Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is stop working on it for a while.
I know. Not exactly the advice you'd expect in a world that constantly tells entrepreneurs to keep showing up, stay consistent, launch the next thing and push through the uncomfortable bits.
But what happens when the uncomfortable bit isn't your marketing strategy, your sales funnel or your workload?
What happens when you're starting to wonder whether you actually want the business you've built anymore?
Maybe you don't need another strategy. Maybe you need some time apart. 😂
In this episode of The Business Break-Up Podcast, I'm exploring what it looks like to take a break from your business, why creating space can be important when you're questioning your direction, and what to do when you can't exactly afford to disappear for three months and wait for inspiration to strike.
🎧 Listen to the podcast episode above
When did running your business become the thing stopping you from figuring out what you want?
Here's something I've noticed about established business owners.
We're often so busy running the businesses we've created that we don't have the time or capacity to question whether we still want to be running them in the same way.
There are clients to serve, emails to send, offers to sell, content to create, systems to maintain and bills to pay.
And because we've invested so much into making the business work, we keep doing the things that have always worked.
Even when we're not particularly excited about them anymore.
But if your life has changed, your priorities have shifted, or you've simply become a different person from the one who originally built the business, there's a good chance some of those old decisions don't fit quite as well as they used to.
And it's difficult to hear what you actually want when you're constantly surrounded by what you've already committed to.
Sometimes you need to step outside the relationship to see it clearly.
Taking a business sabbatical doesn't automatically mean breaking up
I think we tend to treat business decisions as though there are only two options.
Stay and make it work, or leave and start something completely different.
But relationships aren't always that black and white, and neither are businesses.
Sometimes you don't need to break up. You need a break.
You need some time where you're not constantly trying to fix things, improve things, optimise things or figure out the next offer.
Time to remember what you enjoy doing when you're not doing it because somebody's paying you.
Time to explore interests that might have absolutely nothing to do with your current business.
And maybe time to discover whether you actually miss the business when you're not spending every waking moment thinking about it.
Because there's a difference between being exhausted by the way you're running your business and genuinely having outgrown the business itself.
A break can help you begin to recognise that difference.
Of course, there's a pretty significant elephant in the room.
What if you can't afford to take a break from your business?
This is where I think the business sabbatical conversation needs a little more nuance.
Because it's very easy to tell somebody to take three months off, follow their curiosity and see what happens when you've got investments, savings, recurring revenue or automated funnels paying the bills.
And if you've built that kind of financial freedom into your business, fucking fantastic.
You've created options for yourself. Use them.
But not everyone is in that position.
For some business owners, stepping away means their income stops immediately.
And for others, the situation is even more complicated because the offers that are still generating revenue are the very things they no longer want to be selling.
Maybe you've outgrown the work. Maybe the messaging no longer reflects what you believe. Maybe continuing to sell the offer feels like you're performing an old version of yourself.
That doesn't automatically mean the offer has stopped being valuable or that you have to shut everything down tomorrow.
But it does mean there's something worth looking at.
And the answer isn't necessarily to keep selling something you no longer want to stand behind simply because it makes money.
You might need to change how you make money while you figure out what comes next
I think this is something we need to normalise a little more in entrepreneurship.
Getting a part-time job isn't a business failure.
Neither is selling business assets, retiring offers, reducing your workload or creating a temporary income arrangement while you work out your next move.
When I was transitioning away from my previous business identity, I eventually sold a significant collection of my business resources and intellectual property.
Those assets still had value, even though I no longer wanted to be the person building my business around them.
And I also have part-time employment alongside my business.
There is no shame in creating financial stability outside the business while you're figuring out what you want that business to become.
In fact, sometimes having that stability gives you the freedom to make much more honest decisions.
Because when every business decision has to answer the question, "How am I going to pay my bills next month?" it becomes a lot harder to separate what you genuinely want from what you feel financially pressured to do.
You don't necessarily need six months off.
You might need to reduce your client load, pause a launch, stop creating new offers, or deliberately protect some time each week where you're not responsible for producing something.
The point isn't to abandon your responsibilities.
It's to create enough space to start making choices rather than simply reacting to what the business demands.
Your business is allowed to be about more than making money
Now, I know this might sound strange coming from somebody who teaches business strategy.
But I don't believe making money has to be the ultimate purpose of your business.
Money matters. Obviously. We have lives to fund, responsibilities to meet and futures to build.
And a business needs a financially sustainable model if it's going to continue operating.
But for many of us, the reason we started our businesses wasn't simply to make money.
We wanted to do work that mattered.
