Yes, You Can Do This! How Women Start Up, Scale Up, and Build The Life They Want

Chapter 6Write Down Your Future: How to Develop and Use a Business Plan as Your Personal Playbook (and to Combat Imposter Syndrome)

What you'll take away from this chapter:

In this chapter, we'll explore the ways in which writing down your ideas and constructing a business plan can help you not only think through your plans, but will help you build the confidence to execute them. Many women struggle with imposter syndrome, and this chapter will help you combat it by writing down your goals and how you can achieve them.

Getting Back to Sophie…

Sophie pulled the strap on her bag in an effort to balance it on her shoulder as she walked into her local Starbucks after dropping the kids off at school. Maria's face was glowing from the glare of her open laptop, clearly already hard at work.

Since her conversation with Jake, Sophie had found herself thinking about Maria's conversation more regularly. She had a notebook of some ideas she was collecting but wasn't ready to pull the trigger yet, so she had been excited when Maria offered to meet her for a coffee downtown to talk about it. Sophie walked over and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Oh hey!” Maria pulled her earphones out and smiled.

“Can I grab you a coffee?” Sophie put down her bag on the wooden chair across from Maria.

“I'm all set—I've been here for a while.” Maria smiled warmly, and Sophie exhaled, realizing that Maria was genuinely happy to jump into a conversation.

“Okay—I'll be right back.” Sophie was glad the line was ...