This article is written by Dr. Emily Anhalt, psychologist and co-founder of Coa, the gym for mental health. She’s also been a therapist and executive coach for over 15 years, working closely with startup founders as they ride the tumultuous waves of startup life. Previously, Dr. Anhalt has shared her practical frameworks on the Review for the five traits of high-impact founders (and how these same traits might hold you back) and the seven traits of emotional fitness. If you want more wisdom from Dr. Anhalt, you can pick up her brand-new book, “Flex Your Feelings: Train Your Brain to Develop the 7 Traits of Emotional Fitness.”
Founding a company won’t give you autonomy. It won’t give you validation. It won’t give you the flexibility or recognition you’ve been craving — at least not right away, and often, not at all.
As a psychologist who has worked with hundreds of founders (and now as a founder myself), I've observed that most aspiring founders spend countless hours preparing for the logistical challenges of starting a company but very little time on the emotional resilience required to run that company. They’re perfecting their pitch deck, not unpacking why they want to start the company in the first place. They’re building financial models instead of community. They expect stress, certainly, but they frame it as something to push through until they “make it.” This mindset sets them up for a harsh wake-up call.
The founder journey isn't just about managing long hours and a heavy workload. It's about navigating profound identity shifts, handling persistent loneliness and learning to lead through failure. The “building the plane while flying it” metaphor gets tossed around frequently. But I don’t think it quite captures the fact that you're also building yourself as a founder while you're doing it. You're simultaneously constructing the plane, learning to fly and getting your pilot's license in mid-air.
This parallel journey — building both your company and yourself — is what makes being a founder particularly challenging.
You cannot fully prepare yourself to be a founder before you start — you become a founder through the process of building. But that doesn't mean you can't train for the emotional demands ahead.
So how should folks who are thinking about taking this leap prepare for what’s to come? In my close work with founders as a psychologist and an executive coach, I've identified four steps to take for managing this emotional journey. Some of this guidance might challenge your assumptions about what it means to be "ready" to start a company. Some might provide the framework you've been looking for to make this leap feel less like a cliff dive and more like starting a taxing hike — one that you can navigate with intention and resilience.
Step 1. Identify your fears so you can face them
Completely divorce yourself from every successful startup story you’ve heard. They skip over the messy middle, jumping from brilliant lightbulb idea straight to life-changing exit. Rarely do they show the sleepless founder worrying if they can make payroll, or deep-breathing moments before an all-hands when they know things aren’t going well. The successful startup stories don’t capture the identity shifts that happen when your friends can no longer relate to your daily challenges or when “colleagues” takes on a completely different meaning because you’re now the boss.
What these stories ignore is real human emotion — specifically fear.
In my therapy practice, founders often tell me about their fears: fear of failure, fear of success (yes, both simultaneously), fear of judgment, fear of financial instability. But what many don't anticipate is how these fears evolve as their company grows.
Here's something that might sound counterintuitive: there's actually not much pressure when you're just starting out. Why? Because there's not a lot of pressure for something that doesn't exist yet. The real weight comes later, when people's livelihoods depend on your decisions, investors are counting on returns, and customers are relying on your product. I've sat with founders who've hit major milestones — securing funding, launching products, hitting revenue targets — only to find themselves more stressed than before, because achieving one goal becomes the starting line for ten new ones.
So when I say “prepare yourself,” I’m not saying to prepare yourself for everything you don’t know yet. It’s about preparing yourself not to know. Because there's an element of founder life that you can hear others talk about and intellectually grasp, but not really understand until you're in it — much like having children.
You can read every book about parenting, but nothing quite prepares you for the sleepless nights. The same is true for founding a company. But while we've normalized extensive preparation for parenthood, we haven't done the same for founderhood.
This isn't meant to discourage anyone from starting a company. Rather, it's an invitation to prepare for the journey with eyes wide open and to build the emotional toolkit you'll need along the way.
So when you’re riddled with anxiety about taking the founder leap, start by pinpointing the fear and naming it. Is it financial instability? Judgment from others? Torpedoing a relationship with a friend-turned-co-founder? Not being able to raise funding? Getting specific makes it easier to take tactical steps to address that specific fear. Here are some examples of turning fear into action:
- Build financial resilience. Yes, you’ll want 6-12 months of savings or alternative income streams, but not just for the obvious reasons. Financial runway isn't just about keeping the lights on — it's about creating the mental space to make clear decisions. When you're not in constant financial panic, you can think more strategically and take calculated risks rather than desperate moves.
- Get on the same page with your co-founder. This is crucial — don't wait until you're in the thick of it. I remember when my co-founder Alexa and I were starting Coa, we did something that might sound excessive to some: we essentially went through pre-marital counseling together. In addition to working with a therapist who specialized in founder dynamics, we sat down and asked each other tough questions about our values, fears and breaking points. This wasn’t just nice-to-have prep work — it became a crucial foundation for our working relationship.
