Said It Here

How to recover mentally after shutting down a business

Closing a failed business drains your savings, leaves you in debt, and causes a deep loss of motivation that spills over into your personal relationships. This heavy financial strain and burnout stops you from feeling marketable or confident when facing the prospect of returning to a traditional job.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Taking a job at a small firm to cover bills
  2. 2
    relying on unemployment, severance, and savings to build a 2-year runway

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

29M had to make the hard decision to close down my first business, as it has sucked up my savings and put me in debt quite a bit.source ↗

Just feeling very demotivated and it is spilling into my relationships?source ↗

Reckless_Rex97 · r/smallbusiness · 4 upvotes

If I fail and run out of cash, I will need to apply to get an accounting job but I'm a bit concerned that I won't be marketable as I would've been out of the job for 2 years.source ↗

Legal-Fun8871 · r/Accounting · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised