I’m back.

I took a month’s break from LinkedIn.

After posting very frequently for a year, it was starting to feel like a chore. And the less fun I was having, the less the words seemed to flow.

So I stopped.

The break has been refreshing. It’s given me a chance to think, read, reflect, and spend a little less time wondering whether each half-formed idea might make a decent LinkedIn post.

But over the past couple of days, quite a few people reached out asking if I was OK. They’d noticed my absence and wondered where I’d gone.

At the same time, I’d been thinking about whether it was time to start posting again.

I took that as a sign. So here goes…

This experience got me thinking: What happens when success becomes obligation?

Many of the things we initially love start that way in part because they are voluntary.
We choose them.
They energise us.
We feel a sense of curiosity and possibility.

But over time, something changes.

The business we loved building becomes a machine that needs feeding.
The leadership role we aspired to starts feeling like a burden.
The passion project becomes another item on the to-do list.

Psychologists sometimes refer to this as the “Overjustification Effect”. Research suggests that when activities become associated with external expectations, obligations, or rewards, our intrinsic motivation can begin to decline.
What once felt like a joyful choice can start feeling like a chore.

I see this in my coaching work.

 One founder I work with has built a highly successful business that continues to grow year after year. From the outside, everything looks great. Yet privately he admitted, “I don’t know if I still enjoy it anymore. I’m finding it really difficult just to show up.”

Another client had spent twenty years climbing the corporate ladder. When she finally reached the executive role she’d dreamed of, she felt strangely flat. The achievement was real, but the excitement had disappeared.

The problem wasn’t that they were failing.
The problem was that success had become obligation.

In coaching, we rarely solve this by telling someone to work harder or become more disciplined.

Instead, we explore questions like:

What parts of your work still give you energy?
What parts are draining it?
What have you outgrown?
What have you stopped doing that once brought you joy?
If nobody expected anything from you, what would you choose to spend your time on?

Sometimes the answer is a major change.

More often, it’s a series of smaller adjustments that reconnect people with what mattered in the first place or matters more now.

Which brings me back to LinkedIn.
I still enjoy writing.
I still enjoy sharing my ideas and experiences
I just needed a little space to remember why.

So I’m back. At least until it starts feeling like a chore again.