Eighteen months after starting her business, she felt that she had left her life as an employee far behind.

She was now making some money from serving her customers. Not as much money as if she had remained in her old job, but it was money that she had made herself, all on her own. She was vindicated. She could honestly call herself an entrepreneur.

The people in her life were now treating her differently. Those that had previously done their best to persuade her against leaving her job had changed tack. They were starting to inquire how she was doing. Some of them were even curious about how she had managed to achieve so much since leaving her employment.

At her core, when she allowed herself the time to think about it, she was delighted with what she had created. She was indeed an entrepreneur. She had escaped the world of working for someone else. She had become self-determined. She now knew that she could never go back to a regular job. She had achieved what many people dream about, but few actually accomplish.

But her world was not without challenge.

Although she didn’t mention it to anyone, she was exhausted. True, she had some good customers now, and the income level was continuing to rise, but she hadn’t anticipated that she would be working for so much of the time.

She was now putting in far more hours than she had worked as an employee. In many ways that was fine, as she was building her business. She didn’t resent the work as such. But she was now working every evening, as well as all day.

She thought about the business all of the time. She couldn’t wait to finish each meal so that she could get back to checking email and handling issues that needed to be dealt with. She woke in the middle of the night to find her brain working on solutions to challenges that her business faced.

She had virtually no social life now. That was fine because she was building her business. But she did miss her friends, at least when she allowed herself the time to think about it.

There was an unnerving semi-evolved thought at the back of her mind that something was not quite right. It seemed that the way that she was doing things wasn’t sufficiently productive, but she couldn’t seem to figure out why. She felt as if some choices that she had made were unsatisfactory, but she couldn’t determine which ones they were, or what choices would have been better.

She would love to hand over some of the important bits of the work to someone else, but she felt certain that she was the only person who could really do the job properly. She would love to employ someone to handle the administrative aspects of the business, but how would she find the time to

train someone else on how the business operates, let alone to manage them and check their work? And how would she afford to pay them?

She occasionally thought back to the time when she was an employee. Although she had always felt that she didn’t want to work for someone else, at least she had good holidays back then. She dreamed of taking some time out to sit on a beach, but she knew that was impossible. Not right now. Not while she was building her business.

She remembered that before she had started on the entrepreneurial path, she had a vision of what that life would be like. There would be wealth and freedom. There would be admiration from others. There would be time to do all the things she had wanted for so long to do. She would be content. She would be relaxed. And she would be fulfilled.

She knew that those things lay ahead of her. But right now they seemed far off. She just had so much work to do, queries to handle, emails to send, orders to administer and strategies to organize.

Things would of course get better as the business grew, as she got more customers, and as she made more money. That was the bright future that awaited her. To hasten that day, she would work even harder. She would push the thoughts of free time and partying to one side. Things would definitely get better. But right now she was building her business.

If this article resonates with you, read Freedom Entrepreneur to recreate your business so that it works, even better, without your constant attention. So that you can live in BOTH freedom AND wealth. So that you get your life back.

This Article is a reproduction of the Prologue from Freedom Entrepreneur