By Aimee Cohen

So many women dream of owning their own business. Today more than ever, that dream is becoming a reality. I’m not talking about reality TV and I’m not talking about women who dabble in an occasional hobby. I’m talking about driven and successful women who have marketable concepts and brilliant business minds.

According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, women own 10.6 million businesses in the Unites States, employ 19.1 million workers (that’s 1 in every 7 employees), and account for $2.5 trillion in sales.

Even though there are plenty of reasons to celebrate the success women are generating in the business world today, there is still room for improvement. As a career coach for more than 20 years, I have coached hundreds of women, many of whom are entrepreneurs and business owners…and their paths to business success are littered with challenges.

There is a big difference between a business thriving and merely surviving. There are external factors that impact a business owner’s success such as market conditions, economic downturns, competition, and basic supply and demand. These elements are difficult, if not impossible, to control. However, there are also many internal, controllable factors that impact professional success.

Everyone is guilty of self-sabotage at some point and in some way. These are the unintentional and often subconscious destructive patterns of behavior we commit that can mean the difference between professional success and stagnation.

Here are the top three ways women sabotage their own success:

1. Women Entrepreneurs Can Be Too Nice

Women have a deeply rooted need to be liked and an intense aversion to being labeled the “B-word”. If this is the driving force behind your business decisions, then you’re destined to sabotage your own success. Some women are paralyzed when a client is not 100% satisfied and complains about the product or service. Some women crumble after reading a bad review on social media. And some women retain poor-performing employees or vendors far too long because they fear being the “bad guy (gal)”.

In business, and in life, not everyone is going to like you. The challenge as a successful female business owner is not allowing the desire to be liked highjack the need to make sound business decisions. Don’t waste your precious time trying to woo, persuade, and convince that one client to love you, because there are plenty of other fish in the sea. Accept the fact that some people hide behind the anonymity of social media and make rude comments. And understand that sometimes you have to cut people lose in order to get ahead and be successful.

Not being liked, or being called the “B-word”, may sting in the moment, but it pales in comparison to the pain of a failing business.

2. Women Entrepreneurs Can Be Too Perfect

There isn’t enough space to house all the women trapped inside the “perfectionism prison”. We live in the Martha Stewart era where everything needs to homemade and it needs to be perfect or it’s simply a colossal failure. We bring the same mentality into our businesses.

I’ve coached women who have missed out on major business opportunities, because the proposal was never quite perfect enough and they missed the deadline. Other women have obsessed endlessly over selecting the perfect color blue for their logo and website and their brilliant idea never really comes to fruition. And other women, recognizing how important a book or blog is to their marketability, are completely paralyzed by the fact that the words might not be perfect so they don’t write a word.

Businesses, trends, and opportunities move at the speed of light these days, and if you’re stuck inside that “perfectionism prison” and unable to break free and capitalize on those opportunities, then you’re sabotaging yourself and setting yourself up for failure. It’s about progress not perfection. If you want to be successful, at some point you just need to hit “send” and move on.

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