I recently had a conversation with a coaching client, let’s call him Andy. Andy is a product leader at one of the world’s hottest social networking companies, managing team members across multiple continents and time zones.

When Andy and I started our journey together a few months ago, he was overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with the intensive demands of his bosses and the ever-changing needs of vocal customers. However, recently, he has experienced a significant shift for the better.

This post is about this positive shift, the problems that surfaced after it, and why it makes sense to rethink what it’s like to be productive and effective as a knowledge worker in the modern era.

Releasing the Pressure Valve

Andy’s breakthrough came from understanding how to intelligently work with his mind and better manage his limited energy while trusting in his abilities to perform well in uncertain situations. He moved away from responding to work challenges by working longer hours and instead learned to recognize when his efforts were sufficient and when more effort was counterproductive.

In the same way that pushing harder and harder on an unlocked door will do nothing but injure and exhaust the pusher, so it is that Andy started to realize when “enough was enough” and called it a day instead of simply grinding it out at work. In place of his misplaced efforts, Andy started to rely on the natural flow of life to handle what was beyond his control and realized the profound impact that a balanced and peaceful state of mind had on his work’s quality.

As a result, he made significant adjustments to his work schedule and habits, prioritizing things that helped his mind to settle and recover more effectively. Within just six weeks, Andy experienced a series of insights (such insights tend to come more readily to a settled and relaxed mind!) that completely changed his attitude to work from one of struggle to one of service orientation and curiosity.

It’s important to know that Andy was still working long hours at times, he just didn’t feel like they were long hours. He felt more easy-going and carefree in his daily work. He was rolling with the punches. His experience of work was one of relative ease as opposed to crippling pressure.

The Emergence of Guilt and Fear

This positive change, however, brought about an unexpected issue: Andy began to feel guilty and fearful for having more free time and a calmer and carefree mindset than he was accustomed to. He worried that this newfound feeling of “ease” at work might not be a sign of being on the right track but rather an indication that he was not living up to his potential and abandoning his career ambitions.

This concern came up at the end of a recent coaching session, prompting a deeper reflection on whether embracing a more relaxed way of working could be as effective as the traditional “no pain, no gain” mindset. Andy was so used to striving and working hard, that the prospect of working in a relaxed way and being successful while doing so, seemed impossible and just wrong!

Andy is not alone. Many professionals suffer from an addiction to effort. The “no pain, no gain” mindset, popularized in the 1970s and 1980s, suggests that success requires hard work and discomfort. Going back further, the Protestant Work Ethic, the ethos of the Industrial Revolution (praising those who worked the hardest), and centuries-old cultural norms lauding the value of sacrifice are deeply engrained in how many people approach their work.

This concept, though rooted in our culture and the psyche of many knowledge workers, is increasingly being questioned, especially in a world of work where the link between effort and outcome is not as direct as it might have been in years gone by.

Embracing a Better Way of Working

Any reasonable and rational person can see that working harder and longer (and living in the feeling that you are grinding it out!) is no guarantee of better results. In almost any domain of life, this is true. More exercise does not make one healthier. More active financial trading does not make one wealthier. More relationships do not result in greater happiness. More water does not make for more robust plants (just ask my house plants!).

Instead of simply aspiring for more, we can instead realize that life responds well to an appropriate amount of effort. When it comes to work, many would be well-served by questioning what the minimum effective dose of work is and experimenting with doing the appropriate amount instead of saturating their work with frenetic activity, reactivity and overthinking.

This principle of achieving more with less is not new but remains crucial. The idea that a significant portion of results comes from a focused set of efforts (the 80/20 rule) highlights the inefficiency of the “more effort equals better results” mindset. It’s a well-researched and understood paradigm, that can be taken to heart and explored directly by any leader who wishes to elevate their performance.

The irony of working less (and more importantly, feeling less pressured and bothered, regardless of how much you are working!) is that the fear many have, that of becoming a slacker or giving up on ambition, fades away when it is seen that the space created in a life that is not overwhelmed with work allows fresh ideas, insights, and click-moments to emerge, that can propel one’s career forward in ways that are impossible to predict.

For Andy, and many like him, the challenge is learning to be OK with the greater feeling of relaxation and ease at work and trust that such a mindset will serve him (and his company) well as it seeks to grow and adapt to a fast-changing market. Only time will tell what this new mode of working does for Andy’s career, but in my coaching practice what I’ve seen is that such shifts are nothing short of transformative. With a balanced and less pressured state of mind, performance (and results) blossom.

Final Thoughts

As we move away from the “no-pain, no-gain” mentality, it’s worth considering how a more measured and steady-minded approach can lead to success and fulfillment for ambitious companies and the professionals who guide them.

Such an approach doesn’t just require working less, it requires a mindset shift that can allow one to feel less pressured, even when life demands full engagement and giving it your all.

Reflect on your work habits for a moment with these two questions:

Are you pushing yourself too hard for diminishing returns, or are you able to find ways to achieve excellence with less strain?

What would support you in making your work feel even a little more easier and less pressured?

I encourage you to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.