In business, every day can feel like everything is on the line—your money, reputation, and future. You’ve worked hard to get to this point in your life, the point where you have “made it.”
You’re proud of your financial success, but maybe your relationships are falling apart. You’re always stressed, and when you look in the mirror, you see someone who looks tired and feels drained. You’re not in your 30s anymore, and it feels like life is passing you by.
Or maybe you constantly worry that a downturn is coming. The pressure weighs on you, and you find yourself wanting to escape. Not by going for a run or hitting the gym like you used to, but by finishing a bottle of wine or eating pizza and ice cream while binging Netflix. You know these attempts to feel better will leave you feeling worse, but you can’t think of a better alternative.
We think something is wrong with us because we can’t seem to balance work, family, health, and happiness. Why can’t we make money, have amazing relationships, look great, and still have time for ourselves?
We resent the price we pay and sometimes question if owning a business is even worth it. But we can’t just walk away. We need the money, and we care about our clients and staff. We feel trapped and blame our business for making us feel this way.
You might think the only way to escape is to sell your business. However, this isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. There are good reasons and bad reasons to sell. Before you start preparing to sell, ask yourself: Why do you want to sell your business?
You can probably list many reasons—feeling trapped, wanting to do something else, exhaustion, frustration with employees, clients, or cash flow. But these are feelings, not reasons. And feelings are always caused by your thoughts.
Good reasons for selling include lifestyle transitions like marriage or retirement, capitalizing on a seller’s market, or taking advantage of industry consolidation. Maybe you want to start a new business that reflects what matters to you now. Bad reasons include burnout, declining sales, exhaustion, and frustration. Selling under these circumstances often leads to lower offers, and wherever you go, you take yourself with you.
The reason to sell should never be to escape negative feelings like frustration, overwhelm, and anxiety. These feelings come from your thoughts, not the business itself.
When you believe circumstances cause your feelings, you can’t make sound decisions. As a business owner, you know challenges arise—new competitors, employees quitting, late payments, and low bank balances. This is the entrepreneurial world. But these situations don’t cause your feelings. It’s your thoughts about them that make you feel bad.
By recognizing how your mind operates and changing how you think about your business, you can break the cycle of stress and regain the sense of freedom you had when you started.
You may have negative beliefs about your business that are holding you back. Beliefs are just thoughts you’ve repeated for so long that you think they’re true. For example:
- Owning a business is hard.
- There is never enough time.
- You have to sacrifice everything to succeed.
Beliefs like these create resentment. Whether you want to keep or sell your business, you can’t resent it. If you don’t feel good about your business, no one else will—not clients, staff, or potential buyers. You must retrain your mind to avoid overwhelm and anxiety and stop blaming external circumstances for how you feel.
If you feel trapped by your business and believe it’s robbing you of time, follow these three steps:
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Manage Your Mind. Realize your belief that the business is robbing you of time is not a fact. Take responsibility for your feelings and recognize that your relationship with your business reflects your thoughts. Ask yourself:
- Do I complain about my business?
- Do I criticize it and blame it for how I feel?
Start managing your mind by choosing thoughts that focus on what you want from your business, not what you don’t want. For example: “I created this company, and I can change my relationship with it.”
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Set Your Business Up to Work for You. If your business is still billing hourly and trading time for money, it’s not scalable, which adds to feeling trapped. Turn your services into solutions and products that you charge for in advance. Focus on a specific niche and deliver results through standard processes.
Build systems, solutions, and products as your primary assets, not people. Yes, you need people, but they should run the systems and solutions and sell the products.
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Replace Yourself. Plan now to build a team that can run your business for you. Hiring and training people takes time, but it’s essential for long-term freedom. Avoid being the bottleneck responsible for every decision. Instead:
- Set measurable goals and financial metrics.
- Assign accountability to your team.
If you ever want to sell your business, you need others to run it for you. Otherwise, buyers will insist you stay on after the sale, which most entrepreneurs find unappealing. No one wants to be told what to do in the company they built.
By managing your mind, creating scalable systems, and building a capable team, you can transform your business into an asset that works for you—whether you keep it or sell it. Either way, you win.