Dr. Lee Ann De Reus - Founder, Badass University
The Metrics That Don’t Measure What Matters
Our culture celebrates visible effort. We admire relentless entrepreneurs who wear eighty-hour workweeks as a badge of honor and boast about 2 a.m. texts with staff. We count hours, followers, likes, revenue, and accomplishments as measures of success.
I know I can be doing more. There is another newsletter to write, another client to recruit, another cause to support, another partnership to pursue, another idea to develop. One quick pass through LinkedIn or Instagram confirms it. Others appear to be working harder, succeeding faster, and making a bigger impact.
But if that’s my measuring stick, I’m doomed. What’s missing from those metrics is whether I’m building a life I actually want.
Where the Belief Comes From
Most of us have spent our lives receiving messages, from our families, society, and institutions like the workplace and school, that our value is reflected in our accomplishments. We learn to collect good grades, promotions, titles, accolades, and achievements because that’s what the world recognizes and rewards. Productivity becomes more than a way to reach our goals; it becomes evidence that we’re responsible, capable, ambitious, and worthy.
For women, the equation is often even more complicated due to entrenched gender norms. We’re expected to excel professionally while remaining generous partners, attentive parents, dependable friends, engaged community members, and caretakers of countless invisible responsibilities. The standard isn’t simply to succeed. It’s to do it all, make it look effortless, and somehow never disappoint anyone.
A Question About Worth, Not Productivity
The question, “Am I working hard enough?” is actually a thinly disguised question about self-worth: If I slow down, choose differently, or define success on my own terms, will it be enough? Will I be enough?
Productivity can’t answer those questions because they’re not questions about productivity. They’re questions about worth.
Before deciding how we should work, we have to decide what we’re working toward.
Before deciding how hard to work, get clear on what you’re working toward:
What kind of life and world am I trying to create?
How much income do I actually need?
How much time do I want for relationships, health, learning, and rest?
What kind of work energizes me, and what simply keeps me busy?
What impact do I want to have?
Once those questions become clearer, “working hard enough” becomes a strategic question rather than an emotional one. Instead of asking whether I’m measuring up to others, I’m asking whether my effort is moving me toward the life I’m intentionally trying to create.
Choosing Our Own Standard
You don’t choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be.
We don’t get to choose all the standards by which the world judges us, and those standards are far from equal. We do, however, have the agency to decide which of those standards we will adopt as our own. That choice shapes not only how hard we work, but why we work, and to what end.
With a clear vision, comparison is no longer the reference point. I’m no longer asking whether my life resembles someone else’s. I’m asking whether my effort is consistent with the life I’m intentionally trying to create.
Try This
If you’ve been asking yourself whether you’re working hard enough, I’d encourage you to answer a different question first.
Take ten minutes to describe the life you’re intentionally trying to create. Be specific.
What do you want your work to make possible?
How much income do you actually need?
What role do you want relationships, health, learning, rest, contribution, and joy to play?
What goals naturally follow from that vision?
Then complete this sentence:
I know I’m working hard enough when…
Let your answer come from the life you’re intentionally building. Let your goals determine your effort, not your insecurities or someone else’s definition of success.
OWN YOUR POWER · PRACTICE INTEGRITY · RISE TOGETHER
— Dr. Lee Ann De Reus, Founder