Is Your Lifeboat Sinking? Three Survival Tools Every Entrepreneur Needs

When everything feels urgent and nothing feels optional, ask yourself: are you steering your business, or barely keeping it afloat? In a recent Lioness community event, Dr. Joy Wiggins, co-author of From Sabotage to Support: A New Vision for Feminist Solidarity in the Workplace, framed entrepreneurship as a lifeboat — perhaps even the lifeboat from Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi. (You know, the one with the tiger?)

To break out of that scarcity mindset, you can watch the full webinar—or jump straight into Wiggins’s three-part framework below.

Scarcity mindset

The scarcity mindset manifests itself in feelings of inadequacy, loss of control or expendability. It pushes you to do more, even if the extra effort is unrewarded. You feel desperate to make a move even if the move gets you nowhere. You offer to do extra or work unpaid and around the clock because you’re confusing exhaustion with impact.

This to many entrepreneurs, particularly women, who think, “If I can just do more, I can turn this around.” The better choice is to stop and think about advancing more strategically. That doesn’t mean that you can never do unpaid work; it means you need to decide whether each offer is worth your while. Will it put you in the room with the right people? Will it bring more leads into your funnel? Will this opportunity actually advance your career?

Working from abundance

Wiggins refers to From Sabotage to Support when she outlines how to better support each other. When you move with abundance, you can support other women without worrying that you’re giving away your own opportunities. There’s plenty of business out there — and gatekeeping won’t solve your problems.

For a practical tip, Wiggins suggests keeping a list of women experts, so if you meet someone looking for a certain specialty, you have a name ready to recommend. She also discusses the importance of setting boundaries. Without those boundaries, you can end up doing too much for too little.

Three survival buckets

Even if your lifeboat is taking on water, Wiggins offers three survival buckets we can all use to bail ourselves out before we sink.

1) Resource bucket

This is about income and stability. (In other words, what keeps your boat afloat?) Even if you own your own business, you probably need backup streams of income. Wiggins maintains her main business alongside speaking engagements, consulting, coaching work and Joy Abroad, a venture helping women navigate international moves.

She started by consulting with organizations to help them develop cross-cultural communications while speaking and presenting workshops for other groups. Since she had lived and worked in Portugal, China and Germany, Wiggins started Joy Abroad to help other women with their ex-pat journeys. Her lived experiences helped create new opportunities.

2) Sustainability bucket

Wiggins urges entrepreneurs to practice self-care, noting that sleep, nutrition, movement and emotional regulation are all essential for anyone running a business. She also extols the virtue of simply giving yourself a break.

With that said, she warns against victimhood. World events may be distracting, and it’s easy to be upset by the direction DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) budgets are headed, but, as she says, it’s important to be a “good victim”. Accept reality, face adversity and remain resilient.

3) Clarity bucket

This bucket carries your direction and strategy. Examine what led you to this point.

“For example, recently, I was thinking about money and wondering why I think about it the way I do,” Wiggins said. “That brought me to thinking of my upbringing. My parents taught me about money, and they had a certain slant, and now I have my own based on their teaching.”

“When I need clarification, I write things down and make lists. It helps to solidify my thoughts. It’s also important to know your values. They can help to guide you.”

She also stresses being able to say no without over-explaining.  

A few questions to ground yourself

At this point, Wiggins turned the questions back to the audience:

• What’s in your lifeboat right now?
• What’s taking up the most space in your lifeboat now?
• Where do you feel you have the biggest leak?
• What are you carrying that may not be yours to carry anymore?

Practical strategies to steady your lifeboat

• To fight overwhelm, prioritize and write down your top three to-dos. This can crystallize thoughts and help you focus.
• Stop beating yourself up. It will only weigh you down.
• Walk away. Get some fresh air, take a nap, or do yoga or some type of movement. It will refresh you and improve your attitude.
• Fight negativity and hold a mindset of gratitude. As Wiggins used to tell her daughter, “Today, you have a choice of how to tackle your day. You can be positive or negative. Something will always be there to rock your lifeboat, but you decide how to react to that.”
• Take risks and don’t be afraid to fail.
• Trust your instincts.
• Advocate for yourself first.

The more you practice self-advocacy, the easier it becomes. Stand up for yourself, have boundaries and patch that lifeboat.