Three ways to break free when your business feels stuck: take a vacation to test if it runs without you, redesign your role to match your strengths instead of doing menial work, and cut the parts you hate even if it means shrinking the business to focus on what excites you.
I talk to a lot of business owners who feel stuck in their business. I mean, we started this thing because we wanted more money, and yet we're making less than the people who work for us. We wanted more time, and yet we're working harder than ever. We wanted the ability to kind of build something for the people that we love, our family, provide more for them, and yet it's taking us away from them. And so if that's where you are, I've got 3 things that that maybe will help. I hope they'll help. Thing number 1, I guess my question is, when was the last time you took a vacation? So if you're there and you're really, really burnt out right now and you feel like your business is a prison, one of the ways to kind of test that is just to go on vacation and to see what happens. I mean, truly, what's the worst that can happen? The whole thing blows up and you gotta start over again? Well, if you're frankly that burnt out and that frustrated right now, good, right? Good. But it's probably not. You're probably gonna go away, you're probably gonna be refreshed, and you're gonna come back with some new ideas and you're gonna be ready to hit the ground running again. If that's not the case, then I would take a look at your job. What's your job? All too often as business owners, we hate our business or we say we hate our business, and in reality, we kinda hate the job that we've accidentally created for ourselves inside of our businesses. But it's our business. So if you want to fire yourself from the role that you have right now and hire yourself into another one, You get to do that. You can do that. So look very closely at your job. Are you doing the work that you actually want to do? Or are you just doing the leftover work that nobody else at the company wanted to do or knew how to do? So look, what would need to be true for you to get excited to show up on Monday and get right to work? Make a list of your genius zone stuff, of your no-go zone stuff, and just say, "This is what I'm gonna do and this is what I'm not gonna do." Again, what's the worst that could happen? The whole business is gonna wind up blowing up? Again, you're sick of the thing anyway. So maybe it blows up and maybe it's for the better. And at the end of the day, thing number 3, if none of that's working, just ask yourself, what part of my business do I like? 'Cause more times than not, there's some aspect of the business that we love and there's some aspect that we hate. And the part that we hate has sort of overtaken the part that we love. So maybe we just need to get smaller. Maybe we need to get smaller so that we can grow again by just cutting out the thing that we don't love in our business. That's okay, that's not failure. That's being strategic about your business. 'Cause frankly, if you're burnt out, if you're stuck, if you're feeling trapped, I can promise you if you're burnt out, your business is stalled out. And so the best way that we can get your business growing again is if we can get you excited about it again. So whether that's a vacation, whether it's changing your role, or whether it's just blowing up a portion of it to then start over again, either way, there's no reason for you to be trapped in a business that you built for yourself. It's yours. Make it what you want it to be. And, um, yeah, take responsibility for it. I know you can do it.
