There comes a moment when a person no longer knows whether they’re really not doing enough or whether people have simply started expecting too much from them.
That feeling doesn’t always stem from a lack of discipline, willpower, or responsibility. On the contrary, it often arises in people who have long proven themselves reliable. When they finish one task, another appears. When they deliver a project early, the next deadline shifts forward. When they weather a tough spell, their resilience becomes the new baseline.
The organization doesn’t even have to say it expects more; what was once extra effort gradually becomes the new normal. So the person stops working just to do the job well and starts chasing expectations that shift every time they get close to meeting them. That is where a kind of exhaustion begins that cannot easily be explained by the number of hours worked, because the real issue is no longer just the amount of work. The problem is that the once-clear line between “well done” and “tomorrow’s baseline” has vanished.
Finish eight tasks, and the question of a ninth arises at once. Resolve a long-standing problem, and people forget how hard it was; they only remember that you found the answer. What once showed exceptional dedication now proves you can do it all the time.
This is where the system starts to make a serious mistake. Not because it demands too much of good people, but because it stops distinguishing between their ability and the limits of what they can sustain.
Instead of setting that limit themselves, people often give more. They try to prove their worth to the very system that has grown accustomed to turning every extra effort into a new baseline.
Some organizations don’t lose good people because they once asked too much of them.
They lose them because they never knew how to recognize the moment when they should have said:
Enough. This was done well.
Reshid Dervishi