When Urgency Goes Overdrive

Peter Assad
Jul 7
3 min read

Big idea: What happens when your greatest strength starts to steer you off course

Urgency is powerful.

If you’re wired for urgency in the Creative Compass system, it means you thrive on momentum. You love a deadline. You’re the one people call when things need to move. You don’t just act—you act now.

But sometimes, urgency doesn’t just show up.

It takes over.

When Urgency Becomes Overdrive

At your best, your urgency keeps things on track.

In overdrive, it pushes things off cliffs.

That shift can happen so subtly, it's difficult to notice until it’s too late. Maybe it starts with one more tweak before launch. Maybe you stay up way too late “just to finish.” Maybe you start resenting teammates who “don’t move fast enough.”

Sound familiar?

Here’s what over-urgent behavior often looks like:

• Rushing for the sake of motion—even when things aren’t ready.

• Cutting corners or overriding people to “just get it done.”

• Last-minute reworking, because everything suddenly feels wrong.

• Mistaking adrenaline for alignment—thinking “I’m in the zone,” when really you’re spiraling.

• Ignoring your own warning signs—fatigue, frustration, tunnel vision.

This isn’t the urgency that helps you thrive.

It’s the kind that wears you down—and warps your work.

Why It Happens

Urgency-wired types often feel safest in motion.

Speed becomes a coping mechanism:

• “If I keep moving, I won’t fall behind.”

• “If I slow down, things might fall apart.”

• “The more urgent I feel, the more responsible I must be.”

But that mindset creates a trap. When pressure increases—looming deadlines, messy teams, unclear outcomes—you don’t dial urgency down. You double down. Even if you’re already moving fast, your brain whispers:

“Faster. Now. Or else.”

And just like that, urgency becomes overdrive.

The Pendulum Effect

Here’s the irony: after running in overdrive too long, your system crashes—and you may find yourself swinging hard in the opposite direction.

You hit a wall.

You numb out.

You suddenly can’t move at all.

This doesn’t mean you’ve changed types or lost your edge.

It means your urgency ran out of fuel.

You’re not lazy. You’re overheated.

That swing—from overdrive to burnout—is the body’s way of forcing rest when we won’t choose it ourselves.

The Creative Compass View

If you’re a Conductor, Engineer, Forger, or Producer, urgency is your natural lane. But that doesn’t mean more urgency is always better.

In fact, when urgency starts driving the bus, you may:

• Act more like a different archetype altogether (e.g., a team-conscious Conductor might show up like a Forger—solo, sharp-edged, and all-out pioneering output).

• Miss the balancing gifts of your other two traits (such as collaboration, process, or vision).

• Lose the very people and practices that make your urgency worth it!

The Creative Compass doesn’t ask you to mute your urgency.

It asks you to anchor it.