This question keeps more and more people (often performance-driven ones) up at night. We wonder if we could have done more, better, quicker. We wonder if we will be recognized for what we did.

We want to make sure that our career is on track, and we think that perhaps if we just do that one more thing it will push us further – next promotion, perhaps?

Often we do an extra mile, not because it’s expected by the organization we work for. More often, because insecurity driven habit.

There are thousands of people obsessed with checking their inbox. They fall asleep checking it and they wake up doing same. The dramatic arise when they doing it when they wake up in the middle of the night. There’s no break, they are always ON.

This obsession is also driven by deep insecurity that something important was going to happen and that they wouldn’t respond in time to contribute meaningfully to the conversation.

It is bad behaviour that will not increase performance. It helps people feel wired-in and… needed.

People are more and more concerned about whether they were adding enough value to the company. They no longer work to live. But they live to work. And while many employers think that their team “don’t care”, they are driven crazy with making another extra mile.