I own and operate a small artisan bakery/cafe. We are entering our fifth year in October. After years of being there every day I have finally reached a revenue/profit situation that has allowed me to basically hire myself out of having to work in the bakery every day, I am down to working one legitimate production shift every week. Literally a dream come true.

So for the last few weeks I’ve been just kind of taking it easy, which is exactly what I thought I wanted. I still do a couple hours of work for the bakery every day, but most of it can be accomplished from home and isn’t strenuous by any means. My leisure time has increased significantly, I’m getting more sleep, feel more rested and much less stressed out overall.

But now, on top of that, I have been beginning to feel a lot of guilt and unease about not being at work all the time. I’ve spent the last 14 years of my career working pretty damn hard, even back when I was an employee for someone else. Now when I go into my shop, I have a lot of trouble finding my place. My employees and managers have things running really smooth and I’m starting to feel a little unnecessary being there. But I still go in every morning, just because it feels like the right thing to do. But then I kinda just sit at my desk for two hours, get a couple things done and then stare at my computer until I realize I should just go home or go get some personal chores done.

I know that a lot of people out there are grinding away at their business and might see this as useless whining, which I get. I probably would have felt that way two years ago. Not working is the goal, right? But why do I feel so guilty all the time about not being in there sweating with my crew?

I feel like I finally got what I wanted, which was to just be able to relax, but now that I’m not working and not stressed out all the time, I feel like I SHOULD be working everyday and stressed out all the time, like that is somehow ingrained into my psyche as a worker/business owner. Like I’m failing if I don’t always have some kind of anxious obstacle to overcome.

I’m not sure what I want out of this post, so I guess my question is, has anyone else dealt with this? How did you handle it? Maybe I just need to throw myself into working on another business or an expansion or something. I just thought that it would feel very satisfying to finally be able to take time for myself, but now I just feel strange about it.