Topics: business alignment, business pivot, burnout entrepreneur 

 

Business Alignment and Business Pivots, here’s what to do to feel energy again…

 

Ever feel like your business is one big jigsaw puzzle…but half the pieces are totally draining your energy?

This episode is all about INSPIRING you to create a business that feels more aligned AND gives back with profit. Because as an entrepreneur, YOU are the most important resource and source of all future business growth.

 

So we’re going to look at in this episode:

• How to eliminate or offload energy-draining tasks
• Ways to make space for creativity and business growth
• Best approach to avoid burnout as a solopreneur or small business owner

 

The goal is for you to find alignment and flow PLUS get rid of all those “hell no” pieces in your business.

 

 

 

LISTEN TO NEXT:
Reset and Rebound Mindset Series

 

RESOURCES
Instagram: @chardetryel
Join Podcast Alchemy 

 

More about this entrepreneurship podcast episode

 

“Your business should feel less like a constant hustle and more like a puzzle you love solving.”  – Chardét Ryel, podcaster & visibility mentor

 

• Recognizing Business Misalignment:
  Misalignment feels like exhaustion and burnout—think of it as your business sending an SOS signal, begging you to pay attention before you hit breakdown.

 

• Identifying Hell Yes vs. Hell No Tasks:
  Your tasks either fuel your passion (Hell Yes!) or drain your energy (Hell No!)—it’s time to clearly label which is which and reclaim your spark.

 

• Micro Pivot vs. Macro Pivot:
  Sometimes alignment means tiny tweaks (micro pivots), and sometimes it’s a complete overhaul (macro pivots); understanding the difference can save your energy and sanity.

 

• Automating, Delegating, Deleting, or Shifting Tasks:
  Stop doing everything alone—strategically automate, delegate, delete, or shift tasks to protect your energy and amplify your impact.

 

• Regular Alignment Checks:
  Treat alignment like maintenance—monthly or quarterly check-ins are essential to recalibrate your business, ensuring you stay energized, effective, and genuinely excited about your work

 

Are You Burnt Out or Just Misaligned? Here’s How to Tell (and What to Do)

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I built this… so why does it feel like I’m dragging it uphill every day?”

If you’re a burnout entrepreneur running on fumes, you might not need a new business. You might just need a new way of doing things.

We’ve been conditioned to believe burnout is the price of admission to success. That if you’re tired, overwhelmed, or stuck, it’s just part of the journey. But what if the real problem isn’t that you’re doing too much… it’s that you’re doing the wrong things?

Let’s talk about business alignment—and why it might be your secret weapon to reignite energy, creativity, and actual joy in your business.

 

The Burnout Entrepreneur’s Warning Light: Misalignment

Think of burnout like the “check engine” light in your car.

“Burnout is basically like the engine light in your car—most entrepreneurs ignore it until they’re stuck roadside.”

It’s not just physical fatigue; it’s emotional depletion caused by consistently forcing yourself to do work that doesn’t feel right. Misalignment shows up as chronic dread, avoidance, or even questioning your entire path—especially when you’re not seeing the results you hoped for.

But burnout isn’t failure. Often, it’s a message: something in the way you’re working no longer works for you.

 

Use the Hell Yes / Hell No Filter to Find Your Focus

When was the last time you lost track of time doing something in your business?

Now flip that. What’s one thing you routinely avoid, procrastinate, or silently resent doing?

Welcome to the simplest (and surprisingly effective) business alignment tool ever: the Hell Yes / Hell No filter.

“Your business should feel less like a constant hustle and more like a puzzle you love solving.”

Hell Yes tasks are energizing, impactful, and aligned with your purpose. Hell No tasks drain you, even if they look productive from the outside. Most burnout entrepreneurs unknowingly stack their schedules with Hell No’s because they’ve been told they “should” do them.

Here’s the truth: You’re not lazy. You’re likely misaligned.

 

Is It Time for a Business Pivot?

