In this week’s post, I reflect on what happens when excitement collides with reality. Somewhere in the middle, I stumbled on a perspective that shifted how I measure my own choices and had me rethinking how we define value in what we do.

DECEMBER 12, 2025

Some time ago, I was very excited to be part of a small group interested in planning a wellbeing event.

At first, this vision was for an online summit, but as we connected and exchanged ideas, it became clear that the desire was to have a real in-person event.

Especially after the pandemic, there was a tangible need for people to meet face-to-face again and we wanted to make that happen. We discussed various options, trying to decide on a country that would be accessible for attendees to travel to.

The location was also important, considering people would need to rent a car, take the train, or pay for an airport transfer to get to the event venue. A castle seemed like the best option.

Once we had nailed all that down, we began exploring the ticket capacity and speakers we would like to invite.

I worked tirelessly on this project for months. We had endless calls with the tourist boards, travel agencies, marketing agencies, the venue managers, caterers, and our internal team but as time ticked on, it became clear that we were running out of steam.

One team member had to bow out because the time commitment was too overwhelming. We were all still running our own businesses and this was an additional project we had taken on. Between family, work, and travel, it had simply become too much.

Another team member could hardly fit our team meetings into their busy schedule.

I was spending late nights and early mornings trying to stay organized but realized after several months that if we didn’t get more people to help us, this would be extremely difficult to organize.

It took more than a few weeks to catch up with the sleep deprivation from the past months. But after I started feeling somewhat normal again, an emptiness became apparent that scared me a little. I had invested so much time into this amazing project and all of a sudden there was nothing to show for it.

Along with the emptiness, I felt sadness and a distinct sense of failure at the fact that we hadn’t been able to get this project going.

I lay awake at night wondering if I put enough time in or if we should have done things differently. No matter how I looked at it, I came to the conclusion that with the available money and resources, the project would not have succeeded regardless of how much time we put in.

Much later and with the benefit of hindsight, I realized that “Impact per Effort” is a crucial concept I had not been aware of when I poured my life into the wellbeing project.

There is a ratio that marks a sweet spot in our lives and businesses when it comes to expending our resources. And this could include anything from our time and energy to money, tools, and lending our support to something. It is what we put into a project on all levels that counts as effort.

Here I asked myself what it actually took for me to get the project done.

The truth didn’t look good. Not only had I poured hundreds of free hours into the project, but the hours spent on it meant I didn’t spend them on my business. Looking back, that represented an actual financial deficit.

Next, I pondered the impact of my efforts. I thought about who this was meant to reach, how meaningful it would have been, and the sustainability of it.

The first two points were definitely exciting. Creating a wellbeing event for a global community that would spark connection, transformation, and a grass-roots wellbeing movement sounded like the ideal foundation for a project like that.

But, sustainability was another matter. It would have taken a lot of money and many more hours to create this momentum and if we wanted to repeat it again annually, that effort would have to be put in again and again.

In the end, my impact per effort meant that the project was high effort on my part and low impact overall, as we simply were not set up for a project that size. And that should have been a red flag to spend my time elsewhere.

Having said that, I don’t have any regrets. The project connected me with many incredible people and introduced me to ideas that became part of my business over the years. There is profound value in human connection and learning.

However, considering my ratios before I jump into a project has also saved me a lot of resources and time wasting when I thought about the impact per effort rather than just my excitement of a project.

I let go of the high effort / low impact projects and the low effort / low impact busywork because it steals my time and rarely produces anything of value to me.

Instead, I have focused on the low effort / high impact projects that create change and are sustainable over time. Sure, there are high effort / high impact projects that are absolutely worth it but I choose those very carefully now and with both eyes wide open.

What I have come to realize is that effort by itself may not be the best measure.

I wonder what the high-effort, low-impact spaces are in your life right now. Where are you saying yes because of enthusiasm, while overlooking the resources it will truly take? What might change if you measured the impact per effort before committing? And where might a small action create an outsized shift?

In a world where we try to do so much every day, maybe a small pause and a brief consideration of our impact per effort could give us back some of the time and resources we are investing every day.

Because in the end, I believe it isn’t effort that defines us. It’s what our effort makes possible.

www.thejorniblog.com