- Take the emotional fitness assessment. Think of it like a pre-founder physical, but for your mental health. Look at the seven traits of emotional fitness: self-awareness, empathy, curiosity, mindfulness, playfulness, resilience and communication. Which ones are your strengths? How can you leverage them as a founder? More importantly, where are your growth areas? If you know you're not naturally empathetic, for instance, you might need to ensure your co-founder excels there or build systems to compensate for this gap.
- Practice rejection therapy. Every day, ask for something you're pretty sure you won't get. The point isn’t to hear a “yes.” The point is bolstering resilience to hearing "no," because as a founder, you're going to hear it a lot. Build up what I call "emotional calluses," just like a weight lifter’s palms after months of training.
Remember: The goal isn't to eliminate fear or anxiety. It's to build your capacity to function effectively alongside these normal human emotions.
Think of it as creating shock absorbers for your emotional vehicle — they don't eliminate the bumps in the road, but they make them more manageable.
Step 2. Figure out your “why” to address uncertainty and build confidence
Back when I was in undergrad, I was a pre-med student and struggling mightily with my biology and chemistry courses. My advisor asked me a simple but profound question: "Do you actually like these classes?" When I admitted I didn't, she (rightly) wondered why I was even pre-med in the first place. She pointed out that if I didn't find fulfillment in the journey itself, the destination wouldn't be all that great either (even if my parents would have certainly been proud of me for becoming a physician).
The same principle applies to founding a company. When I begin working with founders, I let them in on something up front: My goal is not to make their company as successful as possible.
Rather, my aim is to help them live as satisfying and authentic a life as possible. Sometimes, that journey of self-discovery means they don’t actually want to start a company. Other times, that entrepreneurship identity gets even more vivid.
The point is, this is potentially a decade of your life — there are only so many decade-long blocks in a lifetime. The path to your ideal destination needs to be worth spending your one precious life on.
So clarify your why. A startup is too hard to sustain on a vague dream. Be clear on what’s driving you so that when things get tough (and they will), you have a compelling reason to keep going.
I've worked with founders whose ‘why’ was that the company was working toward a mission that was incredibly meaningful to them, like one founder starting a biotech company trying to cure the disease that his grandfather suffered from. Other times, the “why” is that they want to be their own boss and lead differently than they’ve been led in the past.
And then sometimes the “why” is more psychologically complicated. It's quite common that founders want to prove something to everyone who didn't believe in them. And while that can be a real driving force, it’s also centering your motivation externally instead of internally. Separate what anyone else will think or feel about what you're doing. Why are you doing it?
Ask yourself: In five years, will I regret not trying more than trying and it not working?
Identifying your why can also help propel you forward into the unknown. I see too many aspiring founders waiting to feel completely ready — a moment that never arrives. Instead, focus on micro-wins: small steps that build momentum. Ask industry experts to give you feedback on your idea. Try building an MVP in a weekend. Confidence comes from action, not thought.
When my co-founder and I were starting Coa, I first presented our slide deck to two close friends who understood the market. Yes, I was partly looking for feedback, but I was also looking for allies who would tell me they believed in me. Their supportive response gave me the confidence to start pitching more broadly.
The key is understanding that confidence isn't a prerequisite for founding — it's built through experience. Study successful founders you admire and you'll notice their struggles often mirror your own. They didn't start with unwavering confidence; they built it through consistent action, learning and resilience.
The goal isn't to eliminate uncertainty or self-doubt. It's to learn to move forward alongside it rather than being frozen in analysis.
Every founder you admire has felt the same fears you're feeling. The difference is they've learned to take action anyway.
Step 3. Create systems for longer-term resilience
I worked with a founder who had just hit a major milestone — a successful Series A raise. Instead of feeling triumphant, she found herself more anxious than ever. "I thought once we raised money, the stress would ease," she told me. "Instead, I'm terrified of letting down our investors, my team and our customers." This is a pattern I see repeatedly — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had founders tell me for months (if not years) about the milestone they’re striving to hit. But that milestone comes and goes and it doesn’t bring fulfillment.
In my experience, when first-time founders achieve some important metric of success (which could be raising a round, hitting a certain number of customers, or validating the MVP), that’s usually the “oh shit” moment. They realize that they’ve been grinding toward this achievement and they’re not any less stressed.
The “just push through” mentality doesn’t work in the long run. Sure, there are times in startup building where you will just have to grind it out. But there is always a new milestone to hit or fire drill waiting in the wings.
That's why I'm adamant about building sustainable systems early. Don't wait until you're burning out to create boundaries. Put structures in place before you need them: maybe it's a rule about not working after 9 pm, or blocking off non-negotiable time for therapy and exercise. Do not rely on willpower alone here or wait for time to “open up” to take care of yourself. The most successful founders I work with aren't the ones who can push through anything — they're the ones who build sustainable practices.
