Because of my dad’s work-related stress, I grew up walking on eggshells at home.

Given this context, my feelings felt unhelpful and inconvenient. Sometimes they even felt dangerous.

My young mind concluded that if my feelings had no value – I had no value.

So, at a certain moment in my formative years, part of me decided that I needed to transform myself into a high-achieving-low-maintenance-machine in order to have value in the world. 

‘Little Miss Achiever’ will always be part of me, but today she is rarely in the drivers seat.

I now understand that she is too young to even hold a drivers license.

I appreciate her for doing her best to keep me safe, for propelling my early career success and for inspiring the work I do today.

But, I also know that her paradigm puts me at very real risk of burnout.

Thanks to my self-fidelity practice, I have a cultivated sense of appreciation for who I am that is no longer dependent on what I do and what I have.  Today I understand that I can never achieve my way to worthiness.

It has taken me many years to get here and remembering my inherent enough-ness is a moment-by-moment practice.

If I could travel back in time, this is what I would like to say to the younger version of me – the one trapped on the roller-coaster of unhealthy striving and proving.

“The world you are growing up in is a masterclass on how you should be. But you don’t have to be a good student. You will be very, very tempted to join the hustle and to strive relentlessly to collect gold stars – first in the form of good grades and later in the form of fancy job titles, ‘top-talent’ accolades and big salary packages. However, clambering your way to the top won’t fulfill you. It will never get you anywhere close to feeling like you are enough. Instead, you can learn what it means to be true to yourself in life – and at work. You can learn that it is possible to anchor your self-worth to who you are, not what you do.”

SELF-FIDELITY PRACTICE TO PLAY WITH

If my story resonated with you, I would like to offer up two questions for you to play around with:

Is there a younger part of you who measures your value only through the currency of achievements, accolades & status?

If you could travel back in time, what would you most like to say to this part of you?

 

“The first problem for all of us, is not to learn, but to unlearn.”

Gloria Steinem