Let’s be honest: Sometimes we don’t just need to do things differently—we need to do different things altogether.

That’s where a business pivot comes in. It might be a micro shift (like tweaking how you deliver a service) or a macro pivot (like leaving a niche entirely).

“Alignment isn’t quitting; it’s recalibrating your energy toward the pieces that genuinely excite you.”

A micro pivot could look like switching from selling in the DMs (ugh) to hosting live workshops where you thrive. A macro pivot might mean moving from Instagram influencer life to podcasting full-time (been there!).

If you’re a burnout entrepreneur constantly questioning your direction, a strategic business pivot could be your lifeline.

 

The Four Ways to Reclaim Your Energy

So, what do you actually do with all those Hell No tasks?

You get rid of them. Not all at once—but intentionally. Here’s how:

• Delete it if it doesn’t serve your goals anymore.
• Delegate it if someone else can do it better or faster.
• Automate it if a tool can take over.
• Shift how you approach it so it aligns better with your strengths.

 

“Stop filling your schedule with tasks you dread—alignment happens when you trade busy for meaningful.”

 

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about progress. One delegated task, one deleted app, one streamlined system can change how your entire business feels.

 

Stay Aligned: The Monthly Practice You Didn’t Know You Needed

Most entrepreneurs build their schedules reactively. But what if, just once a month, you asked:

• What energized me this month?
• What drained me?
• What did I do because I love it… and what did I do because I thought I “should”?

 

That’s your business alignment check-in. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to be honest.

“You are the main resource in your business. From you flow the ideas, the energy, the passion.”

By checking in regularly, you create a rhythm of reflection that protects you from overcommitting to things that feel misaligned. You prevent burnout before it starts—and stay in your zone of genius more often.

 

Final Thought: Your Energy is the Strategy

If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or uninspired—pause.

This isn’t about working harder or learning another tactic. It’s about remembering that business alignment is a form of self-trust. And trust is what allows you to pivot, grow, and build a business that doesn’t just make money, but actually feels good to run.

You don’t need to be everything to everyone. You need to be fully aligned with the thing that’s yours to do.

So here’s your homework:
Identify one “Hell No” task and commit to removing it from your week. Free up that space. Then, fill it with a “Hell Yes” activity you’ve been putting off.

Watch what happens.

 

🎧 Want More? Listen to the Full Episode

 

✨ And if you want extra inspiration for ideas?

Download the free guide: 17 Ideas to Get Clients Without Ads or Instagram

 

 

QUESTIONS ANSWERED…

1. How do I know if my business is causing burnout?
2. What is business alignment, and why does it matter?
3. How can entrepreneurs avoid burnout while growing their businesses?
4. What tasks should entrepreneurs automate or delegate first?
5. How do I identify which business tasks are draining my energy?
6. What’s the difference between a micro pivot and a macro pivot in business?
7. What are practical ways to find alignment in my small business?
8. How often should I perform alignment checks in my business?
9. What are the signs of misalignment in entrepreneurship?
10. How can I shift my business strategy to better align with my passion?

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS ENTREPRENEURSHIP PODCAST EPISODE

Chardet Ryel (00:00.143)
Do you have a podcast right now that is not growing the way you want? You’re not seeing the downloads that you would expect. You’re feeling like you’re constantly putting out content. It’s exhausting. If this fits for you, I have a really exciting thing that I’m doing in collaboration with one of the top 0.5 % podcasters in the world globally. So she’s getting over 200,000 downloads per month. And together we are showing you what has helped us to become

top ranked host. So we’ll be going through this in a mini mastermind and it’s a way for you to get some real strategies that will help you grow your show.

organically only $7 and to be quite honest with you that’s because I know a lot of us have a tendency to sign up for things ghost them and never use them so we’re trying to make it really accessible for you it’s gonna be on May 14th you can get all the details on the her first three years website again this is the podcast growth

mini mastermind. You can also find details on Instagram at chardetryel or in the show notes here, but this is something that will be limited seats, will even have a Q &A, and there’s just not a lot of stuff like this that exists for podcasters. It’s basically what I wish was there. Now on to our episode.

