How our instinct to work harder can hurt us.

I’ve been noticing that my almost 4-year-old daughter, Brett, has some of the same instincts as me — especially her tendency towards hard work and preparation. 

I watch her laying out her clothes out for the next day, waking up early, getting herself dressed, and playing until her light turns green. (We’ve got one of those clocks that turns green at a certain time, which lets her know she can leave her bedroom… what can I say, my wife is smart.)

She’s exactly the same kind of kid I was. 

I laid out my school clothes for the next day all the way through high school.

And when training I did (and still do) the same thing right now with coffee and my gym clothes.

In some ways, these instincts have served me very, very well in my life. 

In some ways. But not all ways. They were great for chasing (and achieving) a singular goal, like competing in the Olympics, or starting a non-profit. 

But they don’t always serve me in other places — like health, family, relationships, even leadership. 

Or happiness. 

Over the last few years I’ve been working on resisting these impulses; I hold myself back from the urge to do more work on a Sunday evening, or Tuesday evening, or Saturday afternoon. 

As I’ve written, I love getting better — and I love that I love getting better. But I’ve also learned that that instinct can ultimately take me to a darker place. I’ve had to find a balance for my own good, and for the good of others. I did a three-part podcast with Jayson Krause from Level 52 a few months back and we talked about this: Decisions, Depression & the Downside of Determination.

So this is what I’ll want Brett to learn: 

That instinct of yours is very, very good. You can achieve whatever you want in life through that instinct. Whether it’s education, money, athletic goals — that instinct will be very, very helpful. 

But things that are helpful in some ways aren’t always healthy for us. 

Putting 400 pounds on your back three days a week and moving it 100 times is very, very good for pushing a bobsled. But it is very, very bad for back health for the rest of your life. 

Being able to compartmentalize and tune out and ignore other people is fantastic when you have to boil 20 years of work into 5 seconds of sprinting while a billion people are watching you on live television. But that same skill will cause you to have a hard time in relationships. 

The best thing we can do is understand that these instincts are really just skills we can apply when the time is right. 

We have to use them when they’re right for the job, and put them aside when they’re not. 

It’s like using a fork or a spoon: use the tool for the thing the tool is good for. 

But don’t use it for everything. 

Your “getting better” instincts are good for some things, but not for everything. And just because these instincts bring you a lot of value in certain areas doesn’t mean they’re always a pathway for joy, or health, or lasting relationships, or happiness. 

It’s been a tough lesson for me to learn, but I’m getting it. 

And I’ll do my best to help her get it too. 

- Steve