One of the biggest shifts I’ve experienced is realizing that sustainable leadership doesn’t always mean doing dramatically less.
Sometimes, I can still be doing a lot.
The difference is where I’m coming from while I’m doing it.
For years, much of my energy came from pushing.
Pressure.
Forcing.
The feeling that I needed to keep going, keep producing, keep making things happen.
What I understand now is that a lot of that was driven by patterns I hadn’t questioned.
When we start asking what is underneath the pushing, something begins to change.
The pressure can relax.
The work may still be there.
The responsibilities may still be significant.
But we are no longer exhausting ourselves in quite the same way while doing them.
That’s the paradox.
I can still do meaningful, demanding work and come from a different internal place.
There is also a practical side to this.
We need time to recharge.
We need movement, rest, nourishment, and whatever helps support our physical wellbeing.
Those things create the foundation that allows us to move through more intense seasons without continuously running the battery down.
So the question isn’t always:
How do I do less?
Sometimes it is:
What energy am I bringing to what I’m already doing?
Because when the internal pressure changes, the experience of the work can change with it.
