My coach said something recently that stopped me: "You're not giving the universe room to do its share of the work."

Not "you're doing too much." Not "you need to relax." Something more specific than that—you're taking up space that isn't yours to take.

the overdrive instinct

If you grew up in circumstances where not taking control meant not surviving, this will resonate. Uncertainty meant danger. Anything less than 100% effort felt reckless. Your nervous system learned a simple rule: if you're not in overdrive, you're at risk.

That instinct kept you alive. Maybe it got you through financial instability, a volatile home, seasons where no one was coming to help and you had to figure it out on your own. You pruned nothing—you grew every branch you could, because survival demanded it.

But survival mode doesn't have an off switch. It just keeps running, long after the danger has passed. And the cost is subtle: when your system is on overdrive all the time, it doesn't leave room for trust. Not trust in other people—trust in the process. Trust that good things can happen without you white-knuckling every outcome.

200% is not a flex

There's a widespread belief that putting in 110%, 200%, whatever inflated number—is always a good thing. Hustle culture celebrates it. But here's what I've learned: doing too much is its own kind of failure.

When you're doing more than your share, you're not just exhausting yourself. You're crowding out serendipity. You're filling every space where something unexpected and good could land. Your grip is so tight that nothing organic can grow around it.

Think about it like a garden. If you plant every square inch, nothing has room to spread. No wildflowers find their way in. No volunteer tomato plant shows up from a seed the wind carried. You get exactly what you planted—nothing more, nothing less. And sometimes the most beautiful things in a garden are the ones you didn't plan.

space is not passiveness

This is the part I want to be careful about, because it can sound like I'm advocating for doing nothing. I'm not.

There's a meaningful difference between passiveness and intentional surrender. Passiveness is abdicating responsibility. What I'm talking about is a guard against doing much more than you should or need to. It's recognizing that your share of the work is not all of the work.

When you trust yourself to figure things out, you don't need to architect every contingency. You can do your part—fully, with effort and care—and then step back. Let the universe, the divine, whatever you want to call it, fill in the rest. Not because you're lazy. Because that's how the best things actually work.

The best things that have happened in my life came when I was doing my part but not overdoing it. A conversation I didn't force. An opportunity that showed up because I had margin. A connection that formed in the space I left open.

Give the universe room to do its share. Otherwise you crowd it out—and you miss the very things you were working so hard to create.