You're not doing business wrong. It may just be the wrong fit for how you think and work

You've been in business long enough to know what you're doing, you work hard, and you care about doing it well. But there are days, and they're adding up, when the business itself feels heavier to carry than you expected - more demanding and more draining than the results you're getting seem to justify.

On my most recent connection call, the wonderful woman I was talking with described a current business model that had her offering several different variations of her services to three different audiences, with a corresponding tangled web of social media content that was totally overwhelming her and wiping out any sense of delight.

We discovered, through gentle, probing questions, that it was very clear she had both a searing talent and a deep desire to deliver in one particular way to one specific audience. But she wasn't allowing herself to "do business that way" because there was an approach she'd had modelled to her that she then felt almost obliged or compelled to follow, even though it was costing her sparky-brained self dearly.

This is a scenario I see rather too often. Smart and talented women doing the work and showing up with the very best of intentions… and yet it's not settling into something that feels natural or aligned. And so momentum comes in bursts and then dissipates, and underneath there's a quiet, nagging sense of being out of step.

The story you may have told yourself

When our business isn't working the way we'd like it to, we're far less likely to question the structure or model. We're far more likely to look at ourselves and find the fault.

• I'm not consistent enough.

• I have NO discipline.

• My mindset is all wrong.

• I'm obviously crap at x, y and z.

If you're travelling well, feeling emotionally regulated and grounded, you might enter strategic territory:

• Perhaps offering a payment plan might help with conversions - I'll test that on my next 3 calls.

• Actually, on reflection, I don't have an offer that gives people a taste of what it's like to work with me. I'll sketch one out and test that.

• I think I'm missing an Engagement Arc in my offer suite - that could be why I only have short-term client relationships. I'll close that gap.

But a far more common reaction seems to be to first judge yourself harshly, and then to do MORE. To push harder, show up more, create more content, be more disciplined in executing the advice that's already draining (I've always been a bit suspicious of that term — execution — death by ongoing effort). In various ways, it's all about trying, again, to become the kind of business owner the frameworks we're proffered assume you are.

Groundhog day, week, month, year…

The trouble is, sparky-brained women, as a rule, are not accurate observers of ourselves. This is especially true when you're running a business with ADHD, and even more so if you were late-diagnosed - you've had years of practice assuming the gap was you. We tend to underestimate our own talent and the real value of what we create, and overestimate the brilliance and righteousness of the way someone else does things and what they offer. That we'd manage too if only we were a bit better. So we keep squishing ourselves to fit the methods, when it might be the methods that need to fit us.

A different possibility: your business might not fit how you think and work

You may not be doing business wrong. You may simply be trying to run it in a shape that was never built for the way you actually think, decide, create, deliver, and work.

That's a very different diagnosis, with a very different prescription and treatment plan.

The gap between having an effective strategy and being able to sustain it is almost never a knowledge gap. It's a fit gap, sitting right alongside a self-worth gap. You can know exactly what you're supposed to do and still find it quietly impossible to keep doing, not because you're incapable, but because the whole shebang is asking you to constantly work against your own wiring, and then has you telling yourself the resulting friction is a personal failing.

Once you can see this, a door opens. The problem can stop being a you thing and become something you can explore and reshape.

What Business Fit actually means

Business Fit isn't a soft option. It's not a "well, I'm just not able to do it the right way, so I'll have to settle for this instead" shortfall. It's strategy - arguably the most foundational strategic decision you'll make, and the one every other strategy and tactical decision depends on. It's a blend of deep self-knowledge (a key self-leadership pillar), practicality, market awareness and clear-eyed decision making, and it becomes the foundation you build everything else on.

Which is also a reason why so much of the strategy you've earnestly tried before hasn't yet stuck. Not because the tactics were wrong, or because you didn't implement them well enough, but because you were bolting them onto a foundation that was never shaped to fit you. You can't out-implement a bad fit.

The right Business Fit for you includes considerations like:

• Your value model - whether the business is built to use your natural strengths or to work around them. You think best out loud, in live, responsive conversation, where all your sharpest ideas actually happen. But you've spent the last 6 months trying to market a polished evergreen course that feels like pulling teeth, because that's what you've been told a "scalable" business is supposed to have - when every client breakthrough has actually happened on a one-to-one call that felt effortless.

• Your messaging - whether it sounds like you, or like a performed, professionalised version of you. Your website reads like a careful, professionally polished version of you and rarely delivers an enquiry, while the off-the-cuff LinkedIn post you shared in an inspired, unrehearsed aha moment after you jumped off a call is the one that had three people reply with "are you in my head?"

