Lesson #8: Define “Enough”

Lesson #8: Define “Enough”

Part of my mentoring sessions with younger executives and entrepreneurs is to include a session on defining enough.

As careers progress and you pursue bigger goals, it’s important to know what you’re fighting for. What are you working toward? What does winning look like?

If you don’t define enough, you end up on a hedonic treadmill. Running faster and faster, chasing more and more, while the goalpost keeps moving. You’ll never arrive because there’s no finish line. There’s always another benchmark. More is infinite unless you define where it stops.

Defining enough doesn’t mean you stop working hard. It doesn’t mean you stop growing, investing, or chasing after a goal. It means you define the game you’re playing.

Every real game has boundaries. The end zone is marked. The goalposts are fixed. You know what you’re trying to achieve and when you’ve achieved it.

Business and investing are no different. You have to decide what winning and success actually is. When you get there, you pause. You adjust. And then take account for what the next win should be.

The danger of playing a game you’re good at, is that you play it too long without questioning why. And there’s a hidden trap in desire itself. Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

If the goal is undefined, or constantly moving, that contract never ends.

You can’t win a game that isn’t defined. And if you never define enough, you’ll always feel like you’re losing.