Some things never feel like enough. Time. Money. Shoes. We run out. Fall short. Change. And continue wanting more.
When it comes to our own capabilities, we take a similar approach. Women in particular acknowledge our strengths, but focus on our “opportunities”. If we’re high achievers, we may be defined by a relentless pursuit of doing, thinking, and being better.
Paradoxically, a focus on becoming better can make our performance worse. Striving for more can end up giving us less.
Here are some ways I saw this play out recently.
- An under resourced ad agency executive lamented, “It doesn’t even feel like summer”. Her resolve to keep working harder seemed to be sucking the life–and peak productivity–out of her.
- A start-up leader presented a big idea to the C-suite and a colleague took the credit. Wanting to change his behavior–and the culture that normalized it–she considered sharing her frustration in an email.
- A business owner, anxious about getting more customers, laid awake at night worrying instead of sleeping. In daytime, foggy minded, she struggled to think clearly about new strategies and resorted to less urgent administrative tasks.
- A certain coach, in fixating on a new and improved office set up, disabled her working technology system before confirming the new set-up would work. Spoiler: it didn’t.
Of course we want more downtime, better work cultures, increased sales, and improved productivity. And it makes sense that we put effort into getting them (that’s how progress works). But instead of relentlessly pushing toward a specific end, we can sometimes get better results from doing less–from letting go of the things that feel like they will get us to perfect. Because they won’t.
To be clear: letting go is not a passive approach. In fact, it can take a lot of work. It means giving up some illusion of control, trusting your abilities, accepting a little failure. It means saying goodbye to old ways of thinking and doing. At its worst, letting go can be heartbreaking. But it’s worth it. Because, that’s an essential part of self improvement. That’s how we become our best.
