There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to control everything. I’m not talking about physical tiredness—though that’s often part of it—but rather the mental weight of believing that if you just work a little harder, plan a little better, anticipate one more problem, you can prevent anything from going wrong.But here’s what I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way: there is a limit to how much work you can do. And once you’ve reached it, you have to let the chips fall where they may.
The Myth of Infinite Capacity
We live in a culture that celebrates hustle, that treats sleep as optional and boundaries as weakness. We’re told that success belongs to those who want it badly enough, who are willing to outwork everyone else. And while there’s truth to the value of dedication and effort, this narrative conveniently ignores a fundamental reality: you are human, and human capacity has limits.You can work 60, 70, 80 hours a week for a while. You can survive on caffeine and adrenaline. You can ignore the voice in your head telling you to slow down. But eventually, those chickens come home to roost. Your work suffers. Your health suffers. Your relationships suffer. And ironically, all that extra effort starts yielding diminishing returns.
The Illusion of Control
Part of what drives us to overwork is the belief that more effort equals more control. If we just try harder, we think, we can prevent the bad outcome. We can make sure everything goes perfectly. We can avoid disappointment, failure, or criticism.But so much of life is simply outside our control. You can prepare meticulously for a presentation, and the technology will fail. You can craft the perfect proposal, and someone else’s budget will get cut. You can pour your heart into a project, and the market will shift. You can do everything right, and things will still go wrong sometimes.This isn’t pessimism—it’s reality. And accepting it is strangely liberating.
The Art of Letting Go
Learning to let the chips fall doesn’t mean giving up or not caring. It means recognizing when you’ve done enough. It means understanding the difference between reasonable effort and self-destructive perfectionism.It means asking yourself: Have I done my due diligence? Have I made a genuine effort? Have I given this the attention it reasonably deserves given everything else on my plate? If the answer is yes, then it’s time to step back and accept that the outcome isn’t entirely in your hands.
Sometimes the chips will fall your way. Sometimes they won’t. And often, you’ll find that the catastrophe you were killing yourself to prevent wasn’t actually a catastrophe at all.
What Actually Matters
When you’re in the thick of it, everything feels urgent. Everything feels like it demands your immediate and total attention. But zoom out a bit, and you’ll see that most things we stress about simply don’t matter in the long run.What does matter? Your health. Your relationships. Your sense of self. Your ability to sustain your effort over time rather than burning out spectacularly.The email you didn’t send at 11 PM? It can wait until morning. The project that’s good but not perfect? It’s probably fine. The potential problem you can’t solve without sacrificing your weekend? Maybe it won’t even materialize.
Permission to Be Human
If you’re reading this and feeling the weight of too much work, too many expectations, too many balls in the air, consider this your permission slip: You are allowed to have limits. You are allowed to say “I’ve done what I can.” You are allowed to let some things be less than perfect.The world will not end. In fact, you might find that it keeps spinning just fine.Do your work. Do it well. But also know when to stop, take a breath, and trust that whatever happens next, you’ll handle it. Because you’ve always handled it before, and you will again.
Sometimes, letting the chips fall is the bravest thing you can do.