Chardet Ryel (01:23.498)
Welcome to her first three years. From breakdowns to blunders, learn what worked and what didn’t. I’m your host, Sade, and whether you’re a new entrepreneur or you’re just starting something new, this is your space to learn and feel a little less alone. If you imagine your business as a jigsaw puzzle, do you feel like half or more than half of the pieces are draining your energy?

This is what we call the beginning of breakdown or burnout and misalignment. And it’s basically the point at which you’ve reached in your business. It might be very new or very old where you are ready for something different, where you don’t feel aligned anymore. And this is something that has such a taboo around it because we think of it as quitting is giving up.

So I wanna really help you in this episode to identify what are your hell yes pieces. This is what an amazing client of mine and now coach for me, Mia Paulson talks about. She’s the soulful empress. It’s her the name of her company and she really talks about finding these hell yes pieces. So the puzzle pieces that make your business exciting. It’s not gonna be every single one. When we look at a puzzle, it’s not every single piece that is.

super interesting in imagery, but together they create something very special. And the problem is, is that if most of your pieces are hell no, or you’re kind of like meh about them, you’re going to get to a point where you either burn out, break down, or just feel completely lost.

the reasons why this happens. So if you’re at a point where you just need to stop your business or you’re thinking about it or the offers you’re doing, I’m going to guess that it’s one of these things. See if it applies to you. It’s you’re finding misalignment between your personal goals or values now and what your business does. This was me. You are constantly pushing through tasks that you really dislike.

Chardet Ryel (03:22.679)
You just can’t stand most of them. You are ignoring emotional and physical signs of stress. So for me, I lost my voice. Or you’re ignoring like really what is your authentic passion? What do you really want to do that you haven’t been doing because it’s not safe? So take a moment here to really sit with yourself. When is a moment when you felt on the edge of breaking down in your business? What were you doing? Why did it feel so draining?

If I look at this moment for me, there are a few, but one of the big ones that stands out for me is during COVID, I had started a YouTube channel and I was religiously every week releasing an episode and the amount of production that went into this because it was a fitness channel. So I had three cameras on me.

I and my husband, were directly editing these. So between three cameras, it was taking a ton of work, ton of time and producing all the marketing around it, et cetera. And it would get a couple hundred, maybe a couple thousand views, but it wasn’t really converting that much. And I felt very frustrated and stressed and misaligned. And I began to dread filming these things. And I thought about why that was.

because it’s not that the whole process was super hard. At this time I was podcasting and that at the time was harder because I didn’t know what I was doing. But the YouTube thing felt more draining. And what I realized is that it was because, and I’ve talked about this before, in order to do well on YouTube, especially in fitness, you have to use keywords that people are searching for. What are they usually searching for? Things they don’t like about their bodies. So you are going to have to use things like thigh gap, cellulite, really…

pooling on people’s insecurities in order to get them to click on your video. And that just felt very misaligned for me because I only wanted women to really feel strong. I didn’t believe in bringing them into fitness because they hated their bodies. So I was burning out. You know, so it just wasn’t aligned for me. And I think a lot of people feel this way. Or it could be that maybe you’re doing something in your business that you’re just tired of. Like you don’t feel like it’s giving you any impact. And when we feel this burnout,

Chardet Ryel (05:35.787)
when we feel this breakdown, this misalignment, it’s basically like the engine light in your car, which I know a lot of you ignore that until you’re stuck roadside. You’re overwhelmed and you can’t push forward, but it’s a little signal to you to look at. Maybe things are not super aligned for me. Maybe I really need to pause and see what do I want to do instead. Before we look at tossing things out,

and stopping completely, let’s help you decide is it a hell no business model problem or a hell no piece. So what I mean by that is is it that you really just can’t stand the business model, the business that you’re in anymore or is it you don’t like the way that you’re doing it? These are very different things. So for me, originally it was I didn’t like the way I was doing fitness. It became I didn’t want to do fitness at all, but originally it was I didn’t

like the way and so that was a very slightly easier change to make. When you’re looking at the hell no pieces because the business model is a separate thing and we’ll get into that but if you’re looking at the pieces it’s things like this. What are tasks in your business that you regularly procrastinate or dread doing? For me it was the YouTube. What are activities that you consistently avoid or resent? Things like sales calls.

