Why do entrepreneurs and freelancers feel lonely? If you’re one of them and you feel it despite having a full diary, a good reputation, and a life that looks successful from the outside, you’re not imagining it. Entrepreneurial loneliness is real, it’s widespread, and almost nobody talks about it because from the outside, you look absolutely fine.
The Loneliness Nobody Admits To
Here’s a statistic that should get more attention than it does.
According to the Wordmetrics Entrepreneur Burnout Report 2024, 46% of entrepreneurs struggle with feelings of isolation and loneliness. 39% feel like they have no one to talk to about their stress. And 31% experience burnout specifically due to lack of support from friends and family.
Nearly half. And yet the narrative around entrepreneurship and freelancing is almost entirely about freedom, flexibility, and being your own boss.
Nobody talks about what it actually feels like when the pressure builds and there’s nowhere to put it.
Research published in Personnel Psychology by Cardon and Arwine found that the loneliness entrepreneurs experience is driven by unique occupational factors, the lack of co-worker support, the absence of a team to absorb pressure, and the specific isolation that comes from being entirely responsible for your own outcomes. As one entrepreneur described it in the study: “The modern world is lonely, and the entrepreneurial life is even lonelier.”
What Entrepreneurial Loneliness Actually Looks Like
It doesn’t look like sitting alone in a room feeling sorry for yourself.
It looks like snapping at your partner over something that had nothing to do with them. It looks like answering emails at the dinner table because you’re thinking, what if something urgent comes in? What if I miss it?
It looks like being on holiday and not quite switching off. Your mind still running the numbers, still scanning for threats, still carrying the weight of everything that’s on you and only you.
It looks like checking your phone on a Sunday because you can’t quite let go of it.
It looks like putting on a mask for every sales call, every client meeting, every networking event, because you’ve got to show up enthusiastically and full of energy regardless of how you actually feel. And then getting home and having nothing left.
It looks like forgetting the whole reason you went freelance or started the business in the first place. The freedom. The control. The life you were building. And realising that somehow you feel less in control now than you did before.
And when things go wrong, a client you upset, a mistake you made, a deal that didn’t come off, there’s nowhere to take that. No team to debrief with. No boss to escalate to. Just you, going over it in your head for days.
Because you are your business. Everything is on you. If you don’t show up, nobody else is going to do it for you.
Why You Can’t Talk About It
Because from the outside, your life looks pretty good.
You’re your own boss. You manage your own diary. You do work you chose to do. So when the pressure builds and the loneliness hits and the doubts start racing to the surface, there’s a voice that says, cry me a river mate.
And you agree with it. So you say nothing.
You put the mask back on. You keep going. You tell everyone you’re fine.
And you probably are fine, in the sense that you’re functioning, you’re delivering, your clients are happy. But fine and thriving are two different things. And you know the difference.
The trouble is there’s an empathy gap for people in your position. The ONS reports that 27% of UK adults feel lonely always, often, or some of the time. For entrepreneurs and freelancers, research suggests the number is almost double that. And yet the assumption is that if your business is doing well, you’re doing well.
You might not be.
What’s The Real Cost Of Carrying This Alone?
Beyond the personal toll, entrepreneurial loneliness has a direct impact on your business.
A study published in the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, using a sample of UK entrepreneurs, found that high levels of loneliness increase business exit intentions by reducing entrepreneurial passion. In other words, the loneliness doesn’t just make you feel bad. It makes you want to quit the thing you built.
And in the day to day, the cost is relentless.
You become less effective. The work suffers. The business suffers. And then you pile on even more pressure because the business is you and if you’re not performing, everything suffers. So you push harder, sleep less, take more calls, miss more dinners, answer more emails at stupid o’clock.
And the people closest to you get the worst of you. Not because you don’t love them. Because you’ve got nothing left by the time you get to them.
What’s Actually Going On Underneath
The loneliness isn’t just about not having people around. It’s about not having the right people around. People who get it. Who understand the specific pressure of carrying everything yourself. Who know what it’s like to lie awake wondering where the next client is coming from even when the last six months have been good.
