The hidden cost of your “high standards”

Have you ever found yourself rewriting a slide deck four times, working through your day off, or saying yes when everything in you screamed no?

You might be over-efforting.

We disguise it as excellence:

"I just have high standards."
"No one else can do it like I can."
"I refuse to show up unprepared."

Here's what I've learned as a recovering over-efforter: over-efforting isn't about excellence. It's about anxiety.

When you're constantly trying to control every outcome or prove your worth, it doesn't create better results. It just drains your energy and steals your time, clarity, and ease.

Everything you want—success, joy, recognition, fulfillment—lives on the other side of over-efforting.

Three Shifts to Stop Over-efforting

1. From proving → purposing

Stop trying to prove your worth. Instead, focus on the work itself—not to show you're the best, but because it deserves to be done well.

Ask yourself: "Am I doing this to deliver quality, or to prove something?"

2. From doing everything → doing the right things

When you try to do it all, you do nothing well. Prioritize what truly matters—at work, at home, in your relationships.

If it's not a clear yes, it's a no. And when a new priority arrives? Remove one. You can't add without letting go.

3. From reactivity → structure

Structure creates freedom. Each week, identify your top three priorities—not seventeen—and make sure your calendar reflects them.

This is how you reclaim control over your time, attention, and energy. This is grounded leadership.

Your Practice This Week

Next time you catch yourself doing more than you want to, thinking "I just have high standards," try replacing it with: "I feel anxious about how this will turn out."

Then breathe.

That moment of awareness is where transformation begins.