When you're first starting your own thing, it's natural to have a ton of questions.
Do I need to form an LLC or can I operate as a sole-proprietor?
How do I calculate taxes? How do I pay taxes?
What do I do for health insurance?
Should I start a Substack?
The list goes on and on.
One moment you're skimming a Reddit article for the answer, the next you've spent an hour on ChatGPT.
When I jumped into the world of solopreneurship, I found myself overwhelmed with all of the information.
There were so many resources, and I was determined to figure out the “right” way to do things.
This pattern of over-researching showed up in other parts of my life too—hunting for the best restaurant, waiting years to move to NYC, and starting/stopping/re-starting my homeownership journey.
While it might seem harmless, indecision can waste valuable time and energy. Just think about it:
How many hours have you spent time gathering more information about which career path you want to choose next?
How many months have you thought about a side hustle idea, only to delay starting until later?
How many years have you spent thinking about whether to quit a job you knew wasn’t right for you?
There’s a reason you feel stuck—and no, it’s not just because you’re “bad at decisions.”
🧠 Where does indecision come from?
Most research hasn’t pointed to a singular cause for indecision, so it could be for a variety of reasons, some of which may be linked to childhood.
Fear of failure: Perhaps you made the wrong decision before and were scolded for it, either as a child or in a toxic work environment.
Losing sight of the bigger picture: You get overwhelmed by the details and forget about the goal, e.g. worrying about the colors on your website vs. just launching it.
Perfectionism: You want things to be done the “right” way, which leads to overanalyzing everything until all options are exhausted.
🔁 A different way to think about decisions
Many decisions that we think are irreversible are actually reversible. While we might think we can’t change our business name or quit a job after only a few months, we totally can.
Yes, there might be some work or negative perception, but these decisions aren’t as big as we think they are.
Here are some examples in my own life:
When I named my business, I had no idea what I was going to actually offer, so I just called it “Maggie Blackburn Consulting LLC”.
When I started this newsletter, I went back and forth between which newsletter platform to go with. I chose Flodesk but realized later Beehiiv was better suited for newsletters, so I had to switch and import my subscriber lists.
For health insurance, I paid $1,000 for a month of COBRA insurance I didn’t even use.
While there were annoying hiccups, these decisions weren’t make or break.
💭 Final thoughts
To move forward, get comfortable with making imperfect decisions.
You might lose a little money. You’ll definitely change your mind. But nothing is set in stone. You can adjust as you go.
The worst decision is staying stuck in indecision.
💬 Your turn
If you’ve been waiting to make a decision, what’s been stopping you? How can you move forward and free yourself from your own indecision?
What did you think of this newsletter?
✨ Weekly Feels
I came back on Friday after 10 days in Orlando for a conference, freelancing with Trademark. Being onsite for an event is fun, active, and quite the opposite of a desk job.
While the first part of the week was long 12 hour days, the second part of the week I hung out with more of the team and was reminded that the best part of work is the people you’re with. It brought me back to my solo travel days where I knew no one going into it but left with friends!
Epic Universe with some of the Trademark team
📖 Keep Reading
💼 Ways to Work With Me
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