Ignore This 20-Question Stress Test at Your Own Risk

Plenty of companies, and company owners, die of the stress that comes with rapid growth.

Here are 20 warning signs that you may be crossing the line into trouble. Give yourself one point if the statement doesn’t apply to you at all; three points if it’s true about half the time; five points if it applies virtually all day, every day.

1. I am too busy to guarantee fast and helpful service to every customer.

2. I have too much to accomplish in a reasonable day. (Every business owner must determine what, for them, is a reasonable day.)

3. I am so busy putting out fires that I have no time or energy to create anything new.

4. My family is complaining that they don’t see me enough. They are right. Work is taking over my life, and I have very little personal or family time.

5. My health is deteriorating and I am unable to properly care for my body with the right diet or exercise program.

6. My desk’s piles are starting to grow piles. In fact, my office floor looks like a horizontal filing cabinet. I can never find the time to organize myself or to clean up the mess in my office.

7. I used to enjoy my work. Now, some days, I dread going to the office.

8. I no longer feel effective in my work.

9. I can’t relax anymore and just watch TV, read a book, talk with a friend or read a story to my child, without my mind drifting off to work. Work has become an obsession.

10. I am not as profitable as I should be for the amount of work I am doing.

11. I am finding it difficult to delegate responsibilities to other people. And yet I can’t do this much work without getting help or turning away work.

12. I have a hard time turning down unprofitable clients.

13. I rarely take vacations because I just have more work to do when I return.

14. Truthfully, I am somewhat addicted to being this busy. It’s an adrenaline rush. It makes me feel important, as if my business is prospering and there must be something pretty cool about me and my company if this many people want something of me.

15. Sometimes I fantasize about walking away from it all, or selling my company so I don’t have to work this hard anymore.

16. I notice that this kind of intense “busy-ness” is a family trait. Everyone in my family is operating at the same pace. My mom and/or dad could never do one thing at a time or sit still either.

17. My spiritual life is suffering. I don’t take the time to pray or attend church or synagogue that I used to, or that I would like to now.

18. I’m afraid that if I slow down, the company will fall apart or lose ground and I’ll never succeed.

19. If I slowed down, I might figure out how depressed or anxious I am. I am using long hours to mask other personal or family issues I’d rather not deal with.

20. It’s like this quiz was written for me.

If you scored 60 or higher, your business may be running you, rather than the other way around. Busy-ness can become an addiction every bit as difficult to break as alcohol or cigarettes, and just as deadly. It can also be a lot of fun. Everyone has their own busy-ness quotient. Where are you drawing that line?

Azriela Jaffe is the author of eight books, including, “Starting from ‘No’: 10 Strategies to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection and Succeed in Business.” She can be reached at azriela@mindspring.com.