“I only work when it’s on fire” — sound familiar?
Pressure isn’t the fuel. It’s the filter.
“I only seem to function when everything is on fire.”
This is a sentence I hear often — sometimes said with frustration, sometimes with dark humor, sometimes almost with pride:
It usually comes after someone describes weeks of stalled progress… followed by a frantic push right be
fore a deadline.
Or after they admit they’ve been avoiding something important — until the consequences became impossible to ignore.
What’s striking isn’t just how common this moment is.
It’s how coherent it feels from the inside.
“That’s just how I work best.”
When everything is on fire, things finally seem to make sense.
I so appreciate your ability to identify and point out the "gentler" approach. It makes a huge difference to actually tackling these issues and it might just be your superpower. 🤩