Originally posted on Linkedin Pulse.

Much of my career has been spent in entrepreneurial endeavors — from leadership roles at entrepreneurial organizations to building consulting practices.  I'd even argue the work of being a journalist — in my case, a foreign correspondent — is at its essence entrepreneurial. In all these cases, you bear on your shoulders the responsibility of building something important and meaningful amid a greater than average risk of failure.

When the editors at LinkedIn asked me to post on the topic of how to succeed as an entrepreneur, I initially dashed off a list of business lessons learned from the ups and downs of my career. But the more I thought about this topic, the more I felt compelled to write about the part of entrepreneurship that is hardest and also the least publicly discussed: the emotional challenges of starting something new or striking out on your own. So that's my topic for today, because it's hard to be a successful entrepreneur if you're struggling to maintain a modicum of sanity. Here are three things I'd recommend you keep in mind.

First, as an entrepreneur, you are in charge.  You are taking on the responsibility of ultimate accountability. If things go sideways or south, there's no pointing fingers or making excuses. You fully own the fate of your endeavor. This is a big commitment, and it can be emotionally exhausting.

One of the few people to write openly about the strain of this role is Ben Horowitz, who is very honest about the struggle when the dream in your head comes smack against the inevitable first failure — and the many that will follow.  I appreciated his straight talk in his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers.  He says: "The struggle is when you know you are in over your head and you know that you cannot be replaced."  This doesn't mean you are alone — you are not, and you can ask for help from those around you — but you are where the buck stops.

The key to handling this pressure is to remember you are the boss, but you are not the business. You may fail, but that doesn't make you a failure. It is one thing to be responsible. It is another to become the responsibility, defining your sense of self according to every twist and turn your enterprise may take. That will burn you out very quickly.

It's this simple and this hard: be personally in charge, but don't take it personally.

Second, you will at times feel an imposter (at worst) or uneasy (at best) in your role. It happens to everyone who has decided to create something in the face of great risk. The temptation is to pretend to be who you are not in the attempt to overcome your sense of inadequacy. You might want to smooth over the parts of you that stick out in their difference or mute the unique voice you possess. It will seem safer to cover up.  

If you are in a creative endeavor, fight this tendency at all costs. My favorite quote about work, which comes from Neil Gaiman, has regrettably proved true over and over in my life: "The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself... That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.”  

But regardless of your field, your endeavor is most likely to succeed if it is fueled by your authentic self. It will drain you to appropriate characteristics and qualities that are not truly your own.

The third and last thought on the emotional trials of entrepreneurship is that it's best to look at all of your work as a work-in-progress.  There aren't always clear victories or neat finish lines. In fact, the act of building something involves living in an extended liminal state. Liminal states are states of transition.  The term is from the Latin “limen,” which meant “threshold.” The term denotes transitions from one state or place to another place or state. If you are in a liminal state, you are on the verge of something, but not quite there. This state lasts a long time if you are an entrepreneur.  

This too, can be emotionally draining. That is, unless you view a liminal state as one of the richer human experiences, which I have come to believe it is. It's a time when you are leaving what you did before and entering a realm you are working to create. It can be disorienting and even scary. But the messy work of living in the space between the beginning of something and the faraway dream of its success is what makes a career and a life. If you are embarking on a new path, know that this will be the long detour you will travel.  

The entrepreneurial journey can be emotionally taxing. The good and bad news is that it is fully your own, if you stay true to yourself. The best thing you can do is to know that fact, embrace it and rise above its darker tendency to make you think you are the sum of what happens along the way. You are not a success or a failure. But you are most certainly a person who will experience both.