We wanted freedom, purpose, contribution, creativity, impact or the opportunity to build something that would outlive the immediate transaction.
We had a mission.
And somewhere along the way, it's possible to become so focused on keeping the business profitable that we lose touch with why we wanted to build it in the first place.
The money becomes the thing we're organising our entire lives around, rather than something that supports the work and life we actually want.
So if you've built a successful business that no longer feels particularly meaningful, I think it's worth asking yourself:
Am I still building this business because I believe in what I'm creating, or because I've become very good at making it work?
Those are two very different reasons to stay in a relationship.
What actually happens when you give yourself space?
One of the things I experienced during my own business transition was how valuable it could be to stop demanding an immediate answer.
I didn't have the entire next chapter mapped out.
And I was fortunate to have enough financial breathing room that I didn't need every new idea to become a saleable offer by Friday.
I could explore. I could experiment. I could pay attention to what felt interesting again.
Some of those experiments became part of the business I'm building now. Others simply helped me understand what I did and didn't want.
And that's important because the first idea that makes you feel alive after a period of disconnection isn't necessarily your next forever business.
Sometimes it's just the first thing you've felt excited about in ages.
You get to enjoy that without immediately buying the domain name, rebranding your Instagram and planning the wedding. 😂
The space gives you an opportunity to date your ideas before committing to them.
And perhaps more importantly, to discover who you are when you're not constantly performing the identity your business requires.
Three different business owners might need three different kinds of breaks
Not everyone who's questioning their business is in the same position.
The first business owner still loves their work but hates how they're delivering it.
They might be exhausted by constant client calls, frustrated by their schedule or tired of a business model that requires them to be available all the time.
They may not need to reinvent their business at all. They might need to renegotiate the terms of the relationship.
The second business owner has changed, and their business hasn't caught up.
They can still see the value in what they've built, but they're increasingly drawn towards something different. They don't necessarily want to abandon everything, but they know they can't keep doing it exactly as they are.
This is where reinvention becomes a real possibility.
The third business owner knows they're finished with this version of their business.
They're no longer asking whether they want to stay. They're trying to figure out how to leave without throwing away everything valuable they've built.
For them, a break might be part of a much bigger process of consciously uncoupling from the business.
And none of these people necessarily needs the same advice.
That's why I don't think we should automatically prescribe another strategy, another pivot or a complete business overhaul whenever someone says they're unhappy.
First, we need to understand what's actually happening in the relationship.
What if the break doesn't give you all the answers?
Here's the other thing.
Sometimes you create the space, step away from the day-to-day demands and start reconnecting with yourself.
And you realise that yes, something absolutely needs to change.
But you still don't know what the fuck that change is supposed to look like.
You might know what you don't want anymore without being able to articulate what you do want.
You might have ideas but no idea which ones are worth exploring.
Or you might be terrified that changing direction means losing the audience, reputation, expertise and income you've spent years building.
This is the messy middle of business reinvention.
And it's exactly why I created The Business Breakover.
It's a 12-month experience for established business owners who've outgrown the business they've built and want to figure out what comes next without starting from scratch.
We work through the identity shifts, the attachment to what you've built, the patterns that might follow you into your next business, and the practical work of creating something that actually fits who you are now.
You don't need to arrive knowing what your next business looks like.
And we're certainly not going to assume that everything you've built needs to go.
🔥 Explore The Business Breakover
Because the goal isn't to escape one business only to recreate the same problems with a hotter logo.
It's to build a business you actually want to be in a relationship with.
Maybe you don't need to decide anything today
If you're questioning your business right now, I want you to consider something.
What would happen if you stopped demanding an immediate answer?
If you gave yourself permission to explore what you want without turning every idea into a business plan?
If you created whatever breathing room is realistically available to you, whether that's a proper sabbatical, a reduced workload or simply a few protected hours each week?
You might discover that you still love your business and just need to change the terms.
You might realise you've outgrown parts of it.
Or you might finally admit that the relationship has run its course.
But you don't necessarily have to know which one it is before you allow yourself some space.
Sometimes the next chapter doesn't need to be forced into existence. It needs a little room to reveal itself.
And if you're wondering where your own business relationship stands, you can start with my free Business Break-Up Audit.
💔 Take the free Business Break-Up Audit if you're unsure whether you need to renegotiate, reinvent or break up with your business.
❤️🩹 Explore The Business Break-Up Plan if you're ready to work through what stays, what changes and what you're letting go of.
🔥 Explore The Business Breakover if you know you've outgrown your business and want support figuring out what the fuck comes next.
You don't need to know what you're building next before you begin.
And starting over doesn't mean starting from scratch. 💋