The Hard Work Spiral (and how it slows business down)

A lesson that took me a few years to learn:

While being a high achiever may have been beneficial to us in the past, it might get in the way of making sustainable progress in business.

Throughout school and regular 9-5 jobs, we’ve been conditioned to think that hard work pays off – and if we aren’t seeing the results we want, we just need to work harder.

And it doesn't help that many business celebrities and coaches further reinforce this by embracing hustle culture.

Because in business, working harder may actually lead to a spiral that slows us down:

When we don't see the results we want, we start working a bit harder. And if we still don't see the results... on and on it goes.

For some business owners, working harder = doing more on top of all the things that are already on their plate.

For others, working harder = jumping from one strategy to the next without giving them enough time to start showing results.

After a point, working even harder and putting in longer hours actually leads to diminishing returns, which makes it an unsustainable strategy.

The former gets tired and less effective because of their growing workload (a wholeness and design issue*), while the latter loses steam because they don’t get to experience enough results (a sisu issue*).

*Wholeness, design and sisu are parts of your Productivity Ecosystem

Working harder makes us tired, unmotivated, and less effective – which in turn may lead to worse results. Which we then try to compensate for by... working harder.

When this happens, we tend to wonder What’s wrong with me?

When our brain power gets used up my this (judgmental) self-reflection, it's hard to discover the supportive habits, routines, and strategies we could easily implement to experience more sustainable progress.

The good news?

When you put in place more supportive habits, routines and strategies – when you make some tweaks in how you operate in your business – you can spend your time more effectively. Which in turn allows you to put in place even more supportive systems and practices.

BTW this is usually why business owners team up with me; to get that fresh perspective and find simple shifts that help them keep at the business thing in a more sustainable way 👍