What Is Your Enough Number? The Question Every High Achiever Needs to Answer
There's a word we almost never say out loud in business, in personal finance or in life (unless there’s a child making an obscene amount of noise in close proximity. In which case, you might find yourself unintentionally yelling it. Moving swiftly along…).
That word is: Enough.
We know the word exists, of course. But somewhere along the lines we've all quietly absorbed a belief that saying it is the same as giving up. That deciding you have ‘enough’ is somehow a betrayal of ambition. A ceiling placed by someone who couldn't hack it. I want to challenge that.
The Conversation that started this
I was chatting with a friend over a glass of wine as we cleaned up the remnants of dinner while our husbands bathed the kids. Precious time between two girlfriends trying update each other on all of life’s happenings. IYKYK.
This friend of mine runs a business that employs in excess 120 people across multiple sites. Significant by any measure, right? The topic was motherhood, life design and ambition. She said,
"sometimes I can't help but think how much bigger this business could be if it had a founder who wasn't so intent on also being a mummy".
Her tone suggested that she was letting her business down in some way. She wasn't asking me to solve it. She was just carrying it. That quiet, relentless question: am I doing enough?
My response was simple: How much bigger do you need it to be? How big is big enough? And I say that not to suggest you need to limit yourself, but so that you have permission to rest. To know when to pat yourself on the back. To decide what is simply enough.
In the same week I found myself chatting with a founder that I coach who had set herself significant financial targets for her service business. Revenue goals that were, by her own admission, stretch targets. She had based the numbers on what she expected she would otherwise be earning had she not “given up the corporate life”. She admitted they were not entirely realistic given she works part time and the numbers were based on a full time salary.
Nevertheless here's what happened: the targets stopped being a guide and became a verdict. When she missed them even slightly the story she told herself was not "I'm building something of my own and doing a darn good job" - it was "I'm not good enough."Missing it meant she needed to do more. More clients, more gigs, more collaborations. All in less hours with less resources than she had in her previous corporate role.The question we came back to was this: do you really need to hit these numbers? What's the income level that means you're safe? Not rich. Not retired. Not equal to your former self. Just safe. Pay your bills, invest in your super, enjoy your lifestyle.
It was significantly less.
What if she just focused on that number for now? Not forever. Just for now. The answer: she had a much stronger chance of feeling successful. In fact, she regularly hit that number. And wouldn’t it feel nice to celebrate yourself instead of constantly feeling like you’re not good enough?
Another client I recently worked with had navigated a significant financial loss. An investment that didn't work out. A redundancy that arrived at exactly the wrong time. The family had to downsize their home. The shame of that sat heavily on him.
He had spent the following years in survival mode, running hard toward an undefined idea of needing "more money." Not a number. Not a specific goal. Just more. And more never came, because it couldn't - it had no shape.
Through our work together, we got specific. What did enough actually look like? For him it was clear: own his home outright, and hold sufficient assets to generate $300,000 in annual passive income by the time he retired.
When we mapped his current trajectory against that goal, he sat back in silence.
He was already on track… Already. On. Track.
All that time exhausting himself with a worry that he was ‘behind’ and wouldn’t ‘make it’ to a destination that he was actually on track for. The shame, the risk-taking, the relentless pressure - none of it was necessary. He simply didn't know, because he had never defined what enough was.
Why we’re wired to chase more
There's real science behind why defining ‘enough’ is so hard.
Psychologists call it the hedonic treadmill - the observed human tendency to return to a relatively stable emotional baseline regardless of what we achieve or acquire. We get the raise. We feel the rush. Then we adapt. And the goal shifts upward. The goalposts don't move because we're greedy. They move because that's how our delightful human brains are built.
The research of Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that beyond a certain income threshold, additional money has diminishing returns on day-to-day emotional wellbeing. (Note: the value of that threshold has been updated in more recent research and varies significantly by context. It’s the principle that matters here, not a specific dollar figure.)
Add to that what psychologist Barry Schwartz identified in The Paradox of Choice: the more options we hold open, the more anxious and dissatisfied we become. He draws a distinction between maximisers - people who need to find the very best option - and satisficers - people who define their standards and stop when those standards are met. His research consistently found that satisficers are happier, less stressed, and more decisive. Not because they settled. Because they chose.
Defining "enough" is the financial version of becoming a “satisficer”.
The rich life and the enough life
Much of my work with clients starts with a deceptively simple question: if money were no issue, what would your life look like?
I call it the Rich Life exercise. And it's not about living in fantasy - it's about giving clients permission to dream. Permission to want things. To say them out loud. To stop editing your own desires before they've had a chance to breathe.
What happens almost every time when we sit with the answers and we get specific, when we pull apart what a client actually wants versus what they think they should want, when we strip away the noise - the status, the comparison, the podcast-fuelled benchmarks - what people describe is rarely the excess.
It's the enough.
The couple whose rich life turns out to be dinner together most nights and one international trip a year. The solopreneur whose rich life is a practice that pays well and has her at school drop-off every morning. The man whose rich life doesn't include a penthouse - it includes owning his home outright and never worrying about paying a mortgage again.
The rich life exercise doesn't end in extravagance. It ends in clarity. And what it almost always reveals is that the number you actually need - the one where life genuinely feels full - it’s the enough number. Not the excess. Not the theoretical ceiling. Just enough.
That's where we build from.
What we get wrong about ‘enough’
Defining ‘enough’ is not a prescription to shrink. It is not a ceiling. It is not settling. It’s not something you should fear.
It simply a foundation.
When you know what ‘enough’ looks like, you can build above it with intention rather than anxiety. Every dollar beyond ‘enough’ is a choice, not a compulsion. Every hour worked beyond the ‘enough’ threshold is an investment, not a survival response.
And let me tell you, there is a real difference in the experience between growing because you want to and running because you're afraid to stop.
Defining ‘enough’ gives you the clarity to know which one you're doing.
I want you to sit with this question
We live in a world that always celebrates more. More revenue. More reach. More followers. More optimised. The noise is relentless and the measuring sticks are freaking everywhere.
But here's what I've observed across years of coaching: the majority of people never sit down and clearly defined their enough. Not a vague destination of "financial freedom". An actual number. An actual picture of the day, the life you want to lead.
So here's the question I want to leave you with:
If you had enough - financially, professionally, personally - what would that actually look like?
Have a go at answering it. No, seriously, have a go at answering it. Entertain the concept for just a moment.
When you can answer that question clearly I promise you that something profound happens. The comparison and anxiety quiets. The choices to be made sharpen. And you might just discover that you're already closer than you think to the life that feels truly rich.
This is the kind of work I do with clients every day - not just the numbers, but the story behind the numbers. If you're ready to define your enough and build from there, I'd love to work with you. You can find out more about my coaching programs at betsywestcott.com/coaching.