Is my business actually ready to sell, or am I just burned out?

Burnout tells you how you feel about running the business today. Sellability is a separate question: whether the business can keep performing for someone else, with financial records a buyer can trust, contracts and leases that survive a change of ownership, and operations that don't depend entirely on you showing up every day. A tired owner can still be sitting on a genuinely sellable business, and a rested one can be sitting on a business that only works because they personally hold it together.

The trap is deciding to sell while still exhausted and then rushing preparation because you want out immediately. Buyers and their advisors test exactly the things a burned-out owner is least likely to have kept current — clean books, up-to-date contracts, documented processes — and gaps there show up as a lower offer or a longer, more adversarial closing, not just a slower process.

Before committing to a timeline, get an honest read on where the business actually stands, separate from how you feel about running it. An accountant can assess the financial picture, and a business lawyer can flag what in your corporate records, contracts, and leases would need attention before a sale — that combination tells you far more than your energy level does.