been quietly powering your business. Notice whether any of these might show up in your decisions or patterns:

• “More is always better.” — Your survival instinct says, “I don’t have enough, I need more.” The goalposts keep moving no matter how much you collect. 
• “Faster is always better.” — Your survival instinct says, “There’s no time to let this unfold.” You default to whatever is guaranteed to work—or rely on someone else’s certainty that it will—so you end up with short-term wins instead of strategies that compound your success over time.
• “Nothing matters unless it’s perfect.” — Your survival instinct is terrified of inadequacy. You delay starting until you “know everything,” or you quit early because the results aren’t immediately exceptional.
• “Your worth is your productivity.” — Your survival instinct says it must keep going at all times or else you will literally become “useless” or “worthless.” And so you keep going, and going, and going—probably until something forces you to stop (e.g. sickness), and even then, you might take a beat but then start right back up again.
• Hierarchical thinking — Your survival instinct says that you’re only safe when you’re “higher on the ladder” than other people. This pushes you to chase metrics you don’t actually care about—be it wealth, fame, possessions, milestones—and fuels self-judgment or comparison when you’re not at a perceived level.

Author’s Note: Deep thanks to Joanna Lindenbaum of Applied Depth Institute for teaching about how these socially accepted beliefs activate our survival instincts while undermining authentic fulfillment and sustainable success.

When any of these beliefs—each widely taught, accepted, and celebrated throughout most of capitalistic and/or Western society—become the unconscious fuel behind your business, burnout becomes almost inevitable. Even if you reach your “mountaintop moment”—perhaps you finally feel ahead, or flawlessly productive, or incredibly accomplished in a short burst—you’ll experience the same emptiness that comes from using freedom as fuel. You’ll reach the top, look around, and think, “Is this all there is?”

What You Really Want Instead of Freedom

I’ve always been fascinated by the people who claim—and genuinely seem to practice—“I don’t need to love my work.” Mostly because that couldn’t be me. Part of that is likely neurodivergence: I have reduced capacity and limited executive function, and even tasks I enjoy can be hard to initiate or sustain. The tasks I don’t enjoy? Those almost never happen unless an external force pushes them forward (looking at you, taxes).

If I built a business around work I didn’t enjoy, I simply wouldn’t show up for it. And then I’d feel guilty for not doing what I said I’d do, the guilt would make completing the task infinitely more impossible, and the entire cycle would compound. I’m going to guess that, if you’re still here reading this article, this is at least somewhat true of you, too; neurodivergence is overrepresented in entrepreneurship, after all.

If I built a business around work I didn’t enjoy, I simply wouldn’t show up for it.

This is why I’m a big believer that—whether you’re just starting out in business or you’ve already achieved a “mountaintop moment” (or two) and are wondering what’s next—your business needs a regenerative “fuel” source. Assuming you want it to last, of course. You need to find something that keeps you showing up, keeps you building, and keeps you engaged in a way that feels genuinely fulfilling each step of the journey.

At its most basic level, this sustainable fuel is innate enjoyment: the sense of, “I genuinely like what I do in my business.” But to be truly effective, it must go deeper. It needs to tap into something inherent to you, something that fuels you organically rather than something you have to manufacture. And yes, that comes with nuance: no business is made of 100% enjoyable tasks, and even enjoyable work can still be challenging (again, hello neurodivergence!).

In our signature program, EXPAND, we spend an entire multi-day retreat exploring this, and continue to revisit and refine our ‘fuel source’ for the duration of the program. It’s deep work, and therefore not something I can fully walk you through here.

What I can offer, though, is a starting point—a way to identify the most powerful and effective motivations you can access with the least friction or effort. The more clearly you understand your natural sources of energy, the more consistently you’ll show up for your business, the more enjoyment you’ll experience along the way, and the more aligned your business will become with the life you want and the community you’re creating.

How to Identify Your Business’ Sustainable Fuel Source

Below, I’ve shared some prompts to help you find new insights and clarity within yourself about your motivations and ‘fuel sources.’ Before diving in, I invite you to choose a way to capture your reflections: paper, a notes app, a voice memo, or really anything that lets you revisit what you uncover.

As you move through the prompts, hold in mind that you don’t need life-defining accomplishments to make the answer ‘count.’ Small moments of satisfaction or ease can offer just as much insight into what motivates you intrinsically, and sometimes is even better to work with because those small moments aren’t often celebrated by people and systems external to you. 

If you notice similar answers arising across multiple prompts, that’s a signal of importance rather than a problem. I invite you to acknowledge the overlap, and then gently see whether there’s an additional answer so that you can get a fuller picture of your natural motivators.

A final note: your answers don’t need to be business-related. In fact, pulling from multiple domains of your life will help you identify the deeper patterns in what fuels you—patterns that will remain true regardless of the work you’re doing.

• What is a period of time where you were really intrinsically motivated to complete something, and did complete it? In this question, “intrinsically motivated” means that receiving some external reward was not the primary reason you were doing said thing. Why was I motivated to complete that thing?
• What’s something I have achieved or  completed in my life that I feel really proud of?
• What’s something I have achieved or completed in my life that felt really easy and/or natural to do, which others might not have felt was easy and/or natural? 
• What’s something I have achieved or completed in my life that felt really satisfying to do?

