Overcoming Owner Burnout: Decide, Act, and Move Forward

My name’s Diane Crecelius. I’m a physical therapist and a partner at ABC Pediatric Therapy Network in the southwest corner of Ohio. And I am super passionate about building into other owners.

I’ve had a bit of a journey. I started my company back in 1994. There were lots of bumps in the road, but I grew it and eventually sold it for multiple millions—and I want that for you, too.

Step One to Overcoming Burnout: Own It

The first thing about owner burnout is that you need to own it. It’s your responsibility as the owner.

If you’re a hockey fan, you might know the chant directed at the goalie when a goal is scored: “It’s all your fault!” I want you to hear that chant in your mind when you’re thinking, “I’m so burned out.” Because in a way, it is your fault. But that’s actually good news—because if you’re responsible for getting into burnout, you also have the power to get out of it.

We’re going to talk about how to keep yourself from getting into burnout, but first, you have to be honest with yourself. Truly own it. Confront it. Recognize that you had control over how you got here, even if you didn’t take advantage of it at the time.

Step Two to Overcoming Burnout: Decide

You have to DECIDE. That’s my word of the year for 2025. My word for 2024 was How, and I loved that one, but decide is even more powerful.

Now, you can’t just be deciding, because that’s not an action. Deciding is a gerbil wheel, I’m trying to figure out what I should do next, if I should stop, treat less and own more, etc. How long are you going to stay on the gerbil wheel of deciding versus decide? They’re very, very different.

Burnout exists in deciding. That’s where burnout exists. You’re constantly thinking about it. You’ve been thinking about it for two years, five years; but getting yourself out of burnout exists in decide and actually taking action.

Step Three to Overcoming Burnout: Act

After you decide, you have to act. You have made a decision, you’ve got to make a change, whatever it is. Here are the solutions that you have to decide to act upon:

Create a Plan with Measurable Outcomes

You have to have a plan. You need to create a plan with goals that you set to push the potential of your company, and those goals need to be measurable. That means what are you going to do, and by when? And you need to hold yourself to that standard.

If you say you’re going to get something done by next week, get it done next week. Because if you don’t, you’re staying in overwhelm. You’re still on the gerbil wheel because you’re not making progress.

Share Your Goals with Your Team

The goal setting comes from you as the owner, and the team carries it out. But you have to set the goals, promote them to the team, and go after them in a super intentional but fun way to ensure that they are met.

Because if you’re the only one that knows about the goals and your team does not, you’re not creating a culture around the same goal that you’re all driving for, and that’s your job.

Create a Leadership Team

It is so important that you share the burden of running a company because, not only is it important to spread out the work and spread out the stress a little bit, but as your team grows, they need to hear it from more than just you.

You’re the owner, they think they’re working to help you buy your next beach house or boat versus just to take care of kids. And you’re probably in too much debt to be able to afford a beach house or a boat, but they don’t see it that way. So, you need more people on your team sending the message down to each member what the actual goal is.

Growth Requires Trust

Now, this is not an easy thing to do. It wasn’t an easy thing for me to do. For those of you who don’t know my story, I was embezzled from years ago, and I had a lot of trouble developing trust in a leadership team after that.

But it is important and crucial for the success of your company that you have leaders and people who, when they join your team, they want somewhere to grow. And you have to show them there’s opportunity with you, or they move on.