Everyone nods when you say we can’t have everything. Then they immediately try to have everything.
The problem isn’t understanding trade-offs conceptually, but refusing to accept them operationally. People treat trade-offs like theoretical wisdom that applies to other people’s decisions, not theirs.
At WordReward, clients want premium creative work, budget pricing, fast turnaround, and guaranteed outcome. When I explain that’s four incompatible goals, they agree in principle. Then ask: “But can’t we just work harder and make it happen?”
We’re treating the trade-off like a puzzle to solve rather than a choice to make. We think if we’re clever enough or persistent enough, we can optimize our way around the sacrifice. We can’t.
Fake Strategy vs Real Strategy
Most strategic decisions aren’t strategic. Real strategy requires eliminating options permanently. Fake strategy preserves optionality while pretending to choose.
We’ll focus on premium clients, sounds strategic. But if our pricing still allows budget projects, we haven’t made a trade-off, we’ve made a preference. And preferences collapse under pressure. Worse: premium clients can smell the hesitation. They know we’ll discount when desperate, so they negotiate harder. Budget clients expect premium effort because our positioning says premium. We end up delivering premium work at budget prices, the worst of both worlds.
The ADHD Perfectionism Trap
I want deep strategic work on WordReward, responsive client communication, business development, and strict working supervision. I know intellectually I can’t have all four. But I keep optimizing my calendar, refining systems, improving efficiency, as if the problem is execution, not mathematics.
Choosing feels like failure. Picking Option A and sacrificing Option B feels like admitting I’m not good enough to have both. ADHD amplifies this, perfectionism disguises itself as high standards. I’m not being unrealistic. I just refuse to settle.
But this isn’t high standards. It’s refusing to make the trade-off.
When I committed to structural trade-offs, I hired the junior dentist so I couldn’t take routine cases back, set contract terms that physically limit revisions, blocked mornings from client calls, the decisions stopped being daily negotiations. I don’t resist routine dental cases because I have discipline. I resist because someone else is literally paid to do it.
Why This Hurts
Trade-offs feel like losing. You’re not focusing on premium clients, you’re rejecting revenue. You’re not prioritizing deep work, you’re ignoring emails. The cost is immediate and tangible. The benefit is delayed and hypothetical.
This is why people fake strategic choices. They announce the decision publicly, then privately preserve the escape hatch. We focus on premium clients… but we’ll make exceptions for strategic opportunities. That second clause destroys the entire trade-off.
Real strategic choices are uncomfortable permanently. If it stops hurting after two weeks, you didn’t make a real trade-off, you made a preference that happened to align with circumstances.
The test: Can you reverse this decision easily? If yes, it’s not strategic. Strategic trade-offs require destroying bridges, not just choosing not to cross them today.
When WordReward eliminated budget-tier pricing, we lost inquiries immediately. That hurt. But premium clients stopped seeing us as flexible, they saw us as premium. The trade-off compounded. You can’t have both budget clients and premium positioning. Trying to keep both destroys both.
Strategy isn’t choosing what you want. It’s choosing what you’re willing to lose.
Tags: strategy decision-making ADHD perfectionism WordReward trade-offs
Internal links: Structural Decisions vs Motivational Ones • Strategy Over Tactics • ADHD and Systems
