He Didn’t Need More KPIs — He Needed More Clarity.
It happened to him, he started like many high-performer stories do: Sharp. Driven. Trusted.
Let’s call him Dave.
He wasn’t just hitting KPIs—he was setting new benchmarks for everyone else.
From the outside, everything made sense.
But inside, things weren’t lining up.
He described it as “driving fast in the wrong direction.”
It wasn’t burnout. Not yet.
But it wasn’t alignment either.
When we first sat down for coaching, he didn’t ask for less work.
He asked for more clarity.
“I’ve built momentum,” he said. “But I can’t tell if it’s taking me somewhere I still want to go.”
The Over performance Trap
In high-achieving environments, over performance gets rewarded.
And that’s the problem.
Many leaders build a system that celebrates effort, not essence.
The better they play the game, the harder it becomes to question if the game still matters.
Overperformance often disguises itself as:
Internal dissonance, Fear of pausing, lack of permission to realign, unspoken identity shifts.
Dave, he wasn’t just driving metrics—he was distracting himself.
From questions that scared him.
From values that shifted while he wasn’t looking. He was becoming somebody he could no longer recognise.
Coaching Insight: GROWing Into Clarity
We used the GROW model not to fix his performance, but to realign it.
Goal: Not more KPIs. More clarity. More congruence.
Reality: Everyone said he was crushing it. He felt crushed.
Options: What if clarity meant rebalancing—not resigning?
Will: The first shift was small: blocking time to think, not react.
This wasn’t about underperformance.
It was about performance with purpose.
And clarity wasn’t a lightbulb.
It was a conversation—with himself.
The Cost of Misalignment
When leaders don’t pause to check for internal clarity, they: Build success structures they secretly resent and worse still they set the tone for teams to follow suit.
Delaying the course-correction that costs far less now than it will later.
He actually wasn’t stuck, he like many others, were simply over-invested in an outdated version of himself.
Identity Reframe: Not Broken—Just Misaligned
There’s nothing wrong with performing at a high level.
But the question is: does your performance still reflect your purpose?
He thought he was drifting.
In truth, he was evolving faster than his strategy could keep up.
That’s not a failure. That’s in fact — growth.
Final Thoughts
You don’t need more KPIs to feel fulfilled. You just need more clarity, and alignment.
So if you find yourself in a spot where you need to get the next breakthrough, just know that clarity helps you choose the right game, not just play it well.
Because at the top, performance isn’t the problem. Misalignment is with your deep and true purpose is.
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