Wrapping up our 4-part Sacred Side Hustle series with something that hits close to home: When everything depends on your business working—your child's school, your dream rental, your entire life vision—success doesn't bring relief. It brings weight. Here's how to handle it.
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Here's what's we covered in this series:
âś“ Week 1 The 20-Hour Work Week: Spiritual Business Blueprint
âś“Week 2 The Feminine Approach to Side Hustle Success
âś“ Week 3 When to Push vs. When to Wait (And Why Your People Need to See You Figuring It Out)
Week 4 (Today) Stop Feeling Like a "Fake" Entrepreneur
The Closer You Get to Your Vision
The More "Fake" You Can Feel
It's as if my sense of Self had to stretch to accommodate this bigger version of who I was becoming.
Three years ago, I posted about a $20,000 month on Instagram. The comments were celebratory, but all I could think was: "How am I going to sustain this?"
Not because I doubted my abilities or felt like a fraud. Because I knew exactly what was at stake. The rental I wanted, Noa's private school, the life I was building—all of it depended on me making this work.
If I couldn't sustain this income, it wasn't just a business setback. It was a failure in the life I was trying to create. And going back to building someone else's vision in a corporate job? Please, no.
That's when the weight of being responsible for your own vision hits hardest. And that's exactly when you need to lean in, not pull back.
Success doesn't make you feel more secure.
It makes you feel more responsible.
When I hit that $20K month, I didn't feel like celebrating. I felt the crushing weight of "Now I have to do this again. And again. And again."
Because it wasn't just my money. It was Noa's future. It was the life I promised myself I'd create. It was proof that I could be the sole provider without anyone's help.
Every month after that felt like I was trying to prove I wasn't just lucky once.
That's when you start feeling like a "fake" entrepreneur. Not because you don't believe in your work—you know your passion is real. But because the stakes are so high that every business decision feels like life or death.
You start second-guessing everything:
- Am I making this choice from alignment or desperation?
- What if this was just a fluke and I can't sustain it?
- What if I fail and have to go back to building someone else's dream?
The "fake" feeling isn't about your abilities. It's about the terrifying responsibility of having no backup plan.
You're not questioning if you're good enough.
You're questioning if you're strong enough to carry the weight of everything depending on you.
Most advice about "imposter syndrome" assumes you're doubting your skills. But that's not what happens when you're building a life entirely on your own vision.
When you refuse the safety net of employment, when you bet everything on your own gifts, when you make your business responsible for your child's education and your family's security—that's not imposter syndrome.
That's the weight of being the architect of your own life.
Feeling "fake" is often just your nervous system trying to process the enormity of what you've chosen to build.
You haven't seen many people do what you're trying to do. You don't have a roadmap for building this kind of life. So your brain defaults to "Maybe I'm not qualified for this level of responsibility."
No one is qualified for their own vision until they build it.
What Changes When You Accept the Weight
Three years later: that $20K month wasn't a fluke. It was the beginning of understanding what I'm actually capable of when everything depends on it.
The pressure didn't go away. But I stopped seeing it as evidence that I was fake. I started seeing it as evidence that I was serious.
When your business has to sustain your entire life vision, you don't get the luxury of playing small or waiting for perfect conditions.
You show up differently when failure isn't an option.
You make decisions differently when everything you care about is on the line.
You become the entrepreneur your vision requires, not the one you thought you were ready to be.
The "fake" feeling? It's just the gap between who you were and who you're becoming. And that gap closes every time you choose your vision over your comfort zone.
If you're already carrying the weight of big dreams and need support building something sustainable enough to handle the pressure—if you're ready to stop feeling fake about the responsibility you've taken on—Tabernacle might be calling you. We start August 29th, and I'd love to support you in creating a business that can actually handle what you're asking it to do.
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What I'm Celebrating
@susannaflury_ mentioned she pared back her offerings to have more time with her kids during summer break, and it got me thinking about the beauty of being the boss. Sometimes scaling back IS the strategy. I'm curious if she planned financially for this shift or if it was more intuitive. There's something powerful about having the freedom to choose your pace.
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The most "real" entrepreneurs I know aren't the ones with backup plans. They're the ones who burned the boats and learned to swim under pressure. That's not fake—that's fierce.
Until next time, trust that you can handle the weight of your own vision.
With love and commitment,
Erica
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