Is Your Business Giving You What You Want?
You can spend years building a successful business and still wonder when it will start giving you the life you wanted.
You have clients to look after, revenue targets to hit, decisions to make and a never-ending list of things that need your attention.
But when you step back and look at your life, are you happy with what your business is giving you?
Are you earning the income you want? Do you have time for yourself, your family and the things you enjoy? Are you still excited about the work you're doing?
These are the questions worth asking as you start thinking about the year ahead.
Because when you first started your business, you had a reason for doing it. You wanted something different. More freedom, more control over your time, more income or the opportunity to do work that meant something to you.
Somewhere along the way, running the business can become the focus, and the life you wanted it to create gets pushed aside.
Are You Still Excited About the Business You've Built?
Think about the work you do every day.
Are you still enjoying it?
The tasks that once excited you can start feeling like obligations. You put things off that you used to look forward to. You find yourself spending your days maintaining what you've already built, while the ideas you're excited about keep getting pushed to the side.
I've seen how much our interests and priorities change as we grow. The work we wanted to do when we started a business can look very different from the work we want to do years later.
You develop new skills. You discover where your strengths lie. You become clearer about the people you enjoy working with and the contribution you want to make.
Your business needs to make room for that growth.
If you're spending most of your time doing work you've outgrown, it's worth looking at what needs to change.
The same goes for your clients.
As you develop, you become clearer about the people you work best with. You recognise the conversations that energise you, the challenges you love helping people solve and the situations where your skills make the greatest difference.
You want more of that in your business.
Of course, there will always be work that needs doing. The question is whether you're creating enough opportunities to do the work you genuinely enjoy.
If your business leaves no room for the things that excite you, it's time to look at how you're running it.
The Financial Goal You're Chasing Could Be Missing Something Important
Let's talk about money.
One of the biggest mistakes small business owners make when setting financial goals is focusing on revenue without deciding how much personal income they actually want.
You can bring in more money every year and still wonder why so little of it ends up in your own pocket.
The business grows. You invest in more tools, take on more expenses and find new ways to generate revenue.
And then you do it all again.
But how much is your business actually paying you?
That's the number you need to pay attention to.
Your business needs to generate enough income to cover its expenses, make a profit and pay you for the work you're doing. Your personal financial goals deserve a place in the conversation before you start chasing bigger revenue targets.
Think about what you want your income to make possible.
Do you want to travel more? Pay for experiences without worrying about every expense? Build your savings? Have more financial security?
Get clear on those things first.
Then look at what your business needs to generate to support them.
Your revenue target should connect to something you actually want from your life.
And there's another part of this conversation that deserves just as much attention: time.
How many hours do you want to work? When do you want to start your day? How much time do you want away from your business?
For me, lifestyle has always been a big part of how I structure my work.
I dedicate my mornings to walking, exercise and time for myself. I generally work with clients Tuesday to Thursday, start at 10 am and finish around 6 pm. I also plan for time away throughout the year, including travel and retreats.
That's the structure that supports the life I want to live.
Your priorities will be different, and that's exactly the point.
You need to decide what matters to you, then build your business around those priorities.
If your financial goals require you to sacrifice all the time and freedom you wanted your business to give you, it's worth reconsidering how you're pursuing them.
You Can Have a Successful Business and Still Feel Isolated
There's another part of running a business that deserves attention: the people around you.
When you're a small business owner, a lot of the decisions rest with you.
You're responsible for your clients, your finances, your team and the direction of your business. You spend your time helping other people solve problems and achieve their goals.
But who do you talk to when you need support?
Who understands the pressure of making a big decision, the frustration of a difficult business challenge or the excitement of an opportunity you're working towards?
You can spend your entire day talking to clients and still feel alone in your experience as a business owner.
Because the relationships you have with your clients serve a different purpose from the relationships you need for yourself.
You need people you can share ideas with, learn from and talk openly with about what's happening in your business.
For me, community has always been an important part of business. I love connecting with people, sharing ideas and creating spaces where business owners can learn from one another.
Those relationships add something to the experience of running a business.
They give you people who understand what you're working towards, who can offer a different perspective and who appreciate the challenges that come with building something of your own.
And your life outside your business matters just as much.
You need time for your family, your friends, your interests and the communities you're part of.
Your business should leave room for the relationships that make your life meaningful.
If you're so busy running your business that you have little time to connect with people, take a look at how your work is structured.
You have a say in how much space your business takes up in your life.
Your Business Needs to Grow With You
I've been in business for nearly 11 years, and my business today looks very different from when I started.
Over that time, I've changed the way I work, the people I work with and the services I offer. I've let go of commitments that no longer fitted and made room for projects that reflected where I wanted to go next.
That process has been essential to staying engaged in my business.
When I stopped teaching NLP in 2024, I created room to develop The Turning Point, write a book and build the training around it. Letting go of those commitments gave me the capacity to pursue something new.
That's an important part of growing a business.
When you want to bring something new into your life, you need to decide what you're willing to release to make room for it.
You can't keep adding new projects, offers and commitments to an already full schedule and expect everything to fit.
You need to look at what's taking up your time and decide what still belongs in the business you're building.
Perhaps there's an offer you're ready to change. Perhaps you've outgrown the way you deliver your services. Perhaps you want to work with a different type of client or explore a new direction.
Whatever it is, start by recognising that your business can change.
The way you run your business today doesn't have to determine how you run it next year.
Your interests, skills and ambitions will continue to develop. Your business needs room for that to happen.
What Do You Want Your Business to Give You in 2027?
As you start planning for the year ahead, take 10 to 15 minutes to think about what you want your business and your life to look like.
Start with these questions.
Enjoyment: What do you love about your business? Which tasks have become obligations? What work do you want to do more of?
Income: How much personal income do you want your business to pay you? What do you want that money to make possible?
Lifestyle: How do you want to spend your time? How many hours do you want to work? What do you want to make room for outside your business?
Connection: Who do you want around you? Where can you connect with people who understand your experience and share your interests?
Growth: What skills do you want to develop? What opportunities are you ready to explore?
Change: What are you continuing to do out of habit, even though it no longer fits the business you want to build?
Once you've thought about those questions, choose one thing you want to change in the next 90 days.
It could be adjusting your working hours, reviewing an offer, changing your financial targets or making time to connect with other business owners.
You don't need to change everything at once.
You do need to decide what matters and take action on it.
Because when you're clear about the experience you want from your life, you can start making business decisions that support it.
Your Business Is Yours to Shape
It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day running of a business. There's always another client to help, another decision to make or another goal to work towards.
But your business is a structure you've created. You have the opportunity to keep refining it as your life changes.
You can decide what work you want to do, who you want to work with, how much you want to earn and how you want to spend your time.
You can build a business that gives you opportunities to grow, contribute, connect with others and enjoy the life you're working so hard to create.
The starting point is being honest with yourself about what you want now.
So, if you were building your business today, knowing everything you know now, would you build it the same way?
And if the answer is no, what's the first thing you'd change?
That's worth thinking about before you plan another year around the business you've already built.
Listen to Episode 163 of The Coaching Circle
In this episode, I explore three signs you're losing passion for your small business, the mistake business owners make when setting financial goals, and why connection, growth and lifestyle all matter when deciding what success means to you.
If you're reviewing your business and thinking about what you want from the year ahead, listen to the full episode.
And I'd love to hear from you. What's one thing you'd change about your business to make it better support the life you want?
Happy imagining, creating, and really thinking about what it is that you want.
