5 Keys to Reducing Stress and Finding More Time in Your Business
Imagine an expert who’s great at what they do. Sick of working for someone else, they see an opportunity to open their own business and create real time and financial freedom for their family. Because of their skill, they’re quickly in high demand. The days get busier. The weight of the world settles on their shoulders. Instead of freedom, they’re bogged down in the day-to-day operations, and their big dreams quickly shift to meeting more immediate demands: Get the client. Make payroll. Deliver the project.
The more they do, the more there is to do. Being busy becomes a trap from which they can’t easily escape.
Most business owners don’t get stuck because they lack work ethic or skill – often it’s the opposite. They’re so committed to succeeding, they stretch to meet the demands of their business and push harder than anyone else. But when you’re stuck in the hamster wheel, working harder isn’t the answer. It just makes it spin faster.
Instead, here are five keys to breaking out of the busy trap for good.
1. Think Bigger
In their book ‘10X is Easier Than 2X’, authors Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy argue that growing a company to achieve ten times its current results is (counterintuitively) easier and more energizing than trying to double what you’re doing now.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Their argument is that a small goal doesn’t force you to fundamentally change anything about what you’re doing. It just demands you do more and get busier, paying the price with your time and energy.
An ambitious target, on the other hard, forces you to fundamentally re-imagine what your business could be. If your current business obviously can’t hit the mark, no matter how hard you work, you’re forced to ask different questions. A long ‘to do’ list makes way for existential questions: Who do I need to become? What’s the business that could deliver on that vision?
When your vision is big enough, there’s no way to know in advance what the exact steps to get there will be. You can’t build a straightforward plan to achieve it.
But once you start imagining what 10X might look like – once you can visualize a day in the life of the owner of THAT business – the next couple of steps start to become clear. You can set milestone goals that you can hit within a quarter or a year – confident that each milestone will take you closer to the 10X vision, not just create the increased workload that came with the smaller vision.
Where others might think about how to do 10% more next quarter, you’re already laying the groundwork for a very different future – and starting to say no to every bit of busy work that no longer makes sense.
2. Build a System for Consistent Performance
You know you need to find time to document a critical process so you can finally hand some tasks off to someone else. But if you wait for the “right time” or for motivation to strike, chances are that you’ll never get around to it.
Using your environment and your schedule as system-building tools will help you start to carve out time for working on your business so you can claw your way out of the busy trap. And with consistent effort, the daily demands start to slow down, until you find yourself being proactive more than reactive more and more often.
Start with your calendar. Pay attention to when you do your best, most focused work – maybe first thing in the morning or just before lunch. Block that time to the extent that you can, just like you’d protect a meeting with your most important client. Even if it’s just 15 or 20 minutes per day to start, consistently dedicate that time to work ON your business and finally get that process documented.
Then look at the environmental cues that drive your best work. Maybe instead of chaining yourself to your desk, you do your best thinking when you go for a walk. Or maybe it’s just a question of tidying up. A cluttered desk signals to your brain that this is a stressful or disorganized space. Good lighting, a clear workspace, and having the tools you need to hand all help protect your attention.
The easier you can make it to consistently carve out time and space for focused, proactive work, the less reliant you’ll be on moments of inspiration. Build the system to do the heavy lifting for you.
3. Fail Like a Pro
In his 2024 commencement address at Dartmouth, Roger Federer spoke about losing. He revealed that across his career, he won just 54% of the points he played. Even one of the greatest athletes of all time lost nearly half the time.
In your career, you’ll also lose. Lose the client, lose the employee, lose the supplier. It’s not about never losing, it’s about coming back to win the match.
When you’re worn out by the busy trap, each setback can feel catastrophic. Instead, the most effective business owners think like elite athletes. Every result is a data point and a chance to learn and improve, so you can adjust and go again.
The business that goes big, tries hard, and learns from failure will always outpace the one that waits for certainty.
Getting out of the busy trap inevitably means delegating more, supporting your team as they learn, and letting go of perfectionism. Mistakes are inevitable when someone is learning something new. There’s no need to panic when you lose a couple of points as long as you’re learning and coming back to play again.
4. Play Mind Games
One of the most powerful tools you have as a business owner is the story you tell yourself. If you’re feeling busy, you’re probably focused on a bunch of things you have to do. Here’s a simple reframe. Instead of “I have to do this,” say “I get to.” The words you use to describe your work shape how your nervous system responds to it. Obligation and opportunity are very different stories – which one do you think fuels better performance?
Brad Stulberg has researched human performance and wellbeing. He makes a strong case for leaning into joy, passion, and satisfaction as key drivers for business success. In other words, having more fun is a competitive advantage.
People who find satisfaction in their work – those who “get to” do what they love – sustain effort longer, recover faster, and make better decisions than those grinding through obligation.
So: what do you actually enjoy about building your business? And how can you adjust your self-talk to give yourself permission to have more fun?
5. Feel It in Your Bones
The mind-body connection runs both ways. Your thoughts affect your posture and your breathing, but your posture and your breathing also affect your thoughts. When a day or a task feels overwhelming, notice what happens physically. Do your shoulders rise, does your jaw tighten, does your breath become shallow?
Your body is reading the situation as a threat and sending that signal straight back to your brain. Before trying to think yourself into a relaxed state (not an easy feat), try adjusting your body first to take your mind out of panic mode.
Take a few slow, controlled breaths. Relax your jaw. Set your posture (shoulders back). It only takes a moment to send a clear signal to your nervous system that you’re in control, you’re confident, and you’re relaxed.
Getting out of the busy trap means taking back control to tackle the most challenging moments that come with building a business.
It’s far easier to stay busy than it is to break out of the trap. But there’s a roadmap to escaping the hamster wheel. To go from a busy business owner who works harder than anyone else, to a strategic CEO who calmly steers their ship, which of the 5 keys will help you most?
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