Why Successful Business Owners Don't Make Every Decision Alone
You started your business to be independent. Somewhere along the way, “independent” turned into “alone” — and every decision, big or small, started landing on your desk with no one to check it against.
Is being a solopreneur one of the loneliest jobs in the world?
Business ownership, especially as a solopreneur, can be incredibly lonely.
There is no colleague down the hall to test an idea on. No manager to sanity-check a decision. No team meeting where someone else catches what you missed.
You are the owner, the decision-maker, and often the only person who will ever see the decision before it is made.
Have you seen the meme of a solopreneur having their company Christmas party?
One person standing alone in an empty room, holding a glass of wine and dancing to Christmas songs.
It looks funny.
But sometimes there is something painfully accurate about it.
When you run a small business alone, even the celebrations can feel lonely.
And when things become difficult, there isn't always someone sitting beside you saying:
“Talk me through it.”
Decisions feel heavier when you're alone
It's not that solo business owners are worse decision-makers.
It's that deciding alone changes the weight of the decision itself.
There's no reflection partner. Every decision stays only as clear as your own thinking that day — and your thinking at 7 a.m. can be very different from your thinking at 11 p.m. after a difficult client call.
Second-guessing has nowhere to go. Without someone to talk things through with, doubt doesn't get resolved. It simply keeps looping.
Decision fatigue compounds. Small decisions pile on top of big ones, all day, every day, until even simple choices start to feel exhausting.
You can't always see your own blind spots. You are too close to your business to notice every pattern, avoidance, assumption, or obvious next step.
None of this means you're doing something wrong.
It simply means you're trying to do something difficult without one of the things many high performers have around them:
other people who help them think.
What successful business owners do differently
Here's the part many solopreneurs forget.
The business owners who appear confident, decisive and completely “together” are rarely making every important decision alone.
They have people around them.
A coach.
A mentor.
A mastermind group.
A trusted peer.
A friend with expertise in an area they don't understand.
Someone they can call before making a big move.
The purpose isn't always to get an answer.
Often, it's to have someone ask the right question, challenge your thinking, notice what you're avoiding or simply give you enough space to hear yourself think.
You don't necessarily need one particular type of support.
But I believe every business owner benefits from having a trusted sounding board in some form.
The difference isn't always confidence.
Sometimes, it's simply support.
Five types of support I use in business
Over the years, I've realised that I don't need one person to provide every kind of support.
Different people play different roles.
1. A coach
A coach gives you a trusted space to think out loud.
A good coach doesn't immediately jump in with advice or tell you what you should do.
They listen.
They ask questions.
They challenge your thinking.
They notice patterns.
And sometimes, through that conversation, you finally hear yourself say out loud what you already knew.
The end result isn't that your coach makes the decision for you.
It's that you understand your thinking more clearly and can make the decision with greater confidence.
2. A mentor
Mentoring is different.
A mentor uses their own knowledge and experience to offer guidance, advice and perspective.
There are times when I don't need another coaching question.
I want to speak with someone who has already done what I'm trying to do and ask:
“What worked for you?”
“What would you avoid?”
“What am I missing?”
Their experience can help shorten the learning curve.
3. A mastermind
For me, a small mastermind group is one of the most valuable forms of business support.
Three people works perfectly in my current mastermind.
We are at a similar stage, we don't compete with one another, and there is trust between us.
Our meetings have a simple structure.
We start with our successes and what has happened since the previous meeting.
Then each person shares their current challenge.
That's where the group becomes a place for brainstorming, feedback, ideas, different perspectives and practical support.
Finally, we finish with action points:
What are you going to do next?
What are you taking away from today's conversation?
It gives you both perspective and accountability — two things that can disappear very quickly when you're working alone.
4. Body doubling
This is one of my favourite tools when I have a task I've been postponing or something I feel stuck on.
I sometimes organise a body-doubling session with one of the members of my mastermind.
We meet on Zoom.
At the beginning, we each say what we're committing to complete during the next hour.
Then we mute ourselves and work.
We can still see each other, but we're focused on our own tasks.
At the end of the hour, we come back together and share what we've achieved. If we need feedback, we can discuss it straight away.
It's simple, but incredibly effective.
I find it particularly useful for writing content, creating plans and tackling tasks I've been avoiding.
It creates accountability — and makes running a business feel a little less lonely.
5. My informal support team
I also have a short list of friends from completely different parts of my life who I can contact when I need another perspective.
They aren't all business owners.
That's actually part of their value.
For example, when I created a survey, I contacted a friend who works at a university and has extensive experience with research and surveys.
When I wrote a post and wanted to know whether my message made sense outside the business-coaching world, I sent it to a friend who doesn't run a business.
I didn't want the language to become so niche that an ordinary reader couldn't understand what I was saying.
Sometimes the best sounding board isn't the person who knows everything about your business.
It's the person who can see something you can't.
Reflection questions
Take a moment and ask yourself:
Which decisions have I been making completely alone?
Who do I currently turn to when I'm genuinely unsure?
What has it cost me — in time, energy or second-guessing — to make decisions without a sounding board?
Where could an outside perspective change my next move?
What kind of support am I missing right now: coaching, mentoring, accountability, expertise or simply someone to think out loud with?
You don't have to carry every business decision alone
Successful business owners aren't people who have all the answers.
They're people who have stopped expecting themselves to find every answer alone.
You can still be independent.
You can still make your own decisions.
You can still lead your business.
But independence doesn't have to mean isolation.
Having the right people around you doesn't weaken your decision-making.
It strengthens it.
first step
Name one decision that is currently sitting on your desk.
Before you make it alone, as you usually would, ask yourself one question:
Who could I talk this through with?
Sometimes one conversation is enough to help you see your next step differently.
Author: Magda Campbell
I’m a business coach for women solopreneurs. I create a trusted space where you can think out loud, get clear on what matters, challenge your assumptions and make your next decision with confidence instead of second-guessing.
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