Well, that was a little longer break than expected.

In case you missed it, I bought a bookstore. And come to find out, starting a new business is INTENSE.

I am more than a little frazzled as I search for a routine, BUT it does put me in a good position to speak with insider knowledge on the topic of the week: Powering through.

You have probably heard (or employed) variants of it; “keep your head down,” “push harder,” “don’t stop.”

I have always found this kind of “encouragement” seductive because it feels like being disciplined and committed, AND for brief periods, it works. Note, I said it “feels” like discipline. If you who have worked with me or read my advice over the years, you know I am devoted to helping you dismantle your auto-reply to the demands of capitalism and colonizer thinking. Simply put: Learning to put your well-being before your compliance with demand.

“Just power through” offers plenty to dismantle. It is one of those insidious brands of advice that sounds valid but is ultimately peak colonizer mind: Progress should be continuous and visible. Luckily your experience has shown you that real progress is uneven, it comes it fits and starts and it often requires stepping sideways before moving forward.

If only we trusted our experience as much as the your work is your worth propaganda!

Sadly in working with academics week after week, project after project, I have seen that the culture of overwork in the academy insists that you ignore that experience. You are expected to treat resistance like an obstacle to bulldoze. If something feels slow, unclear, or draining, the expectation is that you will override it, working harder and longer until you “win.” Goodbye experience. Hello “PUSH THROUGH!”

Trust me when I say that your resistance is information. Information that you need to stop and listen long enough to discern whether it is telling you that the scope is off, or the direction is unclear, or that your energy for what you are working on has petered out, or the problem itself might be wrong.

Think about it. When you push through do you notice that things take longer that they should? Does your energy drain along with your clarity?  Are you solving symptoms, not root problems? When you power through, you mute that feedback loop, removing the solution that could actually make the work better. It’s like covering the “check engine” light with tape so you can keep driving!

Worst of all, pushing through creates a habit: When something feels off, push harder instead of pausing to ask why. As with all repeated behaviors, the habit compounds.

Luckily there is a solution; and it is basically the same: Do a behavior over and over, until it becomes a habit. Except this time choose one that serves you: Instead of pushing through, allow yourself to interrupt the cycle. Not with a dramatic reset. Just take a deliberate pause to reassess: Am I solving the right problem? Is this a skill gap, a clarity gap, or an energy gap? What would make the next step obvious instead of forced?

One quick note: We often think of discipline as endurance, but actually it’s more like awareness — knowing when to keep pushing and to change course. If you are just smashing ahead, you have no time to question whether the direction you are going is the right one. Anyone can grind, but not everyone everyone can truly listen, adjust, and then keep moving in a smarter fashion.

So, if you find yourself “powering through,” treat it as a flag, not a badge. Allow yourself the time to pause long enough to understand what’s actually happening. The goal isn’t to prove how much you can endure, it’s to build something that works.  That usually requires less force and more clarity than we think.