Originally published on Inc.com.
David Finkel, bestselling author and CEO of Maui Mastermind, has been a regular contributor to Inc. Magazine for over a decade. 
This article is one of his latest pieces featured by Inc.

I’ve coached countless entrepreneurs who believe the only path to success is to work longer hours and push themselves to the brink. While that strategy may offer short-term gains, it often leads to burnout and caps your company’s growth. I call this the small-business-owner trap—you run faster, only to stay in place, with no real leverage to move beyond your current plateau.

One of my clients owned a boutique digital coached countless entrepreneurs agency. By all appearances, he was successful. His revenue had doubled in a year, and new projects were constantly popping up. But behind the scenes, he worked 70-hour weeks, rarely saw his family, and felt guilty anytime he wasn’t checking messages. As he took on more clients, the demands on his time soared because everything still revolved around him. He was stuck in the trap.

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Working harder often seems like the only option, especially in fast-paced industries where customer expectations and project deadlines overlap. But doubling down on hours can actually limit your business in three key ways.

You create a single point of failure.

As a small-business owner, if you’re the only person who can close deals, oversee client work, or solve key problems, you’ll quickly max out. There’s also the risk factor. If you need time off or face an emergency, then the entire operation grinds to a halt.

You stifle your team’s growth.

When everything flows through you, employees never develop the confidence or expertise to lead. Talented people eventually leave because they feel undervalued, while you become even more overwhelmed trying to pick up the slack.

You lose the strategic mindset.

Overwork forces a small-business owner to focus on daily tasks instead of bigger goals and fresh opportunities. Without time to plan or reflect, your business can stagnate, missing market trends or ways to refine operations.

My client’s turning point came when we mapped out all his weekly activities—client meetings, proposals, marketing plans, and even responding to routine emails. By identifying which tasks required his personal expertise and which could be delegated, we freed him to concentrate on high-value decisions.

He hired a project manager to handle scheduling and client updates, and trained a junior strategist to run preliminary campaign setups. After some onboarding effort, his weekly hours dropped by nearly 25 percent, and his agency continued growing without him doing all the heavy lifting.

Action steps for small-business owners.

To escape the small-business-owner trap, start by examining your to-do list in detail. Ask yourself: “What do I do that truly moves the needle?” and “Which tasks can someone else handle just as effectively—maybe even better?”

Documenting procedures and training others can feel time-consuming at first, but the payoff is tremendous. You’ll not only safeguard the business if you step away, but also build a team motivated by meaningful responsibility.

Working harder is not a sustainable model for growth. Instead, shift your mindset toward creating systems, training leaders, and safeguarding your mental bandwidth for strategic thinking. The goal is to build a company that can thrive even when you’re not clocking marathon hours—a true business, not just an all-consuming job.