Navigating the Low Season of Entrepreneurship: Practical Mindsets and Strategies

Dr. MJ Yang
Jul 6
4 min read

We’re in the long weekend of July 4th—a time when many people take time off, go on vacation, or pause for reflection. It’s during these seasonal pauses that I often hear the same question come up among fellow business owners:

“What do I do in the low season of entrepreneurship?”

This blog post is a response to that very real, very valid question.

Entrepreneurship is not linear. It moves in cycles and seasons—just like nature, just like life. And while corporate life often gives the illusion of stability, it’s a stability created by averaging out the ups and downs across departments, quarters, and roles. That smoothing comes at a cost: your time, freedom, autonomy, and energy.

As a business owner, you hold the responsibility—and the freedom—to face your own rhythms.

That means learning how to respond skillfully, rather than react fearfully, when things slow down.

In this post, I’ll offer two essential pathways for navigating the low season:

(1) Mindset: grounding and recalibrating from within

(2) Strategy: intentional action and rhythm-building

Understanding the Seasonality of Entrepreneurship

Low seasons are not a problem to be fixed—they are part of the terrain.

Whether you’re in private practice, running a creative business, offering workshops, consulting, producing goods, hosting events, working in healthcare, education, coaching, or another field, your business has its own seasonal cycle.

You might experience fewer referrals in the summer. You might notice fewer clients show up around holidays or back-to-school transitions. Maybe your audience is busiest in spring and disappears in winter.

Instead of resisting these patterns, what happens if we learn to work with them?

From a Jungian lens, the cycles in your business often reflect inner psychological seasons as well.

There is energy for growth, and energy for rest. Periods of clarity, and periods of uncertainty. Both are necessary.

I. Mindset – Grounding in the Low Season of Entrepreneurship

Accept the Normalcy of Cycles
Ups and downs are natural in entrepreneurship, especially in service-based or solo businesses. This isn’t failure—it’s rhythm.
Document What Matters
Create your own seasonal map: referrals, income, inquiries, cancellations, marketing engagement, plus internal data like energy, motivation, or emotional reactions. Over time, this becomes a valuable pattern map.
Move From Intellectual Knowing to Embodied Experience
Many business owners know it’s normal to have low seasons. But when the dip comes, panic still sets in. Why? Because knowing is different from experiencing.

Jungian insight: this low season may reflect the shadow in your business—the parts you avoid, deny, or fear. The fear of failure, invisibility, lack of control, or financial insecurity. Facing it and learning yourself more from this experience helps you grow not just personally, but professionally.
Gradually Integrate the Pattern
We can’t predict everything, but we can prepare—mentally, financially, emotionally. When you anticipate the downshifts, you’re less likely to feel thrown off course.
Check In With Your Emotional State
In panic, it’s easy to abandon your values: underprice, chase misaligned clients, overwork. That’s when long-term damage can happen.Slow down. Reflect. Then choose.
Stay Calm, Grounded, and Centered
You are the most important asset in your business. Your clarity, focus, and well-being matter more than any metric.Without a healthy you, nothing else works.
Jungian-inspired Mindset Practices
1. Seasonal journaling or dream tracking
2. Working with archetypes: winter as rest, summer as expansion—but note: different fields have different seasonal patterns. Explore the archetypes that match your business’s actual rhythm, not just the external calendar.
3. Shadow integration: What part of your business feels hard to face right now? Name it. Get curious. Bring it into light.

II. Strategy – Building Rhythm and Resilience Into Your Business

Document What You Gain, Not Just What You Lose
Use the low season to work on things you never have time for in the busy months.Business tasks:
1. Updating your website or intake process
2. Creating new services or content
3. Reconnecting with professional networks
4. Attending trainings or conferences
5. Reviewing systems and finances
6. Creating a marketing plan for the next season
Reclaim Time for Your Personal Life
Personal projects:
1. Medical/dental appointments
2. Special time with children or elders
3. Family trips or catch-up visits
4. Decluttering spaces or organizing photos
5. Deep cleaning or home improvements
6. Making time for creative hobbies
Assign Seasonal Projects
Instead of reacting randomly, plan what belongs to your slow season. Track what works and adjust over time.
Explore Strategies to Soften the Dip
Use the slower months not only for rest or catch-up work but also to research and test strategies that might reduce the depth of future low seasons. For example:
1. Run ads or launch outreach campaigns at the end of your busy season to keep referrals flowing.
2. Offer special seasonal promotions, discounts, or limited-time services tailored to the low season.
3. Reevaluate your client pipeline or launch a waitlist to better manage supply and demand.
4. Review analytics and audience trends to optimize future marketing and offerings.
Balance With Other Income Streams
If you have a side gig, second business, teaching position, or consulting work that follows a different cycle, use it as a buffer. The diversity helps create overall rhythm and balance.
Plan for Rest
Low seasons are not “failures” of business—they are invitations for rest and reset. Take a vacation. Take a half-day. Create space for joy. Rest can be seen as a symbolic winter or descent—a necessary step before renewal.
Jungian-Informed Strategies
1. Create seasonal rituals: journal the closing of a business quarter, light a candle to welcome a slow season
2. Name the themes that emerge in your dreams or reflective practices
3. Reach out to peers—normalize your experience through connection
4. Let your unconscious speak: try a collage, poem, drawing, or walking meditation to hear what your inner voice is saying during the quiet