When we’re hired to help coach a small business client, it’s usually because they’re feeling ‘pain’ in running their business on some level. Once of the first questions we ask them; “What is it you really want out of your business?”

As you can imagine, the answer we hear most often is “make money.” But what does that mean? Make money and do what with it? More often than not, we don’t make it a priority to define what success looks like for us, because that takes time and we’re busy putting out fires. There was a time I certainly defined it for me, but then life happened. I got married, had kids, climbed the corporate ladder and ultimately started my own business. Why? So I could have “freedom.”

Somewhere along the way, I lost track of success as I had previously defined it and became a slave to my business. Now don’t misunderstand me, I loved the work, my clients and my employees. And one of the best ways to be happy (and make money) is to do the work you love. But it was sort of like that late night spicy dinner. I loved it but it didn’t love me. In fact it was killing me! I was pulled in all directions and the business became the 800-pound gorilla, forcing me to focus on nothing but feeding IT and I began to hate my life.

I’ve since realized it doesn’t have to be like that and many of the operational hurdles we experienced were basically my fault. The buck did stop with me. I was like many entrepreneurs and had a particular skill set that worked well for my clients, so I launched out on my own. But running the day-to-day operation was not something I had been trained for, nor did I have the right people around that could help walk that out.

Implementing what I now understand as “essential business management disciplines” was not something I was doing, although we had a management philosophy all right. It was called management by crisis. So what did I do? I found a small business coach to teach me how to properly run my business and live the life I wanted. That was over 10 years ago and I’m proud to say things are going great, I’m still happily married after 27 years and I love my life.

So what’s my advice to you? Start with defining what it is you really want out of your business. Manage to your personal goals. Ask yourself about your goals for the business, your relationships and your life. What are you trying to accomplish right now? Why? What is it that you dread or makes you frustrated? Do you really really really have to be doing those things? Do you really want to pay the price for the track your on? You just many find your answers (and your options) will surprise you.