7 Signs Your Business Is Running You
1. You don’t choose when you think about it
You’ve become convinced that you’re either acting in your business or thinking about it — and that this is somehow a benefit. The result? You’re never fully present with your partner, kids, or anything outside of work. This traps you in a stress loop while robbing you of your life.
2. You’re using hierarchy to move people
You’ve become so wrapped up in urgency that you’ve crossed the line into telling people what to do or doing things for them. This makes them feel useless — and makes them believe you think you’re better than them. The result? Stress, poor culture, quiet quitting, and high staff churn.
3. You rely on short-term negative consequences to act
Perhaps once you calmly saw obstacles and prioritised them to achieve success. Now you only move when stress forces you to. Which means you’re always on the back foot — deliberately creating a stressful life.
4. You’ve become dependent on dopamine rewards to survive
Caffeine, sugar, alcohol, unnecessary phone use, nicotine, Netflix — whatever it is, it’s become your survival mechanism. Your comforter while you endure the life you’ve created, hoping it’ll be different one day.
5. You’re exchanging your health for the business
You aren’t sleeping well. You’ve put on weight. You’re experiencing aches and pains, digestion issues, energy slumps, tension, and headaches. If not all of these, at least some.
6. You can’t relax or visualise the future for long
You started this journey to experience freedom, fun, fulfilment and financial success. Yet it feels like you’ve created the opposite. And you keep telling yourself things will be different when…
7. You live in a fantasy future where everything will change
You keep saying life will be different when the funding comes in, when you hire more people, when the right expertise is on board, when the sale comes through. But that’s naïve. Things won’t change until you stop suffering uncertainty and start embracing it as part of life.
There’s no shame in being run by your business.
It’s part of the noble quest.
The only question is: how long are you going to stay there?
