the external validation trap

hi friend,

"Most people spend their lives winning races they never chose to enter."

for most of my early 20s (which I’m still in btw), I was really, really good at performing.

it’s so easy to pretend to be someone else when you’re chasing external validation.

collected awards.

pursued recognition.

chose relationships based on how they reflected back on me.

built a highlight reel that other people applauded and I secretly felt nothing about.

people praise you when they see a carefully curated image of yourself that was created based on chasing recognition.

for a while, that’s enough to keep you going, until it isn’t.

the shelf life of external validation

what nobody tells you about chasing external validation: it works, for a while.

the award feels incredible for about 48 hours. The recognition gives you a high that lasts maybe a week. The relationship built on the version of you that you were performing starts cracking the moment you stop performing, and you always, eventually, stop.

external validation has a shelf life. And when it expires, you're left standing in the silence of your own life asking - wait, what was that all for?

every once in a while you hit a slow, creeping awareness that you’ve been running a race that you never actually signed up for. That somewhere between trying to impress people and trying to keep up, you can completely lose the thread of what yo genuinely want your life to look like.

it's a rather disorienting feeling. Because from the outside, everything looks fine. Great, even. But on the inside, there's this quiet but persistent voice going that this isn't it.

what I started doing instead

I started carving out moments of stillness. And in those moments, I started asking myself two questions:

1. what do I actually want?

Not what my parents want, what would impress my peers, or what the next logical career step is supposed to be. What do I want - in my body, in my relationships, in how I spend a Tuesday morning?

2. who am I actually trying to become?

who, when I'm alone and no one is watching and no one is clapping am I becoming?

these two questions cracked something open in me. Because when I answered them honestly, the answers had almost nothing to do with the things I had been chasing.

what this means for you

I'm not saying external achievements don't matter. They do. Ambition is beautiful. Wanting things is healthy.

but there's a difference between pursuing something because it genuinely lights you up and pursuing it because it keeps the silence at bay or because it makes you feel like you're winning a game you've never actually examined.

most of us are running that second race without realising it.

the signal is often the exhaustion you constantly feel or the low-grade dissatisfaction even when things are going well. a sense that you’ve been optimising for the wrong thing.

the most worthwhile thing you can chase is the best version of yourself.The one that's built from actual values, actual desires, actual choices and not borrowed ones.

everything else - the awards, the recognition, the milestones those can absolutely still be part of the picture. But they become a nice-to-have rather than the whole point.

this week, find 10 minutes of real stillness and ask yourself both questions:

What do I actually want?
Who am I actually trying to become?

don't filter the answers and just write what comes up.

that's where the real work starts.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways that I can help you:

1.  1:1 coaching to transform your mindset, perform better, and thrive

2.  Workshops to help you unpack mental performance tools and techniques

everything on here: www.mattermentalperformance.com

love always,

deveshi x