Start Working On the Business,
Not In It
November 6th, 2025
Let’s be blunt. If you’re stuck in the day-to-day, you’re not leading. You’re surviving.
Most business owners and executives spend their entire week reacting. They move from meeting to meeting, putting out fires, answering emails, solving problems, and thinking they’ll finally “catch up” tomorrow. But tomorrow never brings clarity. Just more noise. And slowly, the long-term vision that was once clear gets buried under a mountain of urgent tasks that aren’t moving the business forward.
If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. But you are in trouble.
Staying locked in a short-term mindset is one of the most common and most dangerous habits for leaders. It kills momentum. It blinds you to opportunity. And worst of all, it keeps your organization trapped in a cycle of maintenance instead of growth.
The businesses that scale, thrive, and dominate their markets are run by leaders who live in the long term. They make time for strategic thinking. They design their business to grow beyond them. They focus on outcomes, not just output. And if you’re serious about building a business that lasts, you need to do the same.
Short-Term Thinking Is Comfortable, And That’s the Problem
Let’s face it. The day-to-day grind gives the illusion of progress. You feel productive. You feel needed. You’re making decisions, answering questions, staying busy. But being busy isn’t the same as being effective.
Short-term thinking is reactive. It’s focused on what’s right in front of you, what’s broken, who’s complaining, and what’s urgent. And while some of that is unavoidable, it’s a trap when it becomes your default mode. You start solving the same problems every week. You lose sight of where the business is headed. And you start confusing motion with progress.
Here’s the truth: if you spend all your time working in the business, you’ll never get the chance to work on it. That’s the shift that separates owners from operators. That’s the mindset that drives real, sustainable growth.
Long-Term Planning Is How Real Leaders Play the Game
Every elite business leader thinks long-term. They don’t waste time chasing temporary wins or reacting to every small disruption. They build structures that last. They plan for scalability. They create margin for strategy, development, and vision execution.
Long-term planning isn’t about rigid five-year plans that sit on a shelf. It’s about setting a clear direction and building the infrastructure to support it. It’s about asking the tough questions:
Where are we trying to be three years from now?
What do we need to stop doing to get there?
What systems are breaking under our current growth?
What talent do we need to attract, develop, or let go?
If you’re not asking these questions, your competition is. And when the next shift in the market hits, they’ll be positioned to win. You’ll be stuck playing catch-up.
Get Out of the Weeds Before They Choke Your Growth
One of the biggest issues we see is leaders who are over-involved in low-leverage decisions. They’re the approval bottleneck. They’re in every meeting. They’re doing the jobs they hired people to do. Why? Because it’s easier than stepping back and facing the real work: building a business that no longer depends on them.
If that hits a nerve, good. It should because this is the moment to stop operating like a technician and start leading like a visionary.
You cannot think strategically if you don’t create time and space to do so. That means clearing your calendar. Delegating with real trust. Developing your leadership bench. And building the discipline to get out of the weeds and into the real work of scaling.
Long-Term Planning Requires a System
You won’t stumble into long-term strategy. It has to be built into your operational rhythm.
That means quarterly planning sessions that aren’t just status updates. It means key performance indicators that measure more than output. It means strategic reviews that challenge assumptions and ask where your market is going, not just where it is today.
If you’re not sure where to start, Coach Jason Ballard helps executives install long-term planning systems that keep the vision alive. Not once a year. Every week. Every quarter. Every decision.
Because without structure, long-term thinking gets pushed aside. And when that happens, you’re back in reaction mode.
Curious where to start? We developed a free assessment you can take that will give you a report on the next steps needed to advance your business or career. Click here to learn more.
Break the Cycle with a Real Strategic Framework
Here’s what working on the business actually looks like:
Setting clear, time-bound objectives tied to real metrics
Mapping your hiring needs to future growth, not current gaps
Building leadership capacity before you hit a breaking point
Regularly assessing market shifts and competitive threats
Auditing internal systems for scale readiness, not just function
This isn’t theoretical. This is what high-growth organizations actually do. It’s how they break out of reactive cycles and create space to innovate, lead, and win. If you’re stuck in daily operations with no time to think, this is your sign to start designing your escape plan.
Long-Term Planning Isn’t Slower, It’s Smarter
One of the biggest objections to long-term planning is the time required. Leaders say, “I don’t have time to think about that right now. I’ve got too much going on.”
But here’s the hard truth: if you don’t make time for long-term strategy, you will always be owned by short-term chaos.
The irony is that when you prioritize long-term planning, your short-term decisions actually get easier. You stop second-guessing. You stop firefighting. You stop wondering what to do next. Because you already decided. The path is clear. The strategy is aligned. And the team knows what winning looks like.
That’s how you move from exhaustion to execution.
Your Future Is Built Today
The businesses that win over the next decade won’t be the ones that react best. They’ll be the ones that planned best. The ones that made time to think. The ones that stopped chasing daily tasks long enough to build long-term capability.
If you’re ready to stop running in circles and start building something that lasts, it starts by breaking free from the day-to-day grind. You don’t need another tool. You need a mindset shift and a strategic framework that keeps your business pointed toward the future.
This is where Soar Higher Coaching comes in.
We work with executives and business owners who are ready to stop surviving and start scaling. We help you build long-term strategy into the DNA of your business, so you stop reacting and start driving growth with clarity and control.
It’s time to stop thinking like an operator and start leading like a visionary.
Schedule a consultation with Coach Jason, and let’s design the future you’ve been too busy to build. Because the daily grind won’t get you there, but long-term strategy will.