We live in a society that dreads Mondays. For those in dead-end jobs and feeling a complete lack of engagement, well, Monday mornings can be a sad reminder that you aren’t maximizing your potential at work. Entrepreneurs chose to do something different—and therefore have more freedom when it comes to creating the kind of work experiences that will keep them engaged and fulfilled. And making a habit of pausing and checking in on their performance every Monday can be an invaluable tool that helps them improve.

Problem is, despite the freedom that comes with running your own business, many entrepreneurs experience the opposite. They are tired, overworked, and stretched thin from wearing many hats and doing what needs to be done to make payroll or generate revenue to keep the business afloat. The absence of a manager, or the structure of forced “360” reviews in a large company, means that for some growing businesses, those moments of reflection on performance and work experience are infrequent—and potentially not happening at all. For a super busy entrepreneur, adding something else to the to-do list may sound exhausting, but what is lost in not taking time to focus on your performance?

For starters, the quality of your thinking and output could be at risk, especially if you are stressed and creating a threatening mindset for yourself. The book Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing discusses a study done with Princeton undergrads: “The researchers presented the students with a test of GRE questions. For half the students, the questions were presented in a threat context—they were a test of the students’ ability, a judgment on whether they truly belonged at Princeton. The other students got the same questions, but in a challenge context. That test was titled ‘Intellectual Challenge Questionnaire,’ and the questions were construed as brainteasers. Nobody was expected to solve them all. In the threat context, the Princeton undergrads got 72% correct. In the challenge context, they got 90% correct.”

Read more: http://opportuniti.org/5-questions-to-ask-yourself-every-monday-morning-for-career-happiness-by-laura-garnett/