I don’t know what it is lately, but I keep seeing stories of people my age — or younger — getting sick. Dying. Cancer. Sudden diagnoses. Things that don’t fit the timeline we’ve quietly agreed on. James Van Der Beek’s passing today was yet another in what seems like a never ending list of people I know of or follow who have passed way before their time.

And every time I see it, there’s this moment.

Not panic.

Not fear.

Just this quiet internal question:

What are we actually doing with our time?

Because if I’m honest — and maybe you’ll feel this too — most of us live like time is expandable.

We talk about “when I retire.”

“When the business is stable.”

“When the kids are older.”

“When I’ve hit this next milestone.”

Entrepreneurs are especially good at this.

We know how to grind and we are exceptionally good at continually moving the goal posts when we meet a previous goal.

But somewhere along the way, that discipline turns into postponement.

And postponement becomes a lifestyle.

To be quite honest with you this has hit me personally twice in the last 5 years. A sudden personal loss and the resulting gut punch of “I missed time with this being while I built a business with the hope of one day having all of the time”.

This time feels incredibly different. And I’m taking big action on it.

 

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When Productivity Becomes Identity

There’s a very specific trap ambitious people fall into.

We’re rewarded for output early in life, even if simply recognition from parents, coaches, and teachers. I know for myself I was pushed that it was A +, Championship ribbons, first place or nothing. This wasn’t just in school but every sport or hobby I took on.

There’s an all too real meme going around and it goes like this:

 

Guilty.

But here’s why that joke hits so hard.

Because many of us were rewarded early for performance. For output. For being capable. For holding it together. For achieving. For masking (ADHD’ers).

And when you’re praised for being productive long enough, productivity, perfectionism, and achievement stops being something you do. It becomes who you are.

That’s the trap.

Not ambition.

Not work ethic.

Identity.

When productivity becomes identity, slowing down feels like losing yourself. Yet, it is in losing ourselves that we finally find who we really are.

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The Myth of “One Day”

For years, my husband and I have been building what I have dreamed about since I was a child: A farm animal sanctuary.

A beautiful farm in Ontario. Rescue animals. Land. Space. The dream, technically.

And yet — over the last three and a half years — I’ve had this uncomfortable realization.

I built the life.

And then I became too busy sustaining it to actually enjoy it.

The property is beautiful. The animals are everything. But the cost of maintaining it here means constant pressure. Constant output. Constant scaling.

And somewhere along the way, I caught myself saying:

“In a couple years, I’ll slow down.”

“Once revenue stabilizes, I’ll rest.”

“When things are more secure, I’ll write the book.”

“When we’ve hit X, I’ll breathe.”

But that moment never arrives.

Because the target moves.

Psychology calls this hedonic adaptation — we normalize each new level of achievement almost immediately. What once felt extraordinary becomes baseline. The next milestone replaces it. And then the next.

You climb. You adjust. You climb again.

Combine this with an identity, forged in the fires of a “gifted child” with “so much potential” and a dash of undiagnosed ADHD what you really want vs what you have been conditioned to want starts to blur.

Yet, I’ve faced that climbing isn’t the same as living.

And that realization hit hard enough that we started asking a different question:

What if we didn’t need to scale more? What if we needed to scale back?

So now we’re looking at moving across the country. A larger property for a fraction of the cost. Less financial pressure. Less constant output. More space to actually live inside the life we’re building.

I realized more than ever I don’t want the massive business. I don’t want hundreds of clients in each program. I don’t want staff.

Through a lot of deconditioning and a bit of the universe hitting me over the head I’ve realized instead of speeding up I want to slow down. And I’ve wanted it most of my life yet equated slowing down with laziness.

The recent loss of both cherished celebrities and those closer to me made me realize: There is a myth of “one day” and I’m tired of trading my right nows for a future that isn’t promised.

 

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Are You Building What You Want — Or Cashing Ego Checks?

This is the part most high performers don’t want to confront.

Are you pursuing goals that genuinely light you up?

Or are you cashing ego checks that your soul is quietly going bankrupt trying to keep up with?

Revenue can become a scorecard.

Visibility can become validation.

Scaling can become proof.

But proof of what?

That you’re enough?

That you’re capable?

That you matter?

If your goals disappeared tomorrow — if no one could see them — would you still want the life or business you’re building?

Or, asked how my husband asked me: “If we do move and you don’t have the pressure would you still do what you do?”

That question will expose everything, as it did for me.

 

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When Productivity Becomes a Spiritual Bypass

There’s something almost poetic about how many “gifted” kids grow into anxious adults who can’t rest.

We were taught that excellence equals worth.

So we optimize everything — including our healing.

Even our spiritual journeys become projects.

But what if purpose isn’t something you perform?

What if it’s something you inhabit?

The older I get, the more I resonate with the idea — echoed in the work of Stephen Jenkinson — that death isn’t morbid to consider. It’s clarifying.

Not in a dramatic, 365-day countdown way.

But in a sober way.

Time is finite.

Not theoretically. Practically.

And when you really let that land, something shifts.

You stop asking, “How far can I climb?”

And start asking, “Is this where I actually want to be?”

 

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This Isn’t About Burning It Down

This isn’t anti-ambition. I feel in the last few years we have oscillated between hustle harder and anti ambition. I am neither. I believe we all have a unique path that we are meant to be living out with neither end of the spectrum representing it fully.

Some people are deeply alive in the build. In the stretch. In the expansion. That is their path.

But many people are building out of momentum, not desire.

They’re maintaining an identity that once made sense — but no longer fits.

And the scariest part of recalibration isn’t loss of income.

It’s loss of identity.

If I’m not the high performer… who am I?

If I’m not scaling… am I shrinking?

If I’m not climbing… am I failing?

Or am I finally choosing?

 

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The Real Wake-Up

The productivity trap disguised as purpose doesn’t announce itself.

It feels responsible. Mature. Strategic.

It feels like…. you. Because it was for so long.

Until you realize you’ve deferred the parts of yourself that feel most alive to “one day.”

And one day is not guaranteed.

So the question I’m sitting with — and maybe you are too — isn’t:

“What’s my grand calling?”

It’s:

If my purpose was simply to be me, and live a fulfilling life, what would I adjust starting now?

Would I write more?

Rest more?

Scale less?

Simplify?

Relocate?

Speak more honestly?

Would I finally stop building a life I admire… and start building one I actually enjoy?

That’s not dramatic.

It’s… human.

And maybe that’s what real purpose looks like.

As Ra Uru Hu once said: Do without doing & everything gets done.

I hope this landed with the right person. If it did know you aren’t alone and please know there is no end goal. Perfecting the healing process very easily creeps into our healing journey where we judge ourselves, or others, for how far along we are.

This is a life long journey. Relax and enjoy the ride.

ashley

[email protected]

https://www.ashleybrianaeve.com/