• Your offer design - how your services are structured, delivered and priced. You're selling in one-off sessions and hourly blocks (because that's "the way" you were told you make coaching accessible), so you're forever chasing the next booking and stressing out about the resulting feast-and-famine cash flow.

• Your visibility strategy - the channels and rhythm you've chosen to be seen. You threw yourself into daily posting and reels because a program you were in promised consistency was THE answer, and you've burned yourself out twice, while the enquiries that actually became clients came from a referral and a podcast you guested on.

• Your scale and pace - how big, and how fast, and whose definition of success you're chasing. You've been chasing the I've-got-a-team-that-does-it-all, passive-income version of success, because that's the success story you've been conditioned to value, even though managing people totally drains you and passive products bore you senseless. What you actually want is a small, high-value practice with a handful of clients you genuinely like — but that's "settling," isn't it…?

• Your operating rhythm - whether the week is built around your energy and focus, or a rhythm you've been shoulding through. Being "productive" is seared into your soul, and so you're available for your first client calls at 8.30am even though you know you can barely function before 10am.

Having the right Business Fit for you is not about miraculously smoothing out all the inevitably jagged edges of being in business - it's not always easy, and you can't avoid all the challenges. That's magical thinking. It's about removing natural resistance, unnecessary friction, the draining impact of working against yourself.

What changes when it's a fit issue

When you start recognising the friction you're experiencing as a fit problem rather than a personal flaw, the questions you can ask yourself will be different, and far more useful.

You can practise what I call Skylight Thinking - an expansive way of thinking that feels energising because it opens new possibilities and possible solutions, rather than contracting your thinking the way focusing on the problems does.

These kinds of questions assume there's a good answer, a useful answer to find, and your brain, primed as it is to answer whatever you hand it, goes looking for them. This approach is so important for a sparky brain, because if you ask the opposite style of question - the pointy-finger, accusatory ones like "why can't I stay consistent, what's wrong with me, why does this come so much easier to everyone else" - the answers you surface are rarely helpful.

With Skylight Thinking you get to ask the ones that actually open a path forward, like:

• What conditions help me do my best work, and how much of my week is built around these?

• Which parts of my business already feel easy and energising, and what's different about the way those parts are built?

• If I shaped my business around how I genuinely think and work, rather than the version I have now, what would I keep, what would I change, and what would I happily let go of?

• What do I love doing, and is there enough of that built into my work?

Even asking something as simple as "what time are my first calls in the morning, and does that work for me?" and giving your honest answer can prompt a profound shift that positively impacts everything else. It certainly did for me.

Checking for Business Fit isn't about burning everything down and starting over.

Though it can be, most of the time it isn't a dramatic move. Rather, it's refinement and simplification work - a series of small, thoughtful, better-fit decisions that change how the whole business feels and functions over time. Refining what's already working, simplifying what's developed unnecessary layers that drain your energy and enthusiasm, and letting go of ways of doing business that were never a great fit to begin with, but you've inadvertently kept out of habit or the sense that it's the right thing to do.

The end result isn't a business that suddenly runs itself. But you do get one that makes more sense to and for you, with less second-guessing, less self-abandonment, and considerably less squandered energy. A business that's more sustainable, more profitable, and genuinely more enjoyable, because it's finally shaped around you rather than some off-the-shelf blueprint that never had you in mind.

If this is feeling familiar to you

This is exactly the conversation I'm hosting over dinner, in Sydney and in Canberra, at the next Insight Table dinner gatherings.

These events are for thoughtful, fast-thinking women in business - especially those late-diagnosed with ADHD, or who recognise themselves in the experience (the women I call the sparky-brained) - who are questioning what's no longer working and want to explore a more sustainable, commercially smart way forward. Not through discipline or better systems, but by first looking honestly at what actually fits and leverages their best thinking, energy and contribution.

Along with enjoying a fabulous meal, connection, and conversation, we'll be exploring:

• Where does your business feel harder than it needs to be?

• What helps you do your best thinking, and what consistently pulls you off course?

• And if your business were designed to leverage your natural strengths and suit how you genuinely operate, what might need to change?

It's a small table of women (a maximum of 12 guests) who get it and are happy to share their experiences and thoughts.

We're gathering in Sydney and Canberra, and if this is a conversation you'd like to be a part of, I'd love to welcome you to the table - more information and the booking link are here.