7 Signs Your Business Is Running You

1. You don’t choose when you think about it

You have become convinced that you are either acting in your business or thinking about it and that this is some how of benefit to the business and how things have to be. As a result you are never fully present with your partner or kids or anything outside of work. Which keeps you trapped in a stress loop while robbing you of your life.

2. You’re using hierarchy to move people.

You have become so wrapped up in urgency that you are crossing the boundaries into telling people what to do or doing things for them. This serves to make them think that they are useless and that you think you are better than them. Driving stress, poor culture, quiet quitting and high staff churn

3. You have become reliant upon short term negative consequences to cause you to act

Perhaps once upon at time you calmly saw the obstacles and challenges that stood in the way of success and prioritised them to achieve success. Now you only act when stress causes you to meaning that you are always on the back foot and deliberately creating a stressful life.

4. You have become dependent upon Dopamine rewards to survive

Caffeine, sugar, alcohol, unnecessary mobile phone use, nicotine, Netflix, what ever it is they’ve become your survival mechanism, your comforter while you endure the life you’ve created for yourself while you hope it’ll be different forever one day.

5. You are starting to realise that you are exchanging your health for the business

You aren’t sleeping well, you’ve put on excess fat and you’ve started experiencing aches and pains as well as constipation or diarrhoea or something close to as well as experiencing energy slumps, tension and head aches if not all of the above then some.

6. You have little to no ability to relax and visualise the future for more than a few minutes without negative thoughts and emotions coming in.

You started this journey to experience a greater sense of freedom, fun, fulfilment and financial success and it somehow seems to have generated the exact opposite experience but you keep telling yourself things will be different when…

7. You live in a fantasy future where everything will be different.

You keep telling yourself that life will be different when the funding comes in, when you have more people, the right expertise on board, the sale comes through but that’s just plain naïve. Things will never be different until you no long suffer uncertainty but embrace it as a part of the process of life.

There is no shame in being run by your business.

It’s part of your noble quest.

Only question is... How long are you going to stay there?