And when you feel unmoored, identify what is certain. Even in the midst of chaos, some things are stable — like your skills, your network and your ability to pivot.
- Identify your burnout warning signals. Do you get short with your team? Stop sleeping well? Poor eating habits? Lose interest in things you usually enjoy? Then create a regular check-in for yourself, like logging your sleep each night or journaling one line each night about how you felt that day.
- Share the burnout flags. Sometimes others notice our patterns before we do. So share your burnout indicators with trusted advisors or your co-founder and ask them to flag them for you — for example, if it’s the third day in a row that you’ve skipped lunch. Sometimes others notice our patterns before we do.
- Keep a hype doc. Collect positive feedback you’ve received over the years and return to it when you feel imposter syndrome and self-doubt creep in.
- Start a “team-esteem” channel in Slack. Create a central location where anyone on the team can add positive feedback from customers or kudos for each other.
- Celebrate your wins in tangible ways with your team. Don’t let milestones (even small ones) pass by unacknowledged. As one example, a founder I worked with created little wooden blocks for every single milestone (like hitting a certain number of customers) and everyone got a block to add to their desk.
- Invest in a simple meditation practice to teach yourself the art of coming back to the present moment.
- Maintain your hobbies outside of work to remind yourself that you are more than just the company.
It’s like putting gas in your car. It doesn’t feel like a priority when you still have a half-full tank. But you’ll wish you’d filled up when you hit long winding roads with no gas stations for miles.
Step 4: Find circles of trust to manage founder loneliness
As a founder, you have a singular vision for the way things could be. There is an intense passion for solving problems and a fervent desire (and impatience) for change. This me-against-the-world mentality can be exhilarating — for a while. But it can also bring suffocating loneliness that makes the lows (of which any startup has many) feel even more debilitating.
I see this loneliness stem from three main sources.
- First, there are the identity shifts. Friends and family may no longer understand your world or relate to your challenges.
- Second, there's the power dynamic. Being a leader often means maintaining appropriate boundaries, which can create distance.
- Third, there's the pressure. Founders carry a unique emotional burden that others, even their closest allies, don't fully grasp.
One founder I worked with described it perfectly: "I have to maintain confidence in our vision publicly while privately wrestling with doubt."
There's a fundamental shift that happens — from fear about uncertainty ("Will this work?") to pressure about sustainability ("How do I keep this going?").
To mitigate this, the most resilient founders I know have built what I call "circles of trust" — different groups they can turn to for different needs. Maybe it's a therapist for processing personal fears, a founder group for tactical challenges, mentors for strategic guidance and friends outside tech for perspective and a connection to who you are outside your founder identity. Each relationship serves a purpose and together they create a complete support system.
That’s why when I started my own company, one of the first things I did was join a founder group that a friend invited me to. This wasn't just about networking, it was about creating a space where I could be vulnerable with people who truly understood the journey. (If you’re looking for a group to join, I recommend checking out different founder coaching companies who often offer groups or asking your investors to put you in touch with other founders in their portfolio.)
Building relationships with fellow founders a few steps ahead of you also brings some invaluable perspective. There will be countless moments along the journey where you don’t know what’s coming. Moments where you bang your head against the wall and think, “A smarter person would have figured this out by now.” Hearing directly from folks who have faced down those same obstacles helps to reframe "I don't know what's coming," to "no one knows what's coming. This is part of the process."
I encourage founders to adopt a scientific mindset. Every setback becomes data. Every unexpected turn becomes an experiment. Everything that doesn't work takes you one step closer to what does.
The path forward
Recently, I was working with a founder. He looked across the table from me and kept repeating “I’m a failure, I’m a failure, I’m a failure.” That week, he’d shut down his company after three years. “We didn’t have a successful exit,” he said. This mindset — measuring success solely by exit value — misses the profound impact and growth that can happen along your founder journey. He didn’t even mention the tens of thousands of people his company helped to improve their financial literacy.
If your company didn't have a dramatic exit, would you still be glad you did it? If the answer is no, reconsider your motivations.
Here's the truth about the founder journey: you're not going to go back to being the person you were before you started. You'll learn, grow and evolve — regardless of the outcome. The question is whether you're ready to embrace that evolution.
This brings us back to the beginning: the myth of entrepreneurship. The founder path might eventually bring you autonomy, validation and recognition. Or it might not. But more importantly, it will bring you challenges that force you to grow, relationships that shape you and insights about yourself you couldn't have gained any other way.
The key is starting with eyes wide open and tools at the ready. Build your emotional fitness now. Gather your support system early. Create sustainable practices before you need them. The path of a founder isn't easy, but it doesn't have to be lonely.
So as you consider taking this leap, remember that your emotional toolkit is just as important as your technical skills. Your mental preparation matters as much as your market research. And your journey — however it unfolds — is valid and valuable, regardless of the destination.
The journey ahead will transform both your business and yourself. Make sure you're ready for both.