I was talking with a client the other day about focus and motivation—two things that seem to be in short supply these days. He was frustrated that he couldn’t stick with a project long enough to really get it going. And I hear this a lot.
It’s not just him. More and more people are struggling to stay engaged, to follow through. It’s like our collective attention span has been run through a paper shredder. Many folks I talk to have some kind of ADHD diagnosis—doctor-approved, meds prescribed—and maybe that helps. But almost all of them report side effects they don’t love.
And I can’t help but wonder: what came first, the diagnosis or the lifestyle?
Because a lot of these same people are also glued to their phones. Scrolling, swiping, bouncing from screen to screen all day long.
We’ve built a culture around distraction—and now we’re surprised we can’t concentrate?
I’m 51. I didn’t grow up with a phone in my hand or a computer in my pocket. And I’m grateful for that. Because the longer I live, the more I realize how precious (and fragile) our time and attention really are.
And maybe that’s what I really want to talk about here: time. And how we use it. Or maybe how we abuse it.
A few years ago, my friend Scott Doorley told me about a family trip to Italy. Instead of trying to cram in every landmark and must-see destination, they did something totally un-American: they planned one thing a day. That’s it.
No rush. No checklist. No trying to “maximize” the trip.
And it worked. It made the whole vacation feel deeper, calmer, more connected.
That conversation has stayed with me. Because we do this thing—we fill our days to the brim. Tasks, meetings, workouts, to-dos, even our downtime gets scheduled and optimized. And we tell ourselves it’s productive. Efficient. Responsible.
But is it?
This came up again for me this morning. I was at the climbing gym, and after a while, I was completely gassed—arms useless, brain foggy. But I kept trying to squeeze in one more route. Telling myself I was building stamina, pushing through, “getting better.”
But maybe what I really needed was rest. Maybe that’s where the actual strength gets built—not in the doing, but in the recovery.
Even our hobbies, our exercise, our play—these things can become more “performance”. More striving. Another place to prove something to ourselves or someone else.
So why do we do this? If overscheduling is the symptom… what’s the deeper issue?
I don’t claim to have the definitive answer here, but in my own life—and in the lives of hundreds of people I’ve worked with in recovery and coaching—the thing that shows up most often is this:
“I’m not enough.”
Not strong enough. Not rich enough. Not cool enough. Not smart or successful or disciplined enough. And when we don’t feel like we’re enough, we overcompensate. We hustle. We pile on more. We try to prove something.
But here’s the truth: We are enough. We were born that way. There’s nothing to fix. Nothing to earn.
So what makes us feel otherwise? Comparison. Every time. We measure ourselves against curated Instagram lives, billionaires, ripped bodies, movie stars—and surprise: we come up short.
So how do we stop suffering like this?
I think it’s a two-part practice.
First, we stop comparing. Or at least notice when we are—and gently come back to reality.
Second, we remind ourselves—daily, if not hourly—that we are already enough.
As Shunryu Suzuki said:
“Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.”