Everyday Run State: Pro Edition

If you’re a business owner, there’s a good chance your inbox sounds something like this right now:

“Did you miss your 2025 Goals?”
“Here’s everything you need to make 2026 better than 2025!”
“Grow your business 200% in 2026” (wouldn’t it be nice!)

I know I’m getting them, and these emails can sometimes feel really discouraging, overwhelming, and honestly, demotivating. It can make everything feel urgent, without a clear direction of next steps.

Before I started consulting, back when I was working full-time and quietly questioning what I was actually good at, I didn’t know what my “next step” looked like. I mostly just knew I was tired, overloaded, and struggling to separate what was hard from what was wrong.

Instead of trying to strategize my way out of it, I did something much simpler.

I tracked my work.

Every task I did in a day. Meetings. Emails. Problem-solving. People management. Admin. Firefighting. And beside each one, I put a symbol:

A happy face. 😃 
A neutral face. 😐️ 
Or a sad face. 😢 

No judging. No fixing. Just observing for a week or two.

What showed up was incredibly consistent. Certain work always gave me energy. Certain work was always neutral. And one thing I had completely misunderstood about myself became obvious very quickly.

People management was… neutral.

Not terrible. Not painful. Just consistently draining in a quiet way.

I like people! (I promise!) I like collaborating (sometimes…)
I like helping. But carrying responsibility for other people’s output, performance, emotions, and decisions was not where my energy came from. I had always assumed leadership meant managing people. Turns out, that assumption wasn’t true for me.

What lit me up was owning my work product. Solving complex problems. Going deep. Being accountable for outcomes I directly influenced.

That realization didn’t make me less responsible. It made me more effective. And once I aligned my role with that reality, a huge amount of mental noise disappeared.

Where This Shows Up for Owners

This matters a lot at year-end, because many business owners are doing reviews that only look at numbers, not energy.

Revenue. Utilization. Margins. Tickets closed. Projects delivered.

And of course, this is all important. But it’s an incomplete view of the work YOU personally are doing, and how it’s making you feel.

In lean and supply chain, we talk about value-added vs non-value-added work. Just because something takes time doesn’t mean it creates value. And just because something looks important doesn’t mean it’s the right use of a resource.

That applies to people too.

Some parts of your role move the business forward and give you energy. Others quietly drain you, even if you’re good at them or feel like you “should” enjoy them as an owner.

When owners ignore that, they don’t just burn out. They start designing organizations that rely on them doing work that depletes them.

A More Useful Year-End Thought Experiment

Before you overhaul your org chart or panic about 2026, try this instead:

For a week or two, notice:

• Which parts of your day consistently give you energy

• Which parts are always neutral

• Which parts quietly drain you

Pay attention to patterns, not one-off bad days.

Common surprises I see with owners:

• Managing people isn’t always energizing

• Being “good” at something doesn’t mean it’s the right long-term role

• Context switching is more draining than workload

• Admin can be calming, while ambiguity is exhausting

• Lack of clarity drains more energy than hard work

This isn’t about changing everything. It’s about seeing clearly before you decide what actually needs to change.

What are you doing to calmly prepare for 2026? Let me know!