Advice on working/building business when it's hard to work

The best answer is likely lots and lots of therapy, in my case, but I'll try to sum up some key concepts that helped me.

- Insisting on framing it as my choice, even the reality is it's the best of all bad options. "This is my choice and I do not have to do this if I don't want to" is a powerful motivator for me. It often means actually following through on not doing it for a while, till I decide I genuinely want to come back to it.
- Treating burnout. Burnout is pretty similar to PTSD in some ways and different in others. Making sure I'm resting enough, taking care of my health, and talking about burnout in therapy.
- Respecting my urge to not work or not do a specific task, and genuinely getting curious about it. Sometimes the urge to not work has, in hindsight, been really really smart-- for instance, not twiddling too much on the product and instead working on business to make sure it'll actually make money. Felt lazy at the time, like I was avoiding "real work", but actually turned out to be the right path. Of course I'm not motivated if I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel (the light, in this example, being actual money).
- Working on reducing negative self talk, and working on motivating myself out of choice/possibility/good shit instead of fear.
- Working on setting healthy boundaries. Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend was the single biggest help in this, along with therapy. Work often is intertwined with or interrupted by social stuff and if I can't set healthy boundaries I will be a wreck, either damaging relationships by being too aggressive with them or damaging myself by not setting them at all. Heavily applies to navigating business relationships too, carefully setting a boundary can be all the difference in getting the deal or not. Which, of course, is motivating.
- Practicing this idea of "radical acceptance" in DBT. My take on it is basically getting out of that mindset of "if everything was better/if this just wasn't a problem it would all be fine", of constantly being stuck in wishing this away instead of just accepting this is how I am now, these are my limits now, and I may have to deal with this state of being-- even with all the therapy and healing work-- for a good while. It required some mourning. But it's been central in learning to see the positives that are here now and stopping comparing myself to others.
- In running my own business, remembering that results matter more than hours spent typing away. I can work an hour a week but if I make enough money I'm doing fabulous at business. In business you can get away with not working too much for a lot of money, if you play your cards right.
- Talking to lots of other people in similar boats who are doing well. Informational interviews, networking. Sometimes this just means talking to other people in spots you'd like to be in, and then you realize after talking they are also dealing with shit, they just don't wear it on their sleeve, and that helps.
- ... and therapy, of course, to get advice personalized for your scenario, cause this is just what's helped me at a very very high level and probably forgetting lots of things. I'd also say there's no shame in doing more intensive therapy for a while if you can swing it, like going multiple times a week or more.