WHEN IS IT EVER ENOUGH? (And why it usually isn’t)

Most people do not burn out because they are lazy, they burn out because they keep moving the finish line. We tell ourselves it will feel better once we get the promotion, or the pay bump, or the next revenue goal, or the milestone that looks good on LinkedIn. Most often, even when we hit it, it still does not feel like “enough.”

We are playing an endless game with a scoreboard that was never really ours, one we didn’t design, but keep competing in. One that keeps changing just as we get close to winning, and if we are not careful, we climb so far we forget why we started.

Ambition is a beautiful thing until it turns into a treadmill. You start with goals that feel exciting, aligned, and motivating, then someone posts their version of success. Bigger. Faster. Flashier. Suddenly your progress feels behind so you push harder, you stretch, you scale, the meetings multiply, the inbox floods. The dopamine hit of progress is buried under urgency, pressure, and the next to-do. What started as a dream now feels like a spreadsheet that needs constant feeding. 

The problem is not growth, the problem is growth without grounding because more is not always better. Sometimes more is just what we chase when we are too distracted to ask what we actually want. If your version of success looks suspiciously like your mentor’s, your competitor’s, or your best friend’s, you might be chasing the wrong game. You can build a high-revenue business and still feel hollow. You can get the title, the perks, the prestige and still feel like an imposter. You can be celebrated on the outside and feel completely misaligned on the inside. That is what happens when the scoreboard is someone else’s. You don’t get to decide when you win.

Burnout is sneaky so it does not always arrive as dramatic exhaustion. Sometimes it creeps in as numbness, or as frustration, or as emotional flatness. Underneath that fog, there is a disconnect where you are pouring effort into something that once felt exciting and now just feels heavy. That is a misalignment problem.

The only kind of growth that feels sustainable and fulfilling is growth that is aligned to your values, your lifestyle, and your version of success. Asking yourself some strategic questions will clear your platform. What do I want my days to feel like? What does “enough” look like (in money, in freedom, in meaning)? What am I willing to sacrifice… and what am I not?

Lately, I have started measuring success a little differently. I am learning to stop chasing metrics that do not match my mission. Just because everyone else is running does not mean I need to enter the race. Enough means room to breathe, to rest, to grow without grinding myself into the ground.  

We all want to grow and succeed but we need to pause and ask, are we building a life or just building a list? There is a big difference between building something impressive and building something that is deeply, undeniably yours. 

Define what “enough” looks like for you. Decide what matters. Then build with intention, not just ambition. Because protecting your version of “enough” is not just a personal decision, it is a future-defining one. You deserve to feel like you are winning, not just performing.