And underneath the loneliness, there are often unconscious systems running that are making everything worse. Rules you live by that don’t serve you. Patterns that keep showing up in your work and your relationships and your head at 2am. Beliefs you formed a long time ago that you’ve never questioned because you probably think that’s just who you are.
You can’t see them alone. Nobody can.
What Changes When You’re In The Right Room
It doesn’t have to be this way.
When you get into a room with men just like you, carrying the same responsibility, spinning the same plates, having to be the one who shows up, something shifts.
Not because someone tells you what to do. Because you’re finally in a space where you can say the things out loud that you can’t say anywhere else. Things you won’t say anywhere else because you’re worried about your reputation, about being judged, about being laughed at.
You won’t be. Not in this room.
This is a room where you realise it’s not just you. Where you stop feeling alone with all of it. Where you learn as much from what the other men say out loud as from what you say yourself.
Where you get challenged in the way you never get challenged anywhere else. Where you get held accountable to the version of yourself you know you’re capable of being. Where two world class coaches hold up a mirror and show you what you can’t see on your own.
And where you remember why you started this in the first place. The freedom. The control. The life by design instead of life by default.
There is no better work you can do when you are your business than self-development work.
The Men’s Mastermind. Where Men Come To Master Their Mind.
Two one hour sessions a month online. A room full of entrepreneurs and freelancers doing serious work. Not because they’re struggling. Because they want to be better.
More self aware. More self trust. More self belief. Less overthinking. Less second guessing. More in control of what’s actually going on underneath.
Email me if you want in. danglydecoach@gmail.com
FAQ
Why do entrepreneurs and freelancers feel lonely?
Research published in Personnel Psychology identifies the core drivers as lack of co-worker support, absence of a team to absorb pressure, and the unique isolation that comes from being entirely responsible for your own outcomes. According to the Wordmetrics Entrepreneur Burnout Report 2024, 46% of entrepreneurs report feelings of isolation and loneliness, and 39% feel they have no one to talk to about their stress.
Is entrepreneurial loneliness normal?
More common than most entrepreneurs admit. The pressure of carrying everything yourself, with no team to debrief with and no boss to escalate to, creates a specific kind of loneliness that is hard to talk about when your life looks successful from the outside. You’re not imagining it and you’re not alone with it.
Why can’t I talk about feeling lonely when my business is doing well?
Because there’s an empathy gap for people whose lives look good on the outside. The assumption is that if the business is doing well, you’re doing well. So the pressure builds, the mask stays on, and you keep telling everyone you’re fine. Most entrepreneurs do exactly the same thing.
What’s the difference between feeling lonely and being isolated?
Loneliness is the feeling that your relationships aren’t meeting your needs, even when you’re surrounded by people. Entrepreneurial loneliness specifically comes from not having the right people around, people who understand the specific pressures you’re carrying. You can have a full diary and a great network and still feel completely alone with what’s actually going on.
How do I stop feeling lonely as an entrepreneur or freelancer?
Get in a room with the right people. Not to be fixed. Not because you’re struggling. Because you want to be better, and doing that work alongside men who understand exactly what you’re carrying is the most powerful thing you can do. The Men’s Mastermind is built specifically for this.
References
- Wordmetrics Entrepreneur Burnout Report 2024, via Uudam Costa, C. (2024). Navigating loneliness as an entrepreneur. Medium. https://cleelia.medium.com/navigating-loneliness-as-an-entrepreneur-41f86e942b14
- Cardon, M.S. & Arwine, R.P. (2023). The many faces of entrepreneurial loneliness. Personnel Psychology. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/peps.12614
- Zhu, F., Yu, W., Fan, S.X. & Jonathan, J.G. (2023). Should I stay or should I go? The impact of entrepreneurs’ loneliness on business exit intentions through entrepreneurial passion. Journal of Business Venturing Insights. https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/publications/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-the-impact-of-entrepreneurs-loneline/
- Mental Health First Aid Course (2024). Loneliness Statistics UK: Facts, Data & Key Insights. Citing ONS Public Opinions and Social Trends data. https://www.mentalhealthfirstaidcourse.co.uk/blog/loneliness-statistics-uk
