HelloReader
I learned this lesson the hard way.
I was a fresh-faced manager in a company trying to be the best employer in the UK.
Great ambition.
High standards.
Lots of good people.
And I wanted to be everything to everyone.
The manager who always said yes.
Yes to my team.
Yes to other managers.
Yes to requests that should have been questioned.
I wanted to prove myself.
So I was the first one in.
I made sure I didn’t take lunch so others could.
I was the last one out.
From the outside, it probably looked like commitment.
Care.
Leadership.
From the inside, it was unsustainable.
I was constantly on.
Always available.
Always absorbing pressure from every direction.
And it nearly broke me.
I got very close to blowing up.
Luckily, I caught it before I did.
That part’s another story for another day.
What matters here is the lesson.
Working harder than I ever had did not give me what I needed.
It didn’t create better outcomes.
It didn’t build trust.
It didn’t make the work better.
It just emptied the tank.
At the time, I thought effort was the answer.
If things felt heavy, I leaned in more.
If progress felt slow, I stayed later.
But effort without sustainability doesn’t compound.
It borrows.
You get a short-term gain.
And a long-term cost.
This is something Agile got right, quietly and early.
Work should be sustainable.
Not easy.
Not slow.
Repeatable.
The question isn’t “can we push through this sprint?”
It’s “can we do this again next sprint without breaking people?”
Because if the answer is no, the system is broken.
Not the people.
Sprints aren’t meant to create heroics.
They’re meant to create rhythm.
Focus.
Deliver.
Pause.
Adjust.
That pause is what I didn’t have back then.
No recovery.
No reflection.
Just more effort layered on top of existing effort.
When pace isn’t sustainable, a few things always show up:
- Burnout gets normalised
- Quality slips quietly
- Control creeps back in to compensate
And leaders start carrying more than they should.
I know, because I did.
The shift for me came when I stopped trying to absorb everything and started designing work I could actually maintain.
Clear priorities.
Clear boundaries.
Clear outcomes.
Less martyrdom.
More momentum.
Sustainable pace isn’t a nice idea.
It’s the foundation that makes everything else work.
If your team feels tired but not proud, that’s a signal.
If progress only happens during crunch time, that’s a signal.
If recovery is accidental, that’s a signal.
The goal isn’t to slow down.
It’s to find a pace that lets you keep going.
Next week, I’ll talk about quality, and why cutting corners always show up later, even when they feel like the fastest option.
But for now, sit with this.
Effort isn’t the same as progress.
And burnout isn’t commitment
