By Neethu Vijay Karthik

London, Dec 17, 2025: For as long as I can remember, I have chased achievement. Exams, quizzes, competitions, rankings.

Somewhere along the way, being good stopped feeling sufficient. I needed to be exceptional, or at least visible among the best. I was a rank holder in my undergraduate years, earned distinction in my first master’s, and later completed my second master’s with distinction too.

On paper, it looks impressive. Inside, it always felt like I was running out of time to finally feel enough.

Even with a flourishing career, there was this quiet, persistent belief living inside me that whispered I still hadn’t done enough. That belief didn’t come from nowhere. It was shaped early. I grew up in a broken household where my parents fought constantly.

There was little emotional safety, little space to speak freely, and almost no room to simply exist without tension. I learned very quickly that silence was safer than expression, and achievement was safer than emotion.

The moments when my parents seemed calm or proud usually followed good results. A rank. A prize. A win. Those moments were rare, but they were powerful. My child mind connected the dots. If I achieved, I mattered. If I studied harder, I was worthy of peace.

That belief stayed with me. It became the way I navigated life. I worked harder. I gave more. I stretched myself thinner in studies, work, friendships, and relationships. I believed that if I showed enough effort, intensity, or loyalty, I would be accepted and respected.

What no one tells you is how exhausting that way of living becomes. You can look accomplished on the outside while constantly negotiating your value on the inside. Every relationship feels like a test. Every job feels like something you have to earn repeatedly. If the effort you give is not met with the same intensity, if results do not arrive, something inside you collapses. That collapse feels personal. It feels like proof that you are disposable.

I only started seeing this pattern clearly when I was 32. At first, it showed up quietly as fatigue, resentment, and disappointment. By the time I was 35, working through it consciously, I realised how deeply rooted it was. This was not ambition. This was survival. This was a child learning how to stay emotionally alive in a home that did not know how to hold emotions safely.

I am not a psychologist, but I read relentlessly, partly because understanding gives me language, and language gives me some control. One concept that struck me deeply is conditional self-worth, described by Jennifer Crocker and Riordan Wolfe.

It explains how some people learn to tie their value to achievements, approval, or performance. Worth becomes something you earn, not something you have. That idea felt uncomfortably familiar. Every success validated me briefly. Every perceived failure felt like erasure.

Perfectionism added another layer. Psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett talk about self-oriented perfectionism, where you set impossibly high standards for yourself, and socially prescribed perfectionism, where you believe others expect perfection from you.

I lived with both. I demanded excellence from myself, but I also needed others to see it. When that recognition did not come, I internalised it as rejection. I flinched. I withdrew. I blamed myself.

Attachment theory helped me understand why this pattern extended into relationships. John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth showed that inconsistent emotional availability in childhood often leads to anxious attachment in adulthood.

When love feels unpredictable early on, you grow up trying to secure it through effort. You overgive. You overfunction. You try to be indispensable. And when that effort is not returned, it feels devastating, not because of the situation itself, but because it echoes something very old.

There is also something psychologists call achievement compulsion, discussed by Roy Baumeister. It describes the urge to achieve not out of joy or curiosity, but to manage anxiety and maintain a sense of self. That hit home for me. Achieving kept me afloat. It gave me identity. But it also trapped me in a loop. The relief was short-lived. The hunger always returned.

What has helped, slowly and imperfectly, is learning to sit with the discomfort instead of outrunning it. I started noticing when my urge to overextend came from fear rather than interest. I noticed how often I equated effort with worth. I noticed how deeply I feared being ordinary, not because I disliked simplicity, but because ordinary once meant invisible.

Self-compassion has been the hardest lesson. Kristin Neff’s work talks about offering yourself the same kindness you would offer a friend. That sounds simple, but when your inner voice has been trained to equate love with performance, kindness feels undeserved. Still, I try. I try to speak to myself without threats or ultimatums. I try to let mistakes exist without attaching moral value to them.

I have also had to redefine success. For years, success meant recognition, outcomes, and validation. Now, I am learning to see success as alignment. Did I act honestly? Did I respect my limits? Did I stay connected to myself instead of abandoning myself to please others?

Aaron Beck’s cognitive work helped me see how often my thoughts turned absolute. If I am not exceptional, I am nothing. Challenging those thoughts does not erase them overnight, but it loosens their grip.

The pattern still shows up. I still feel the urge to give more than I have. I still struggle when effort is not mirrored. But now, there is awareness. And awareness creates a small gap. In that gap, I can choose differently, even if only sometimes.

I do not have a clean ending to this story. Healing does not move in straight lines. But I am learning that I do not need to earn my place in the world through exhaustion.
I do not have all the answers. Perhaps I never will. But I am learning, in the middle of striving, to breathe and remind myself that my worth is not contingent on output, effort, or recognition. Striving and rest, caring and acceptance, can coexist.
In recognizing that, I am beginning to feel seen not because of what I accomplish, but because I allow myself to simply exist. And maybe, finally, that is enough.

(Based in London, Neethu is a communications and branding professional with over a decade of experience in journalism and strategic storytelling. She spent 12 years as a journalist, honing her skills in research, narrative building, and audience engagement. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi, Neethu recently completed her master’s in Branding and Marketing Communications in London, expanding her expertise to include modern brand strategy, multi-channel campaigns, and integrated marketing communications.)