Staying focused in a world that's always shouting "more".
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the April 2025 Newsletter.
Do you know what's enough?
Many of us feel constant pressure to chase more: more clients, more work, more revenue, more striving. Professionally and personally, it’s endless.
But for firm leaders and ambitious professionals - especially those in A/E/C and professional services - a different theme often shows up: Not knowing what enough looks like. Not in a vague, mindset-y way. In a tangible, strategic one — the kind that shapes pricing, hiring, and capacity decisions.
When we don't know our "enough" we drift into distraction, comparison, and misalignment. We lose focus. We get reactive. We compromise long-term priorities for short-term scrambles. We need to be resetting that "enough" meter with rigorous questions at both the organizational and individual level. While each of you will have your own questions, here are some to get started:
For your organization:
What’s enough revenue, clients, or projects to run well and grow sustainably?
What’s enough team capacity to deliver without burnout?
What’s enough visibility to attract the right-fit clients, without overextending your marketing team?
For individuals:
What's enough income to meet your short-, medium-, and long-term needs?
What's enough challenge to bring you satisfaction at work?
What's enough recognition to make you feel appreciated and valued?
When those numbers and thresholds aren’t clear, it's easy to slip into a scarcity mindset: Saying yes out of fear. Taking on too much. Feeling competitive in ways that don’t serve you. Delaying decisions that would actually create more space and sanity.
But here’s the reframe: Enough isn’t about settling. It’s about strategic choices. When you've defined enough, you can align your energy with your goals, and make space for generosity along the way. So ask yourself: Where are you still chasing “more”? And what might shift if you decided to define “enough” instead?
Knowing Enough: A Confident Shift
For many small and midsize firms, especially in technical and professional service sectors, “enough” is a moving target - or worse, a question no one has time to ask. Strategic plans chase top-line growth. Teams stretch to meet deadlines. Leaders juggle client demands with hiring gaps. In the background, a quiet assumption hums: More is always better. More is safer.
But more isn't always better, and it’s rarely strategic. A leader's mindset around abundance and scarcity has a profound influence on their organization, shaping everything from decision-making to culture to client strategy.
When firms don’t define what enough looks like - enough revenue, enough work, enough visibility, enough support - they tend to drift toward overextension. It's a subtle kind of scarcity mindset: the belief that unless we keep pushing, we’ll fall behind. It makes firms reactive, erodes strategic focus, and creates turmoil as leaders chase the next shiny object instead of staying anchored.
When individuals don’t define what enough looks like - enough income, enough challenge, enough recognition - it becomes easy to chase every opportunity, say yes to every request, and measure success by someone else’s progress. It’s the personal version of a scarcity mindset: the fear that if we stop striving, we’ll lose relevance or fall behind. The emotional cost is real: isolation, exhaustion, frayed boundaries, and neglect of our physical and mental health — even as we appear outwardly “successful.”
Shifting to an abundance mindset doesn’t mean growing passively. It means being clear on what’s sustainable — and building from there. It’s the confidence to say no to misaligned clients because your team is already at capacity. The clarity to pause a new initiative because your baseline is already secure. The generosity to share knowledge, refer work, or collaborate freely — because you’re not operating from fear.
This is where strategic clarity meets leadership maturity: the ability to choose enough as a strength, not a compromise. It takes courage to change our path, and self-awareness to know when we need to! Try our reflection sheet for a quick pulse-check. And if you’d like to go deeper, reach out.
“The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.”
— Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
