The hidden danger of hyperproductivity: How I sabotaged myself with action

An honest look at how launching too many products too fast sabotaged my business and how slowing down, simplifying, and focusing on what matters rebuilt everything.

Hi,

Most people sabotage themselves through inaction. They dream but never start. They talk but never ship. The blank page beats them. The market intimidates them, so they freeze.

That’s certainly the story we’re told, right? But what if your failure isn’t because you’re too slow… but because you’re too fast?

I didn’t sabotage myself by waiting. I sabotaged myself by launching. Relentlessly. Obsessively. Blindly. In the past 36 months, I had 31 launches. That’s nearly one launch every five weeks.

I had even more if you count relaunching things, and even more than that if you count partner launches for anthologies and the like. That looks impressive on paper. The spreadsheets were full. The calendar was packed. Revenue was coming in. I was proud.

But like…was it worth it?

If you had peeked into my world at any point during those three years, you’d think: “Wow, this person is killing it.”

But under the hood? Total chaos.

I was sprinting from project to project without ever looking back. Launching was my way of avoiding stillness and panic. Of not sitting with what I had just made. Of not asking the terrifying question did this even matter?

I said yes to everything, and I finished it all with time to spare. I could have taken on even more…but velocity without direction is just spinning.

But your customers only have so much money. So much attention. So much trust set aside for you. If someone decides to spend $50 on you in a year, that doesn’t change just because you launched more things. It just means that money gets spread thinner.

And every launch costs you.

I thought I was multiplying my income. Really, I was multiplying my expenses. Yes, we made more revenue, but I didn’t make more profit when I made $400k than I did when I made $100k.

I took home about the same, but with 10x the complexity, 10x the customer service, and 10x the fulfillment needs.

And complexity? Complexity is expensive. Customers were confused, we lost the narrative, and frankly, the launches suffered for it. I had so much going on, but in 2020 I had about 2,500 unique customers, and in 2024 I had about 3,000, even though we had 2-3x the launches.

It just wasn’t moving the needle like I wanted, and nothing was breaking through…except for the one product that we rarely talked about and just let grow.

Yet, I kept launching.

Because launching felt like progress and finishing projects felt like progress. Like movement. Like certainty. But while it felt like I was delivering all those things, really my productivity was its own type of chaos.

Your audience wants consistency. They want to follow a clear, compelling story. They want to know what you stand for, what you make, and why they should care, but when you’re always launching, always switching gears, always introducing something new, you become noise.

You stop being a trusted guide. You become just another carnival barker.

I could feel it in my rcustomer base. The once-enthusiastic replies started fading. Clicks dropped. Open rates dipped. People weren’t angry. They were just... tired.

And honestly? So was I.

Whenever I’m stressed out, my instinct is to do something. Anything. Launch a new product, plan a new webinar, outline a new series. Activity makes me feel safe. It gives the illusion of control, like if I just keep moving, I won’t fall apart.

But I’ve learned the hard way that’s a false sense of security.

Some of the best things I’ve ever created didn’t come from a flurry of activity. They came from stillness. From waiting. From letting an idea simmer past the point of anxiety. From sitting in silence long enough to hear what I actually wanted to say.

But silence is uncomfortable. It makes you question your worth. It makes you doubt your direction. And when you’re used to tying your value to output, silence feels like failure.

So I filled the quiet with noise. And I called it strategy.

I used action as avoidance.

There was a kind of safety in motion. As long as I was moving, I didn’t have to confront the deeper fears: What if nothing I made was truly valuable? What if I had to choose just one direction? What if I slowed down and people stopped caring?

Slowing down meant facing the silence. And I wasn’t ready for that.

So I kept going. Kept finishing. Kept building.

Everyone kept telling me how impressive my output was. “You’re a machine!” “I don’t know how you do it all!”

But eventually, that identity became a cage. I felt like I had to keep launching. That if I slowed down, I’d lose everything. That people only liked me because of how much I produced.

I wasn’t performing at a high level. I was surviving at high speed.

Last year, we brought in over $400,000 in revenue.

On paper, a banner year. But once the dust settled and the accounting was closed, you know what was left?

The remnants of a broken company that never took off the way we wanted and a bunch of confused people asking what happened.

So, I’m changing the narrative. I’m now learning to live in silence, and let things breathe. Instead of launching a hundred things, I’m moving to launch a couple things well, and focus on the things that matter most.

It felt weird at first. Like I was underworking. But you know what? Not much has changed, except the space in my life.

Not only do I have time to breathe, but so does my audience. Doing nothing can kill your dreams, but doing everything might kill them just as fast.

The truth is you don’t need to be everywhere. You don’t need to launch every month. You don’t need 30 products.

You need one product that matters. You need a story that resonates. You need a system that holds.

You need to go deeper, not faster.

Because your dreams aren’t waiting on the next launch. They’re waiting on you to slow down enough to see them clearly.

And that starts by saying no to chaos. And yes to what truly matters.

That starts with you.

Sitting still. Listening. Choosing.

And finally, building something that lasts.

If this story sounds familiar, don’t panic. But do get honest.

• Are you launching to grow your business or to avoid stillness?

• Are you scaling chaos or building clarity?

• Does your audience know your story or just your catalog?

This sound like you, sound off in the comments.