Every woman I know who runs her own business has had a stretch where it all gets heavy at once. A big client goes quiet. A parent needs more of you than they used to. The teenager is either glued to you or not speaking to you, with very little in between. Meanwhile the business still expects you to turn up every morning as if none of it is happening.
The advice we get for these moments is almost always the same. Be resilient. Dig deep. Push through. I understand why, and grit has carried me through more than one difficult season of my own. I've also learned the hard way that grit makes a brilliant tool and a terrible strategy.
This is what I've come to believe actually keeps us going, and why leaning on grit alone can quietly cost you more than it saves.
Why grit runs out
Grit isn't a bottomless well. It comes from the same place as your patience on the school run, your energy for the call with your mum's GP and your ability to stay calm when the printer jams ten minutes before a deadline.
For women in midlife, that tank is often lower than it used to be. Sleep is less reliable, hormones have their own opinions, and the number of people depending on you has rarely been higher. When grit is your only plan, you're not drawing on some spare reserve. You're borrowing from your health, your family and the version of you that actually enjoys this business.
The other problem with grit is that it hides things. Pushing through can feel productive, even admirable, while the decision you really need to make sits untouched underneath it. You can grit your teeth through a year and come out the other side exhausted and no clearer than when you started.
What actually keeps us going
In my experience, the women who get through the hard stretches well aren't the ones with the most grit. They're the ones who've built a bit of structure around it.
A reason you can still feel. Revenue targets matter, but a number on a spreadsheet won't get you out of bed on a hard morning. A reason will. Maybe it's the freedom to be there for your family, the work you know you're genuinely good at, or simply proving to yourself that you can. Whatever yours is, write it down and put it somewhere you'll see it. Reasons fade when they live only in your head.
Smaller hard days. On my toughest weeks I don't try to do everything. I pick the one thing that genuinely moves the business forward and give myself permission to let the rest be good enough. Good enough isn't lowering your standards. On a hard week it's the most strategic decision you'll make.
Someone to say it out loud to. This is the one most of us skip. The heaviest part of running your own business usually isn't the work itself. It's carrying every decision on your own, with nobody to think out loud in front of. A problem said to someone who understands is roughly half the size it was at 3am.
A rhythm you don't have to decide on. Hard stretches drain your decision-making first. The fewer things you have to choose each week, the more you have left for what matters. A regular planning slot, a monthly check-in, a standing date with people who get it. These carry you when your own motivation can't.
How to tell if you're running on grit alone
It's not always obvious from the inside. A few signs worth noticing:
• The same decision has been on your list for weeks and keeps sliding to next week
• Everything feels urgent, so nothing feels important
• You dread Sunday evenings more than you used to
• You say "I'm fine" before anyone has actually asked
• You can't remember the last time you talked about the business with someone who wasn't a client
If two or three of those sound familiar, it isn't a sign that you're failing. It's a sign that you've been relying on willpower to do a job that structure and support should be doing.
Something to try this week
Take ten minutes and look back at your last few good days in the business, and your last few hard ones. For each, jot down what was carrying you. Was it a clear priority? A conversation with someone you trust? A deadline? A good night's sleep? Sheer stubbornness?
Most women find the good days had something underneath them that the hard days didn't. That's your fuel. Once you can see it, you can plan for more of it, rather than hoping the next hard stretch will be the one you finally out-grit.
Where this kind of thinking happens best
In my experience, out loud and in good company.
That's exactly what we're talking about at the next Networking Collective in Clevedon. I'll be interviewing Tracy Hill, founder of Sapphire Finance, about her business journey and how she keeps going when it's really hard. Tracy has a refreshingly honest way of looking at business and at managing everything else alongside it, and I think a lot of you will recognise yourselves in her story. There will also be cake, because some conversations deserve it.
If you'd rather work through things privately, the Trailblazer Accelerator is three one-to-one sessions with me, with accountability in between so the momentum doesn't disappear the moment you close your laptop.
Over to you
What keeps you going when it's really hard? Tell me in the comments, or drop me a message. I read every one myself.
Niki
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Niki is a Fractional Strategy Director and the Founder of Trailblazing Females, a curated collective helping female founders over 40 scale with intention.