What are the actions that are consuming so much of your emotional energy and you feel like they’re not giving you the results? This is a trickier one because you could be doing something you really love, pouring yourself into it, but it’s not actually giving you results. And at that point you have to decide, am I going to keep doing this just because it feeds my soul or is it something that I actually do need to get a return on? That’s a question only you really can answer, but it’s something to think about.

So let’s go a little bit deeper here and think about what are three tasks, three business things that you dread every single week. Don’t think about if you should dread them or not, or if you have to do them or not. Think about them. These are your hell no pieces. Now what you want to do is look at them and see which of these are, I dread them because I just don’t have enough experience with them.

Chardet Ryel (07:55.983)
Maybe for example, sales calls or do I dread them because they are so misaligned with who I am and what I do. As an example of both, I dreaded, I did this exercise a few years ago. When I took my business online, I had this coach that really pushed selling in DMs. I’ve talked about this bro marketer and that disaster. I dreaded doing the DMs, not because of the experience of it, but because it just didn’t align. I didn’t like.

pushing people to really admit insecurities in order to work with me. It wasn’t something I liked. So that was an example of something misaligned. Now, an example of something that I just didn’t like to do because I didn’t have a lot of experience with it initially for me was sales calls. I didn’t feel comfortable with them and so I didn’t want to do them. Now at this point, I’ve done enough of them to know that it’s just not the way that I want to sell. But you really want to look at

Where are you at with this? Okay, if you’ve tried a lot, if you have a lot of experience and you still hate it, maybe it’s time to delegate or stop. Just saying. So I want you to think about, this is a silly analogy, but it will help. If you think about why you need to get rid of these hell no pieces, aside from your energy, it’s like imagine if you have a fridge and if you think about all the food in your fridge that’s expired, it’s no longer good. You know, the salad that’s rotting, the…

I don’t know, like the veggies that are mushy. The more you keep that stuff in, because maybe it’s easier than taking out the trash, the less space you have for things that you can actually use. It is the same thing. And this moves us into our hell yes pieces. When you discover your hell yes pieces,

those are the ones you want to fully put yourself into. So when you’re freeing up these hell no pieces, think about each one is giving you let’s say 10 to 100 % more energy that you can then put into this other thing. For example, when I started podcasting, I was also really heavily trying to do Instagram and Instagram was not something that I enjoyed.

Chardet Ryel (10:02.831)
podcasting was. It got to the point where I made the choice to fully go into podcasting and Instagram became a supportive piece of podcasting, meaning most of the time, if I posted anything and still to this day, it is to support the podcast. That gave me so much more energy. It gave me so much more interest in even being on social media. And this is why I kind of found my space. So you want to see.

What is your hell yes piece that way? For me, it was podcasting. It was what I really, really enjoyed. And how did I know that? I lost track of time when I was doing it. It energized me. Having a conversation with someone who I would never have access to before, telling me like about their deep strategies for business or for fitness or for life that was invigorating. It was a lot better for me than going on Instagram and DMing a bunch of people, which felt…

quite honestly, pretty soulless. The other side of this is it can also be that you naturally excel in it. So you see impact, you see results. That also for me was podcasting. I really found that after the first year when I started doing strategy, I got people saying things like, your episode on this changed the way I talk to my children. Your episode on this changed the business that I went after. This was…

amazing experiences and impact to hear that made me fully switch and know this is what I have to focus on because I very rarely got those kind of comments on social media. Now some people do. So if you’re someone who just loves being there, then that is where you should be. Find what works for you though. What energizes you. Maybe reflect for a moment in fact and think, when did you last feel very energized in your business?

