Am I doing enough?
For a second, let’s forget about the answer and ask a few more questions.
How do you know if you’re doing enough?
What is “enough”?
How can you measure it?
Sincerely, I don’t know.
But I believe we’ll work something out by the time we get to the last full stop.
Where to begin?
Let’s start from the bottom.
At the most fundamental level, I believe we can reduce achievement (or success, if you wish) to 3 steps.
The goal, the work, the result.
Of course, there’s like a million steps in between. But in the simplest sense, it’s just these 3 steps.
If you agree, let’s build our answer from these 3 steps.
What do you think? In which step lies our answer? The goal? The work? Or the result?
I think it’s pretty obvious that the answer to “am I doing enough?” should be in step 2: the work.
But if you’d indulge me, let’s play blind for a second so that we can see what’s not obvious.
Can we really find the answer to that question in step 2? Is it possible to know if you’re doing enough by looking at how much you’re doing?
The sensible answer is yes.
But if you’d indulge me again, let’s play insensible for a second so that we can understand what is not common sense.
Knowing how much work you’re doing gives you an idea of the amount of energy you’re expending, but it doesn’t tell you if that energy is enough.
You don’t know if you’re doing enough by just looking at how much you’re doing. You know by looking at how much you need to do and comparing that with how much you’re doing.
Yes, there it is.
The answer to our question lies, not in step 2, but in step 1. We can determine if we’re doing enough, not by analysing how much we’re doing, but by investigating what we want (our goal).
The punchline is:
The amount of work you should be doing is a function of the size of your goal. Small goal, small work. Big goal, big work.
Yuck. That’s not so much of an “electric bulb” discovery, is it? It’s just common sense too.
Nonetheless, I believe it should help answer our question.
Am I doing enough?
Start by asking: What do I want?
Then ask: What does it take to get what I want?
If your goal requires the effort of playing 90 minutes on a standard football pitch and you’re playing five-a-side in your house frontage, then it’s pretty clear you’re not doing enough.
If your goal is to become an industry-leading AI engineer and you wake up every day shooting people in Call of Duty, then you probably need to step up your g̶a̶m̶e̶ work.
If your goal is to one day get promoted to the role of a CFO and you delay your work to avoid getting more tasks from your supervisor, you’re probably far from enough.
Conversely, if your goal is to simply survive and you work 5 hours a day, you’re probably doing enough.
Cowardice
The problem is that we are not confident enough to stand true to what we want.
There are people who only want to eat 3 square meals and have a good family but are killing themselves by trying to work like someone who wants to become a CEO.
Why? Because that’s what society expects.
The consequence is a never-ending feeling of guilt (and maybe shame) because you’re not working 100 hours a week, even though your goal only demands 40.
Your goals don’t have to be big. They just have to be yours.
If your goals are different, your standards should be different.
If you want to change the world or build a billion-dollar company, weekends will be just another workday and sleep will just be a way to get more energy so you can keep working.
It doesn’t make you better than the person doing the barest minimum. It just makes you, well…you.
So, are you doing enough?
For me at the moment, the answer is no.
What’s your answer?
