Become a Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur: How To Debunk The Social Prejudice For Your Own Thriving
As mentioned in the previous blog post about the best jobs for HSP, owning a business can be a good idea for them.
In this post, we’ll focus on what it takes to be a highly sensitive entrepreneur.
We’ll first define a highly sensitive person and then move on to some common false opinions about how highly sensitive people can’t belong in the business world.
We’ll get into what can actually drive an entrepreneurial HSP’s business to success.
Finally, we’ll try to overview the common challenges HSP entrepreneurs face and how to tackle them.
Who Is a Highly Sensitive Person?
American clinical research psychologist Elaine Aron coined the term ‘highly sensitive person’ (HSP) after she conducted some studies on sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS) at the beginning of the 1990s.
While there are several common traits HSPs have, every case of neurodivergence is highly individual.
An HSP’s nervous system is different from a neurotypical one. For instance, a highly sensitive brain demonstrates increased activity in emotional and sensory areas, which helps highly sensitive people process social cues and emotions more easily.
Other differences include higher activation of the mirror neuron system, overreaction of the amygdala, or stronger connectivity in brain networks.
Common Misconceptions About How Highly Sensitive Persons Can’t Belong To The Business World
There are many false opinions about how a highly sensitive nature makes HSPs unsuitable for entrepreneurial endeavors.
Sadly, that often stops them from even trying to run their own businesses.
Below are some of these misconceptions debunked.
Myth 1: HSPs are too emotional and weak to face the daily challenges of running a business
Indeed, highly sensitive people feel emotions more intensively, but it doesn’t have to mean they can’t be resilient.
In fact, possessing higher levels of emotional intelligence, HSPs can read the room easily and thus prevent hostile situations from even happening.
While they get overwhelmed easily, they are good at working out strategies so they can adapt their work environment to their needs.
The truth is, running their own business, a highly sensitive person has more agency to set their own schedule and be flexible.
Myth 2: HSPs can’t lead effectively as they are pushovers
One of the major traits of highly sensitive person is that they avoid potential conflicts and fights like a plague. Under unfavoring circumstances, this might lead to people pleasing.
Nevertheless, if an HSP deals with enough positive reinforcement and acceptance, that doesn’t have to be the case.
Also, their heightened emotional intelligence makes them great leader material. Together with high levels of empathy, it allows them to see the whole picture of what their teams need.
Myth 3: HSPs Won’t Work For Long Hours And/Or In Fast-Paced Environments
Most likely, a highly sensitive person won’t find a fast-paced work environment nurturing. Yet, is that the only way one can run a business? Absolutely not.
HSPs are very successful with smaller business models, and that typically allows them to have employees who aren’t anonymous to them. That wouldn’t be able in a corporate environment.
What’s more, the development of technology has been giving us many resources to do things differently than we used to.
That means that entrepreneurship isn’t only about big companies and fast pace anymore. It can be well-adjusted.
What Can Make Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs Successful?
There’s a bunch of priorities highly sensitive entrepreneurs should bear in mind.
As highly sensitive people find it important to work on things they deeply care about, building a business around their passions might be the right direction.
However, every business decision should be sensible, so you should always see if your passions align with potential for profit.
Also, there are some professions and niches where highly sensitive abilities might come in handy more than in others.
For instance, HSPs might be good at running a niche online store, for they can easily recognize pain points and needs of their customers.
Highly sensitive entrepreneurs should also be mindful of their planning routines. Having a plan helps them avoid overwhelm, and the same applies to setting boundaries.
If possible from the beginning, they should outsource the tasks that don’t require their direct attention. That’s because they should avoid multitasking at all costs, for it makes them stressed and nervous.
While being assertive doesn’t come easily to any HSP, they can learn it, or train it like a muscle. Self-care is fundamental to prevent burnout, overwhelm, or even further sickness.
One of the top traits of a highly sensitive person is that they have a deep intuition. That’s why they should trust their gut feelings, but try to combine it with any objective data in their business decision-making.
Last but not least, HSPs should build their own network of support. It applies both to their professional and private lives equally.
As for entrepreneurial side of life, they might join business networks created for a highly sensitive entrepreneur. Surrounding themselves with mentors and peers that understand their circumstances could be very nurturing.
How to Overcome Common Business Obstacles As a Highly Sensitive Entrepreneur?
As mentioned earlier, it will require a plan. To create it, we’ll need to consider the most typical challenges entrepreneurs face.
Still, you can also adjust by choosing the right type of business to run. With automated businesses, you’re likely to have more time to focus on things that really matter.
It also makes sense to start slow. For instance, with a weekend side hustle that has potential to become a full-time job.
Stress And Overwhelm Management
First of all, you want to prevent burnout. Highly sensitive people can get overwhelmed easily. Because it happens for them quicker than the majority of people, they should avoid working long hours without breaks.
That’s when having flexible schedules comes in handy. This way, they can organize their tasks into blocks and separate them with sessions of mindfulness, meditation, or just breaks.
Sometimes, they might require a longer break, like a nap, but very often, even some gentle exercises will do the trick.
What I found especially working for me as an HSP are noise-reducing ear plugs. While they don’t cancel the sounds, they help deep focusing and prevent me not just from too much of overwhelm, but reduce stress.
Dealing With Fear Of Rejection Or Criticism
Like I mentioned before, under unfavorable circumstances, HSPs tend to people please. Equally, they can get trapped in perfectionism, trying to avoid rejection or criticism.
What helps a lot is the shift of perspective. Come to think of it, every human being will be rejected more in their life than they get a “yes”. The truth is, we just tend to discuss only those joyful moments.
Also, you’ll never learn as much from a win as from the supposed failure. So, getting to see how loss can be just a chapter on the way to success can be very helpful.
Approaching a rejection as a lesson, where you can objectively analyze what went wrong, will help to find room for improvement.
HSPs should also practise self-compassion and celebrate small victories.
Wrapping Up
Being a neurodivergent person isn’t easy, and with highly sensitive people, their unique gifts are often considered their weakness and liability.
Shifting this perspective in the society will take time, but no HSP needs to wait for it to happen. As long as they find the confidence to use these special traits to their advantage, beautiful things can happen.
Creating success for HSP entrepreneurs isn’t an alternative world’s chimera. We do have tools and resources now to claim our independence and create opportunities when they aren’t already there.
If you want to learn about some general job ideas for neurodivergent people, see this post.
