The rule of thirds: What is the right percentage to feel overwhelmed in your job?

I had a good conversation with a mentee looking to change roles. He was very comfortable in his current role, and clearly a high performer. His fear was that going into a new role will be disruptive to his career, and his well-being. This begs the question “how overwhelmed should you feel in your job?”. As you continue to develop your expertise, you need to continually push yourself hard. How hard?

The most you can do is to use the rule of thirds for that if you are in a high-performance role (if you are an entrepreneur, or generate a lot of internal innovation). But modify your percentages accordingly, depending on your job and aspirations.

1. A percentage of the time you should feel great. You made great progress and compared with “the you” of last year you’ve learned a lot, you have great relationships, and you produced some really high-quality work with great business value. Your users are happy with the product and the features, and occasionally they will send a nice note to you. You see case studies that use your products, tools, or services, and there is pride in the organization on these results. This is the proverbial “walk in the park”, where your expertise shows up immediately and you are seen as a water-walker.
2. Another part of your workday you should feel good. You work hard, there are many issues, and the trenches are muddy. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and you see 70% of the work moving toward the first category and 30% that you will need to completely rethink, or run harder to get it done. In fitness, this is your aerobic zone, you can go like this for months.
3. At most, a third of the time you should feel overwhelmed. If you don’t have this area at all, you either avoid it and stopped innovating and pushing the envelope, or your goals need rethinking. Most importantly, you need to accept this state as part of growing and learning. Few successful people talk about this state, and prefer to give the lines of “do what you love” rather than “extending the core is painful and unpleasant”. This area is the one we would like to forget: failed projects, unhappy users, escalation calls, and relationships that turn sour. This is the anaerobic zone for fitness, consuming your glycogen, or your family time, friends, or health. You need it, but with care for the other parts of your life.

The reality is that you cannot have the first set without the last. If you mostly live in the second category, maybe your goals are not that challenging. If you spend too much on the third, your life will spin out of control very quickly, and you need to seek balance.

Would love your comments and builds on the percentages. What was the maximum “anaerobic” percentage and how did you cope?