You’ve adjusted, adapted, realigned, restructured — again and again. And now, you’re tired. Not just tired-tired. Existentially tired. Questioning-everything tired.
You’ve had more change in bosses than years in the industry. Your team changes shape every quarter. The roadmap you were handed last month? Already obsolete.
Sound familiar?
It’s easy to think something must be wrong when everything around you feels uncertain. Specifically, that the chaos means failure — of leadership, of planning, of direction.
But what if the instability isn’t a flaw in the system?
What if it’s part of the growth process?
A Lesson from Nature
Here’s a concept from ecology that explains more about your job than your org chart ever will:
The Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis.
In nature, the most diverse, resilient ecosystems don’t exist in calm, untouched conditions.
And they don’t survive constant disaster either.
They thrive under moderate, periodic disruption — just enough to shake things up, not enough to wipe everything out.
A fire clears dominant species, making room for new ones.
A storm knocks down a few trees, and suddenly sunlight reaches the forest floor.
Disturbance creates opportunity — but only if it’s manageable.
Too little change, and one species takes over.
Too much, and nothing has a chance to establish.
But in the middle? Things get interesting. Things grow.
That “middle” is where ecosystems evolve.
And — whether you like it or not — it’s where you are.
What If This Is Just the Middle?
When everything at work starts shifting — new leadership, changing priorities, roles in flux — it’s easy to label it chaos.
To assume something must be broken. To start looking for the exit.
And sometimes? That instinct is right.
Not all disruption is healthy.
Toxic leadership, chronic burnout, directionless thrashing — that’s not evolution. That’s erosion. (See: How to Deal with a Bad Boss)
But here’s the paradox:
When everything looks great — when the status quo is working just fine for those in charge — change rarely happens.
The people with power aren’t usually inspired to make room.
Ideas don’t get airtime. New voices don’t get invited in.
Some change is uncomfortable — but in the mess it leaves behind, we sometimes find the chance to build something better.
So ask yourself:
Is this dysfunction? Or is this disturbance — the kind that leads to something better?
What This Looks Like in Real Life
I’ve been handed those situations — the ones no one wants.
The ones that have been mismanaged for too long, where expectations are high, and clarity is nonexistent.
Where you’re not set up to succeed — just expected to not let it fail.
On paper, it looks like autonomy.
But really, it’s abandonment with a deadline.
And yet… that’s often where the real growth happened.
Not because the system believed in me — but because the system ran out of other options.
And in the vacuum left by neglect, I had room to move. To lead. To rebuild.
Those weren’t ideal conditions.
They were chaotic, high-pressure, and unfairly timed.
But they surfaced something I might not have found otherwise:
A deeper kind of capability.
A voice I hadn’t used before.
A level of ownership no one would’ve given me when things were going smoothly.
Not every outcome was perfect. But almost all of them sharpened me — revealing what I needed, what I could do, and who I had to become to do it.
This is what real-life disturbance looks like:
You get handed a mess.
You’re not sure if it’s a compliment or a setup.
And still, you choose to make something out of it — because that’s where the opportunity lives.
So, If You’re in It Right Now…
If you’re standing in the middle of a mess you didn’t create — a critical project in crisis, a role that suddenly expanded without permission, a system cracking under its own weight — it’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
This isn’t the clean version of growth we like to imagine.
It’s the real one.
There may not be clear direction.
There may not be applause.
But there is space — space that didn’t exist before.
And space, however uncomfortable, is where things begin.
You don’t have to romanticize the chaos.
But don’t rush to escape it either.
Because sometimes, the storm isn’t the end of the story.
It’s the clearing that makes the next chapter possible.
So take a breath.
Look around.
And ask yourself — what wants to grow here, if I let it?