How to Choose What Business to Start
TL;DR:
Feeling stuck choosing a business idea? It’s not indecision—it’s decision paralysis.
ADHD entrepreneurs struggle with too many ideas and fear picking the "wrong" one.
Step 1: Align your ideas with your long-term vision to eliminate distractions.
Step 2: Use an Idea Parking Lot to store ideas without losing them.
Step 3: Implement quarterly planning to stay focused while keeping variety.
Step 4: Get structured support (Momentum Mapping Calls) to execute clearly.
How Multi-Passionate Women Can Finally Choose the Right Business Idea
⏰ Read Time: 8 Minutes
You’ve worked the job, built a life, and while things have been fine, you know you want more.
You yearn for your work to have value, more than just paying bills. Perhaps you find yourself wishing you had taken a more creative or braver path. You may want to set an example for the children in your life not to settle. Perhaps you want to stop working for a-hole managers and set your schedule (finally).
Whatever it is, you ended up here because you want change.
Why ADHD Entrepreneurs Struggle to Start Their Business
How long have you been stuck with a dozen ideas about what kind of business you want to start? How often have you thought, “This is it,” but never seen it through? Maybe you’re like me and continue to repeatedly circle back to the same idea, but lack the trust in yourself to execute.
When you’re a passionate person with multiple interests, many paths seem viable, making it even harder to see your goals through to fruition.
All that back and forth? That self-doubt? It occurs so commonly in women with ADHD that we have a name for it: Decision Paralysis.
Why Decision Paralysis Happens
Decision paralysis isn’t just indecision: it’s the feeling of being trapped between too many options, unable to commit for fear of making the wrong choice.
It happens when every option seems viable, but none feels like the “right” one. Your brain keeps running the same loops: “What if I pick the wrong thing?” “What if I lose interest?” “What if I fail?” Instead of moving forward, you stay stuck in analysis mode, hoping for perfect clarity before you take action.
A TikTok I recently saw summed it up perfectly:
“Here’s why you have a million ideas about what you want to do with your life or career and can never seem to decide. You constantly feel overwhelmed by optionality. You can’t decide because your ideas are unconstrained. Your ideas are floating around in a swirl of ‘Yeah, I could do that’ or ‘Yeah, I would like that’ - but then you inevitably return to ‘Do I actually want that?’ Your ideas and creative flow fizzle when they have nothing to bounce off. You need constraints to help you make informed decisions. When we haven’t assigned meaningful constraints that help our creativity and ideas come to fruition, we default to what we know, our personal history and lived experience so far.”
Or, to quote jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus:
If you feel stuck, you haven’t given your ideas enough structure to build momentum.
This is where my Aligned Framework comes in. It provides a structured process to guide you through your decision-making journey.
Step 1: Align Your Ideas with Your Greater Vision
The first step to choosing the right business idea is understanding what you truly want out of life. Without this clarity, every option looks equally viable, and none will feel like the “right” one.
Start by asking yourself:
How would I spend my days if there were no constraints?
What kind of work do I enjoy doing daily?
What have I been doing that I want to set down?
How do I want my life to feel in five years?
What kind of schedule and flexibility do I need?
How much income do I realistically need to sustain my lifestyle?
Gaining clarity about what you truly desire will begin to build the constraints you need to make informed decisions about your future, empowering you to make choices that align with your vision.
If you don’t have a strong vision for yourself yet, personality tests (Enneagram, Myers-Briggs) or even tools like birth charts can be helpful starting points.
There are a million exercises online to help you define a life vision (I won’t take you down that rabbit hole), but knowing where you want to go makes it easier to rule out ideas that don’t align with your future goals.
Once you have that greater vision in mind, put each business idea up against these filters:
Does this idea align with the lifestyle I want?
Does it take me closer to my long-term goals?
Will it keep my interest long enough to see results?
If the answer is no, move on. Don’t toss it out if it’s a maybe; put it in your Idea Parking Lot.
I teach more about the Aligned Framework in my free email course, Find Your Focus 🧠
Step 2: How to Capture & Revisit Business Ideas Without Losing Momentum
One of the most significant sources of anxiety for multi-passionate entrepreneurs is the fear of “losing” a great idea.
I recommend keeping an Idea Parking Lot: a dedicated space where you store ideas that aren’t for right now but might be worth exploring later.
Your Idea Parking Lot can be:
A ClickUp List (my favorite tool for this)
A Notion page
A journal
A simple Google Doc
The key is to schedule time to revisit your ideas, ensuring you don’t miss out on potentially great opportunities.
You don’t want your Idea Parking Lot to turn into a doom basket or junk drawer—a place you ignore for years and where you lose time and money.
So, I want you to put this review on your calendar every quarter. Schedule a meeting with your accountability partner or a friend. Or, use FocusMate as a body double to ensure you show up.
This process will build self-trust, allow your brain to believe that you will get back to this, and free up processing power to make progress on the goals you are currently pursuing.
Step 3: Implement a Regular Planning Process
Once you’ve narrowed your ideas, you need a plan to execute. Otherwise, life will get in the way, and months from now, you’ll still be stuck in the same cycle of indecision.
I recommend quarterly planning with 12-week goals.
How to Set Quarterly Goals:
Pick ONE big business goal (the main thing you’re focusing on).
Pick TWO personal goals that improve your life (e.g., calling a friend every Thursday, deep cleaning one room a week).
Schedule a planning session every 12 weeks to review progress and pick your next focus.
Why do I recommend having three goals each quarter, especially when there is so much advice out there that we need to focus on one thing at a time to be successful?
That’s because multi-passionate people can feel caged in if they try to focus on one project. Having multiple goals keeps things interesting while maintaining clarity. Notice those other goals are there to improve your quality of life. That way, you can be “productive” even when you don’t have the executive functioning available to do deep work.
⭐️ If you’re new to project planning, I recommend catching up with the Project Management for ADHD Entrepreneurs series
Step 4: Struggling to Start? Time to Make a Plan That Works!
Even with a plan, execution is challenging, especially if you’re struggling with unmanaged ADHD, decision paralysis, or self-doubt.
Anytime we try to make a change, our old ways cling to us. We feel pulled more than ever towards bad habits and coping mechanisms that kept us safe in the past. If your family and friends are used to having unfettered access to you, they may throw out complaints when your time is accounted for.
Creating support systems to ensure you can see your goals to fruition will make this time different. Now might be the time to raise the flag and ask for help:
My Momentum Mapping calls are designed to help you overcome overwhelm and develop a clear, customized action plan. One that makes it easy to set boundaries around and see through.
Here’s what happens on the call:
Clarify (30 min): We review your ideas and identify the most aligned one for you.
Strategize (60 min): We map out actionable steps, breaking them into manageable milestones.
Deliverable: You leave with a clear roadmap, next steps, and a system to revisit your ideas later.
Final Thoughts: You’re Not Failing, You’re Finding Your Way
I know what it’s like to feel stuck. It took me nearly two years of trial and error to finally find my stride. I kept second-guessing myself, thinking I needed more training or more clarity. But the truth is, I just needed to start.
You don’t have to pick the perfect business idea. You need to choose one that aligns with your goals and take action. The rest will become clearer as you go.
Drop in the comments: What dream are you ready to see come true?
