The Pressure to Be an Entrepreneur Is Getting Boring

Manifesting a Dream Office, One Delusion at a Time

I would love to be a CEO. Like, really. I have the fantasy mapped out in full detail. My office would have floor-to-ceiling windows and far too many plants. Every morning at 11am we’d pause for matcha lattes and sheet masks, swanning around in four-inch heels like the world was our runway. We’d call each other darling and babe and somehow always be so busy despite no one ever really knowing what we actually sell. But it would be selling. In vast, glorious quantities. And I? I would be the boss of it all. The CEO. The HBIC. Living the dream, one overpriced bougie candle at a time.

But then I remember the truth: I’m a Taurus. I like naps. I like stability. I like the idea of being successful without actually doing everything required to run the damn machine. Because the fantasy is lush, but the reality? It’s exhausting. The constant hustle. The endless content creation. The invoices. The branding. The tech issues. The desperate urge to go viral but also not sell your soul in the process. Ugh. No. Sometimes I just want to post a silly TikTok about my cat and move on with my day*.

We’re being sold a dream that’s got burnout written in the fine print. Especially as women. Especially now. If you’re not building a seven-figure business, scaling your product suite, and getting passive income while doing hot girl Pilates, you’re apparently wasting your potential. But I call bullshit. Not every hobby needs a monetisation strategy. Not every skill needs a sales funnel. And not every woman wants to be a girlboss. Some of us just want to be regular bosses of our own quiet, soft lives.

*Not that I actually post to TikTok, but you get my drift.

The Feminine Urge to Be a Chill CEO Who Does Nothing

It’s hilarious how the feminine empowerment movement somehow twisted itself into corporate capitalism in stilettos. We were told to reclaim our power, and somehow that turned into creating Canva templates for coaching packages we don’t even want to sell. We’re meant to be soft and ruthless. Feminine and scalable. Rested and relentlessly productive. Darling, I’m tired just thinking about it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love seeing women win. I love the rise of femme-led brands and powerhouses rewriting the rules. But I also love doing very little. I love being silly online. I love writing weird, slightly unhinged blog posts that don’t sell a damn thing but make me laugh out loud. I like cooking food and writing about it, even if the Pinterest algorithm thinks I’m irrelevant. I like feeling creative without the pressure to be a content factory.

The thing is, I am a certified life coach. I’ve got the qualifications. I know the frameworks. I even like helping people. But the moment I think about actually turning that into a business, my soul starts sighing. The admin alone is enough to send me into hiding. I don’t want a funnel. I want fun. I want flirtation with possibility, not marriage to a business plan. I want to keep it light and low-key, like a situationship with my creativity.

You Can Be Ambitious Without Being Exhausted

Let’s be honest. Not every idea works. Not every product sells. Not every person wants to be a client. And that’s not failure. That’s life. But in the online space, where everyone’s selling success, it’s easy to feel like you’re doing it wrong if your launch didn’t sell out in 13 seconds. Like you’re failing at business and at womanhood, all in one go. And it’s not just unfair. It’s boring.

I’m more interested in slow ambition. In the kind of success that feels nourishing, not soul-sapping. I want to build something that lets me sleep in sometimes. That gives me room to cry over my feelings without worrying about brand reputation. I want to be successful, sure, but I also want to enjoy my actual life while I’m at it. And if that means I never scale to seven figures? Fine. I’ll take joy and soft pants over spreadsheets and stress any day.

Not every woman dreams of boardrooms and brand deals. Some of us dream of cottage kitchens and cats that follow us around like we’re in a Studio Ghibli film. Some of us dream of writing little essays that reach a few souls and make them feel seen. Of creating things that are messy and heartfelt and weirdly specific. Not everything has to be monetised. Not everything needs a marketing strategy. Sometimes, it’s just nice to make stuff for fun.

The Fun (and Reality) of Making a Little Money on the Side

I love the idea of a little side hustle. A hobby that makes you a cheeky bit of extra cash is delightful. Selling earrings on Etsy. Writing spicy fiction on Substack. Making cooking videos that accidentally go viral because your cat steals a meatball in the background. That’s the good stuff. But I don’t want to have to turn it into a scalable brand with a content calendar and affiliate links. Sometimes it’s just fun to be a bit chaotic online.

I run a cooking blog. It’s called Cooking With Bry and I adore it. But even that, as much as I love it, wears me out. The recipe testing. The SEO. The photography. The constant feeling of trying to keep up with Google’s ever-changing mood swings. It can take something joyful and turn it into a chore. And yes, it makes money. But it also drains my energy in ways I didn’t expect. Sometimes, I want to chuck it all in and just post food photos with no context and no keywords.

Making money from your creativity can be wonderful. But it’s also okay if you don’t want to. It’s okay if you write fanfiction just because it lights your soul on fire. If you sew outfits for your Barbie dolls and never open a store. If you paint your feelings onto a canvas and then hang it in your kitchen, never to be sold. Art is allowed to be art. Creativity is allowed to be wild and untamed and not profitable.

Maybe the Dream Is Just Being Content

Here’s the wildest idea of all: maybe we don’t all have to be building empires. Maybe success isn’t about scale. Maybe it’s about peace. Maybe it’s about having time to walk to the shops in the sun, or make a second coffee just because you feel like it. Maybe the dream is not being the CEO of a global brand, but the boss of your own joy.

We need more stories about this. More women saying, “I’m happy just pottering about doing my thing.” More honesty about how tiring it is to always be producing, always be performing, always be on. We need more permission slips to be average, messy, slow, soft, silly, brilliant in ways that don’t fit on a LinkedIn bio. Because honestly? That’s where the real magic is.

So yes, I still dream of that lush office with its 11am matcha ritual and shelves of designer heels. I still fantasise about the idea of being the boss. But for now, I’m also okay with just being a person. A person who writes. A person who cooks. A person who makes weird content and laughs too loud and gets distracted halfway through every admin task. And that? That’s more than enough.

We Need to Stop Clapping for Basic Decency – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In today's episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why we need to stop clapping for basic decency. You know the script. A man texts back within twenty-four hours and we're screenshotting it to the group chat. A man plans a date more than three hours in advance and we call him a unicorn. A man manages to listen, pay attention, and behave like a fully formed adult, and our nervous systems short-circuit because we genuinely don't know how to receive it.Here's the truth nobody is saying out loud. The bar has been dragged so low that Satan himself needs a chiropractor after a competitive round of limbo. We've been culturally trained to be grateful for behaviour that should not require gratitude. We've been told these things are bonuses when they're actually the entry requirement. And in the meantime, women have been quietly doing the basic decency thing forever, without applause, while men get standing ovations for outputs we generated for them.Today we're talking about why a great man is genuinely just an average woman, who benefits when the bar stays low, the invisible labour women have been performing for free for centuries, and the friend-test that cuts straight through every excuse we've ever made for mediocre men. Let's get into it.For more visit BryJaimea.com or follow over on IG @BryJaimea

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