High Output. Low Return. Here's Why.
Last week I wrote about the moment I stopped attending certain meetings and found I didn't miss anything.
Several people asked: how do you know what to let go of?
It's a good question. And the honest answer is — you start by auditing what you assumed was yours to carry in the first place.
When I did that audit properly for the first time, two patterns came up immediately.
The first was responsibility I had absorbed without questioning. Early in my career I internalised a belief that my family depended on me succeeding. That was true — and it was also a story I let run unchecked for years. It shaped every decision about how hard to push, when to say yes, what I was allowed to need. Not all of it was mine to carry. But I had never stopped to ask.
The second was a quieter one. A tendency to over-prove. To do more than the situation required, to stay longer than necessary, to make myself visible in ways that were about managing anxiety rather than adding value. High output. Low return.
Neither of these showed up on any performance review. Both were draining my ROE — the return I was generating from the energy I invested.
The shift came when I stopped treating these as personality traits and started treating them as assumptions. Assumptions can be examined. They can be updated.
Deliberately choosing what not to do is freeing. But the deeper work is asking: why did I think I had to do it in the first place?
That's what I've been writing about in The ROE Letter — a weekly newsletter for high performers navigating sustained pressure. If last week's post stayed with you, the Letters go much further.
Three weeks of writing already in the archive. https://substack.com/@charmianlong
What assumption about your own responsibilities have you never stopped to question?
#ReturnOnEnergy #SelfAwareness #HighPerformance #WomenInLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #CareerDevelopment #Burnout