Most people who start small businesses do so in large measure because they want to be more in control of their lives - to have some control over what they do, when they do it, and who they do it with. They start out hoping to create their business to serve their life, but somewhere along the line they lose control and find themselves serving their business instead. The first and most obvious sign that this shift has occurred is when the business owner begins to sound like a bird with a single song, "I am overwhelmed, I am overwhelmed."

If you are that bird you are most likely wondering what the heck happened and how to take back control. Here is how to recognize when you have lost control and the steps you must take to regain it.

The Symptoms

The following are key symptoms that show up when your business is running you:

• Stressed
• Relationships suffer
• Burned out
• Drained or depressed
• No sense of joy
• No sense of purpose
• Short tempered
• Resentful
• Fatigued
• Dissatisfaction with work
• Feelings of guilt (e.g., over not serving your clients in the best way or not having time for your friends and family)
• Working all the time (including evenings and weekends)

Is this you? The bad news is that if you are feeling these things, chances are your clients are also seeing the signs. Your business is a reflection of you. Thus, if you are stressed it will show in your business. If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized. If you are frantic, your business will be frantic. When your business starts running your life the signs are visible everywhere.

The Cure

The good news is there are concrete steps you can take to get your business back on track, to create the environment you had always hoped to create, and to restore your joy in your business. There are 3 key steps to taking back control of your business:

1. Recognize that the lunatic you are working for is you

People who work for others, when they start feeling like they are slaves to their jobs, frequently complain in this way: "My work is taking all of my time and energy! My boss expects the impossible - he has given me way too much to do, he expects me to spend all of my time and energy working on this business. I am working for a lunatic!"

When you are in business for yourself the problem is that the lunatic you are working for is YOU! You are the one defining the tasks, setting the schedules, and allocating the work. The good news and the bad news in this situation is that you have 100% control over how your business is run. That means you have the ability to fix it when it is no longer serving you, but you must be willing to take the necessary actions to do so.

2. Get absolutely clear about how you work best

From my experience the single most important key to creating a business that is both pleasurable and profitable is to understand in intimate detail exactly how you work best. Ninety nine percent of the time, the symptoms you experience when your business gets off track are because you are allowing yourself to operate in ways that are not aligned with your natural tendencies. Knowing how you work best means knowing the answers to the following questions:

What vision is important to me?

To stay on track and in control of your business you need a powerful purpose - one that can draw you forward and keep you focused. If your business is grounded in a vision for the future that you want to create or contribute to - one that you feel is important, worthwhile, meaningful and valued (both by yourself and others) - this will keep you energized and inspired. Such a vision can provide you a deep wellspring of renewable energy that you can tap into, and will help you identify and weed out extraneous efforts that are "off target."

What do I love to do?

There may be many things that you are capable of doing well, but only some portion of them that you truly love doing. And beyond that there is that rare set of things that you love to do that also reflect your unique strengths and capabilities and spirit. These are the ones you need to know.

Who do I like to work with?

What are their characteristics? Young? Old? Smart? Creative? Passionate? Independent thinkers? Easy going? Go getters? Direct communicators?

How many hours per day, days per week, and weeks per year do I want to work?

Where do I do my best work?

Inside, outside, lying on the floor in my office (don't laugh - I have more than one client who find this sparks their creativity).

When do I work best?

Morning or evening? In focused sessions or sporadically in short spurts?

What degree of structure do I need to be productive?

These are not all of the "how do I work best" questions, but they will get you started.

3. Use your "how I work best" profile to set criteria for your business decisions

Your answers to the above "how I work best" questions are significant because they give you the criteria you need to take back control of your business: first because they define the criteria you want to consider when making business decisions going forward, and second because they define the metrics for how to judge when you are off track and your business is running your life.

Criteria for moving forward:

When you are faced with taking on new initiatives in your business (new projects, new clients, new joint ventures, new partners, new employees, new vendors, etc.) you want to ask yourself the following questions: "Will this new initiative allow me to move closer to working how I work best or will it move me further away? How can I adjust the situation to make it fit me better?"

Here is a simple example to illustrate the point. One of my coaching clients is a business financial consultant who found himself overwhelmed because he started allowing his new clients to require that he physically sit in their offices when he did work for them, even though the work itself could have just as easily been done elsewhere. This limited his freedom, forced him to work during hours that were not his best, and prevented him from working in his more natural multitasking style. He was able to take back control of his business once he recognized that by acquiescing to the "work on site" request he was being forced out of his best working style. He was then able to simply and professionally renegotiate his agreements with his clients by helping them to stay focused on WHAT they wanted him to do (e.g., the tasks and deliverables) not HOW he needed to do it (i.e., when and where he needed to do the work). Taking back the freedom to work where, when, and how he liked actually allowed him to service more clients with greater ease and effectiveness.

Criteria for knowing when you are off track:

You can use your personal "how I work best profile" to evaluate the current way you do business and identify problem areas. Think about what you are currently spending your time on, who you have surrounded yourself with, how and when you are working, and whether your environment is empowering or frustrating your best efforts. In each area ask yourself, "Is what I am currently doing in sync with my best personal working style or confounding it?"

Here are just a few examples of things to consider that are common causes of getting off track:

• Are you taking on the wrong kind of clients?
• Are you allowing your clients to dictate not only what they want you to do but how they want you to work?
• Are you spending too much time on the wrong tasks - ones that you don't enjoy or don't leverage your unique skills and abilities?
• Do you have too much or too little structure?

When you can clearly identify the elements of your current business structure that are working against you, then you can identify what you need to change to get back on track. For example, if you find your clients are telling you that they need you to spend 20 hours a week at their facility, then instead of asking them, "What do you want me to do?" (which leaves the door open for them to define both the "what" and the "how") try inviting them to, "Tell me what you need to get done." That gives you the leeway to propose a way to get the job done that meets your needs as well as theirs.

The key here is not that there is one right solution in any given situation, but that your focus should be on identifying things that you are doing or decisions you make that keep you from working as you work best, and looking for ways to structure or re-structure those situations "on your own terms."

The Bottom Line:

If freedom was a key reason you started your business - the freedom to choose what you do, when and how you work, who you work with, etc. then you must stay constantly vigilant for signs and symptoms that you are off track. Businesses tend to evolve and drift over time, and it is all too easy to allow subtle accommodations you make "just this one time" to become the norm. When you see the warning signs you can use your "how I work best profile" to immediately identify the root cause and then take the steps necessary to take back control of your business.

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