What were you doing? What was the moment? What were you doing?

Chardet Ryel (11:57.943)
Remembering this energy, you’re going to think now and you can even write this later if you want, but I would encourage you to think now so that it does get you acting. What are three activities or tasks that energize you? Based on what I talked about, you lose track of time, you seem to get really good results or feedback and it energizes you. You what are those tasks? What are three things? For me, it is

doing the podcasting, it is being on stage, I love being on stage, and running workshop type things where I’m live and speaking. So for me, it’s always the speaking, the storytelling. We’ve gone over at this point now your hell no pieces, the things you don’t like, your hell yes pieces, the things that you do. Let’s put them all together.

Let’s really create this picture and this is where we go back to what I had said to you in the beginning Is the thing a hell no piece or a hell no business model? Is it a micro pivot or a macro pivot essentially? Is it a small tweak? You just don’t like the way you’re doing things So a small tweak for example would be when I didn’t like the YouTube thing I could have chosen for example to do Keywords on body confidence. That would be a small tweak. I’m still in fitness

A big shift, which I did do eventually, is totally going into podcasting. For you, we want to figure out what do you want to do? Your micro pivot or your macro pivot? Do you want a small shift in what you’re doing or do you want to totally obliterate it? As you figure it out though, it’s very helpful to kind of look first at your hell no pieces. The things you just know that you don’t enjoy or that suck your energy. Which of these can you delete?

Which of these can you delegate? Which of these can you automate? And which of these can you just shift the way that you’re doing it? So we have automate, delegate, delete, or shift. Let’s give an example for each. For podcasting, the thing that I didn’t enjoy doing so much was writing up the podcast description.

Chardet Ryel (14:09.355)
It sounds simple, but I just really didn’t like it. So I automate that now. I use ChatGPT. It’s great. It pulls it from the transcript. I have a whole process on how to do this. By the way, if you do the Pod Growth Mini Mastermind, I show you how to do this. This is one of the things we talk about. And that made it easier. It’s automated. Delegate. Another thing I didn’t like to do so much was I love finding guests for my show, but I don’t love having to come up with a pitching for it.

So I have an amazing, amazing person who helps me with this, Annetta. Shout out to you if you’re listening. And she actually helps me with the actual pitches. So she will do them often. We review them together and she sends them out and that’s great because this way the guests know that I truly pick them. I really love what they do. And she is also really figuring out what she likes about them and how she connects to them. And so that is a very strong partnership.

that has been delegated. It also keeps me accountable. Deleted. So something that I deleted that I just do not do anymore is TikTok. Okay? Everyone said to go on TikTok. I started. It’s just not for me. So deleted. And then shifted is Instagram. So like I said before, you will see me on Instagram posting, but when I’m posting, it’s for one of two reasons. To promote my podcast.

and the guests within it or to promote something, a service, a product, et cetera. So I treat Instagram as awareness building rather than popularity building. And that’s why you’ll see a lot of posts that maybe don’t have so much engagement, but it doesn’t really matter because I’m just doing it as a visibility thing to say I’m here because my principal channel is podcasting. So these are examples for you to think about what do you want to automate? What do you want to delete? What do you want to delegate? And what do you want to?

Shift. Something that can be very helpful here to do if you’re not really sure at this time, and I think in the beginning I wasn’t, is to have a monthly or quarterly, let’s say like the first of the month or the first of the month every three months, do a little alignment check. Alignment check is where you look at

Chardet Ryel (16:20.787)
What are your personal and business goals and how are the tasks that you’re doing aligning with those? So if you find that something is not in alignment, you just don’t really agree with it, your value wise, maybe it’s time to get it off. Or you see that something’s not really giving you the return on investment and energy that you put in it, maybe delete it or rethink it. It’s really helpful to avoid burnout and breakdown.