Once you’ve answered the above questions, it’s time to begin drawing some connections or even potentially creating conclusions.

• Review your answers above. What patterns are you seeing? And/or what stands out to you?
• How might you be able to apply what you’re seeing from this exercise about your motivations and/or the things that ‘fuel’ you to your business?

Reminder that these answers will not give you the full picture of your regenerative fuel source—that takes deeper, longer work—but they will give you a powerful starting point. From here, you can begin designing a business that’s sustained by who you are, not by what you’re running from.

A Real Example: turning My Core Motivation into Sustainable Action

One of the phrases I’ve probably said more than anything else in my life—which is embarrassing to admit, but true—is: “I need to work out more.” I’ve had periods of consistency with exercise, but if I’m honest, those stretches always overlapped with my deepest periods of self-loathing. Of course, that self-loathing was heavily shaped by external conditioning telling me that my value as a femme-presenting person depended on being “skinny.”

That shame-driven motivation technically “worked,” until it didn’t. I’d push hard for weeks or months, burn out, stop completely, feel terrible about myself, and then start the cycle again. As I did more inner work and built real self-love—a feat I’m genuinely proud of!—I suddenly found myself with no ‘fuel’ to exercise. I still wanted to move my body, but I couldn’t make anything stick.

When I did the exercise I offered above, the core motivator that emerged for me was: the experience of authentic expression. I am deeply motivated by being who I truly am and being seen in and for that.

Applying that to movement: I want to move my body because my body is part of how I express myself. It’s the vessel that carries my identity, expresses my energy, and showcases my aesthetic.

That led me to clarify what my authentic ‘aesthetic’ actually is: warm. Loving. Squishy/comfy/cozy. Radiant. Human. Bright. Creative. Expressive. Stylish. Different.

And what’s not aligned with that: hard. Angular. Stoic. Stone-like. Chiseled. Cold. Small. Tight. Compressed.

Once I saw that clearly, my start-stop pattern in exercise began to make more sense. The moment I stopped hating myself, my old motivation evaporated—because it was survival driven rather than being aligned with who I authentically am. All the exercise styles I’d forced myself into had been chosen to create an aesthetic I, myself, never actually wanted to express (smallness, hardness, coldness, compression).

Today, I move my body regularly—not perfectly, and certainly not without neurodivergent-induced lapses. I also now choose forms of movement that amplify my authentic expression: yoga, long walks, dancing, slow and measured strength work. Movement that expands who I am rather than is me trying to escape the parts of me that many of the voices and structure in society say I should hate.

That’s the difference a regenerative fuel source makes. You stop fighting yourself. You stop needing force. You naturally gravitate toward both actions and outcomes that align with who you are—whether that’s in movement, or in the way you structure, run, and sustain your business.

That’s the difference a regenerative fuel source makes. You stop fighting yourself. You stop needing force. You naturally gravitate toward both actions and outcomes that align with who you are.

Of course, finding this regenerative fuel source doesn’t negate the very real systems at play which are working overtime to keep us in an activated physiological state. It also won’t remove any need for a healthy financial foundation, because—hello capitalism—this is the world we live in. Nor will finding that regenerative fuel source ‘heal your nervous system’ or any of those now Instagram-popular promises. But it will give you something you can intentionally and persistently tap back into while giving yourself grace for the periods where you stopped—or momentarily weren’t able to, due to physiological activation—relying on it, instead relying on a survival-instinct motivation.

Sustainable Success in Business Begins with a Defined & Aligned Direction

Without a regenerative fuel source—one that doesn’t require metaphorical fracking to access—it’s incredibly difficult to consistently show up for, maintain, and grow your business. You can absolutely start a business on survival-driven motivation (and you’ll probably tap into that state again at times), but that fuel burns fast. Physiologically, your system isn’t designed to live in fight/flight/freeze/fawn without eventually paying a serious cost.

Even with access to your own regenerative fuel source, you’ll still have harder days or seasons. That’s just being human. But those dips will never erase the underlying energy you’re working from—and you can always return to it when you’re ready.

For me, naming and connecting with my natural motivation didn’t just clarify my next steps; it required rethinking almost everything about my business. My “mountaintop moment” of that $80k (sales) month forced me into deeper self-inquiry and eventually into rebuilding my offer suite, messaging, and demand generation system from the inside out. It wasn’t fast, and it definitely hasn’t been easy. But it was the first time I was building for the long-term instead of chasing the next spike of external validation.

This is the same shift I walk our EXPAND clients through: moving from building their business for short-term, rooted-in-physiological-activation rewards to building their business for long-term, sustainable success. The longer you wait to make this shift, the more deeply rooted the (ultimately unhelpful) processes and patterns become. Yet the good news is that it’s never too late. The first step in making this shift is always the same: establishing your Defined & Aligned Direction. That starts with identifying the internal fuel that’s truly regenerative for you, and then translating it into very practical elements of your business: your Goals, Business Model, and Niche.

I’ll go more in depth on each of these elements in future articles, or you can join us inside of EXPAND to be personally guided through the entire process. For now, I encourage you to complete the exercise above and begin honestly exploring: What might need to shift in your business so that it runs on a regenerative fuel source, instead of a survival-based one?

You’ve got this.