Journal

5 signs you're carrying too much in your business

By Emily Castro · September 30, 2026

In short: you're carrying too much when decisions wait on you, your projects only move when you push, your social media always comes last, you can't take a week off and fatigue has become normal. The answer isn't to do more. It's to share the load.

If you run a small business, you're far from alone. In Canada, 98.2% of businesses with employees are small businesses, and 59.1% have between one and four employees (ISED, 2025). In Quebec alone, there were 228,716 of them in December 2023 (ISED, 2024). In most of them, almost everything goes through one or two people.

And it weighs on you. According to BDC's 2025 survey, more than a third of business owners (36%) say mental health issues affect their ability to work at least once a week (BDC, 2025).

Here are five signs the load has become too heavy.

1. Is everything waiting on your answer?

Emails, approvals, the small decisions of every day: it all comes back to you. Your team or your partners wait, and without meaning to, you become the bottleneck of your own business.

The test: this week, write down every decision only you could make. If the list is long, many of those decisions could be delegated with clear guidelines.

2. Do your projects only move when you push?

A project that slows down the moment you look away has no structure holding it up. Nobody else knows where it stands, or what the next step is.

The test: if you left for two days, would someone know what to do next? If not, the project depends on your memory rather than on a system.

3. Does your social media always come last?

You know you should be posting. You even have ideas. But between clients, follow-ups and emergencies, it never happens. It's not a lack of willpower: it's a sign your time is already taken elsewhere. We go into detail in Why your social media always comes last.

4. Can you leave for a week without everything stopping?

A vacation that turns into days of emails is a clear signal. A healthy business can run for a few days without its founder, because information, access and decisions aren't locked in one person's head.

5. Has fatigue become your normal?

In 2024, about two thirds of the entrepreneurs BDC surveyed said they felt fatigue or a lack of energy at least once a week (Le Devoir, 2024). Add the paperwork: Canadian small businesses spent an average of 735 hours on regulation in 2024, 256 of them (32 working days) considered unnecessary by their owners (CFIB, 2025). When the fatigue doesn't lift, it isn't a discipline problem. It's a load problem.

What to do if this sounds like you

List what only you can do. Everything else can, one day, be carried by someone else.
Delegate one recurring thing this month. A task that comes back every week frees up time every week. Our guide How to set up a mandate so it moves without you helps you hand it over.
Get support. If hiring feels too big, read Hire or delegate? to see the options in between.

Frequently asked questions

What is an entrepreneur's mental load? It's everything you have to keep in mind for the business to run: follow-ups, deadlines, pending decisions, people to chase. It weighs on you even when you're not working.

How do you reduce your mental load when you lead a small team? By getting information out of your head (a shared tracking system), delegating recurring decisions with clear guidelines, and entrusting someone with coordinating your projects.

Is it normal to feel overwhelmed as a founder? It's common, but it isn't inevitable. According to BDC, 38% of business owners sought help for their mental health in the past year (BDC). Asking for support is part of leading well.

You don't have to carry it all

At Perspective MTL, I support founders and small teams with their mandates, their projects and their social media (see the services). Did you recognize yourself in these five signs? Book a call. The first call comes with no commitment.

Sources

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