But this allows you to really look at your resources, which when you’re a solopreneur are you, and to recalibrate. If you don’t do this, then you just take on more and more and more. And if you were a big business, that would be when you fail. So essential practice for everyone. If we go a little deeper in this, I think what will help you here, and I used to do this for my fitness clients, is to imagine your

perfect business week. So for them it would be just life week, but for you it’s your perfect business week. What activities are dominating your schedule? You know, what are you doing mostly in your ideal business week? So for me, it is collaborating. It is speaking. It is having conversations with clients and entrepreneurs, brainstorming new ideas, helping them with strategy. I would then look at those things and say, how much of my week am I actually doing those things?

Look at your week. How much of your week are you actually doing the things that you enjoy versus other stuff? I mean, when I was doing Instagram, what I realized is it’s not a task I enjoy. It’s not a task I really want to get good at. And if I look at it deeply, I could see that a lot of my time was going to it.

And so why was I doing this thing that I didn’t like, that I wasn’t particularly good at and had no interest in getting better at, and it wasn’t giving me a lot of return on my investment of time or money? And that was kind of a shift for me of, okay, it’s time to do things a little differently. In all of this, what I really want you to see is that you are the main resource in your business. From you…

Chardet Ryel (18:21.743)
flow the ideas, the energy, the passion, and you will get so much further when you can safeguard those resources versus continually depleting them by hustling or pushing yourself into stuff that you just do not agree with or that does not bring you back anything in return. A really interesting thing that Mia, my coach now, former client, she has the Blue Sofa podcast by the way, she’s amazing. Something she talks about and I completely agree is that

In business, it’s a transactional thing as well as transformative. So if you are constantly giving your energy, your time, your money, and you are not receiving anything back, you really want to fix this equation because you are going to be the one who ends up burnt out or breaking down or really unsure of where to go next. Which if that has happened to you, it’s actually good because now you can reset. Make it so it doesn’t happen again.

From today, what we’ve gone over are the biggest things for you to do. Homework. Transformation homework here. Identify your top three hell no tasks. Things that you just really need to get rid of or change the way that you are doing them. Define your energizing hell yes task. Things that you really, really do like. And the biggest thing, I think this is probably the one you can do for sure.

Look at something that is the hell no task and I want you to pick one and I want you to commit to outsourcing or eliminating it this week. Ideally you would do this every month till the point where you’re not doing this stuff but you know we’re solopreneurs so I understand some things we have to do but one thing that you just decide I am done with.

and you are going to use that energy to pour into something that you have always wanted to do for your business that you’ve been putting off because of time, money, etc. Or something that you’ve maybe half-heartedly done because you just don’t have the energy. And I want to hear, find me on Instagram, sharderayel, what is that activity that you are giving up? Tell me in the reviews as well. Like let’s make the reviews for this week on the podcast about what you’re giving up.

Chardet Ryel (20:31.981)
what you’re inspired to let go. Because I know that when you do, you are going to find so much more energy and excitement in your business again and more direction. Now, if you need more direction on what you should do next, if this is like a big, huge pivot and you’re realizing, this is bigger and deeper than I thought, go to the reset and rebound mindset series. It’s just a couple episodes back and that will really help guide you a little bit more.

And if you are someone who has a podcast and you’ve been listening to this and thinking, my podcast is not going the way I want, but I actually really do love it and I would like to get results from it, then you can join me and Nicole Khalil. She is the amazing top 0.5 % podcaster in the world. And together we are going to be sharing growth strategies in that podcast growth mini mastermind on May 14th.

It is a limited number of tickets because we do have a live Q &A after so if you want one of them $7 you can find it on her first three years and you can also Find information on Instagram at chardetryel or in the show notes here I will see you in the next one and I’m so excited for you to let that stuff go and find that hell yes I’ll see you the next one If you laughed learned

or felt a little less alone, please leave a review on Apple or Spotify and subscribe! Come back for more! We are building a community of women to tear down the BS around business and grow in real, ways. Together!

 

 

 

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