The Exhaustion of Being "Impressive"

The weight we carry isn’t always ours. Freedom begins when we stop performing and start choosing what’s truly ours.

The last few days, I carried a nagging feeling I couldn’t pinpoint.

It wasn’t a crisis or anything major. It was a low-grade static. The one is very hard to notice. A frustration that started small and began to color the edges of my mood. Usually, when this happens, I assume it’s the trading, the lingering residue of a risk taken or a move missed.

So I did what I have trained myself to do: I sat with it. Once in the morning. Again in the afternoon. A third time in the evening.

I didn’t try to fix it or make it disappear. I didn’t read or browse the internet to distract myself. I just sat in the quiet of the moment and asked: What is this?

And the answer was uncomfortable. I was ashamed.

I had missed writing the weekly edition of The Anchor Report. It was Thanksgiving week, the house was full of family and friends, and in the movement of life, I simply forgot. I had unconsciously given myself permission to slack, telling myself, “It’s a holiday, it’s fine.”

But the body keeps the score, and my body wasn’t fine. It was anxious.

Why?

As I peeled back the layers, I realized the anxiety wasn’t about discipline. It wasn’t about “failing” a schedule. It was about you. The audience. The outside world.

Somewhere along the way, after 13 editions of writing about “inner architecture”, I had stopped building for myself and started performing for the room. I was worried about how I would look if I missed a week. I was worried that if I stopped feeding the machine, the connection would sever.

I had set out to write this publication to document a transformation, to share a truth. But without noticing, I had slipped back into the oldest trap of high-functioning people: The Performance.

The Old Contract

We all have an “Old Contract” with our nervous systems. Mine, and I suspect many of yours, was signed years ago, in childhood or early adulthood. It reads like this:

“If I am interesting, if I am articulate, if I am generous and visible and impressive... then I will belong. Then I won’t be mistaken. Then I will be safe.”

For us, being misunderstood isn’t just annoying; it feels existential. If we aren’t aligned with the outside world’s map of success or worth, we feel subtly dismissed. Made invisible.

So the adaptive self develops a never-ending loop: Explain. Perform. Stay visible. Stay valid.

We wire ourselves to believe that being fully us, in silence, in simplicity, without output, might make others withdraw. We fear that our silence is empty. So the head and often the mouth, fills the space before the feeling of abandonment can.

That was the nagging feeling. It was my nervous system screaming, Alert, Alert! You are doing it again! You haven’t performed! You are going to disappear!

The Thanksgiving Shift

But the answer was already there, hidden in the very week I missed.

This Thanksgiving, we hosted my sons’ friends and a couple of neighbors. It was a last-minute decision, made just two days before.

In the past, this scenario would have triggered anxiety and the “Host Performance.” I would have needed the food to be perfect, the atmosphere curated and the conversations directed. I would have needed to show them how good I was at cooking and hosting. I would have been policing the experience, giving directions to the immediate family and scanning the room for validation.

But this time was different.

From the moment we decided to host, I felt totally connected, not to the outcome, but to the act. I cooked because I wanted to cook. I poured wine because I wanted to share. I wasn’t trying to prove I was a good host; I was just hosting.

There was no gap between me and the moment. I wasn’t “performing” hospitality; I was just... hospitable.

And because I wasn’t carrying the weight of needing approval, I was light and I was there, fully present

The Art of Carrying Less

This is the lesson I needed to refresh and relearn. We must carry only what is ours. It has taken me a long time to understand and integrate this, but there is no other way.

To be free, whatever you do professionally, personally, even creatively, must be done first for the Self, for you, above all.

This doesn’t mean you don’t care about others, not at all. It means you don’t use others to stabilize your own identity. You don’t outsource your sense of “okay-ness” to other’s reactions or to other external factors.

When I write this report to get readers, I am performing and I am heavy. When I write this report to explore truth, I am serving and I am light.

The shift is subtle, but it changes everything. It allows you to let go of the news cycle, the social media noise, the opinions of colleagues, and even the outcomes of your favorite sports team. You realize that none of that is yours to carry. And it makes all the difference.

Reversing the Logic

So how do we break the Old Contract? How do we stop the reflexive need to explain, connect, fill, and perform?

We do it by Truth only.

We dissolve the endless loop by offering the nervous system a new logic, one that reverses the old fear:

• “I do nothing and I still belong.”

• “My silence contains more sovereignty than my performing ever did.”

• “No one’s understanding of me will ever be more important than my own.”

I missed a week. And I am still here. You are still reading and the world still turns.

This is not about doing less for the sake of just doing less. This is about reclaiming the right to choose what matters, and when.

Because not everything that calls for your attention deserves your energy. Not every emotion is a signal, and not every expectation is yours to carry.

I am learning to trust that I don’t need to earn my seat at the table by being the most interesting person on it. I just need to sit there.

That is the work. To stop performing your life, and simply, finally, start living it.

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Anchor

This week, notice where you are performing.

Catch the moment you start to over-explain an email, a point of view. Catch the moment you try to be “extra” charming at dinner because you feel a pause in conversation. Catch the moment you post something on social media just to prove you are active.

Stop. Take a breath.

Ask yourself: Am I doing this to share, or am I doing this to be safe?

If it’s for safety, let it go. Carry only what is yours.