how to stop tying your self-worth to outcomes

tools, stories, and science for ego involvement, burnout, and self-respect

i was raised on outcomes. on high marks and being impressive. on the kind of affection that arrived with conditions, especially the unspoken kind. growing up, the love i wanted only seemed to show up when i was achieving something. a certificate. a glowing parent-teacher report. straight a’s. it was like affection had a price tag, and the currency was excellence. and because i was a kid who wanted to be loved, i paid in full.

it wasn’t that i hated school. i liked learning, actually, especially creative writing and science. i liked putting things together and figuring things out. but over time, the joy of learning got buried under the pressure to perform. because i started to realise that if i failed, it wouldn’t just be a bad grade. it would mean something about me. it would change how i was treated, not just in school but at home. so i didn’t just fear failure, i feared what it would undo. the closeness. the pride. the warmth. it was all conditional.

and then as i got older, things started to slip. not because i stopped caring, but because everything just felt heavier. harder. i have adhd, though i didn’t know that until i was twenty. but looking back, it makes sense, my mind was always flooded. a hundred tabs open. overstimulated, distracted, constantly trying to multitask. i’d get overwhelmed and miss deadlines because my brain was drowning. and every time i messed up, it chipped away at the only identity i thought i had. i wasn’t the clever one anymore. so who was i?

the scariest part wasn’t even the burnout. it was the hollowness. the way i lost interest in the things that used to make me feel alive, books, art, writing. i didn’t even notice it at first. it was like i went into autopilot. like i was just going through the motions, trying to keep up the appearance of being fine while everything underneath was slipping. i didn’t know how to not attach my worth to what i was producing. i didn’t know who i was outside of being good at things.

everything changed during university. specifically, during covid. i was away from home, physically and emotionally, and i suddenly had all this time alone, with my thoughts, my patterns, my memories. i was lucky to have that space. i don’t take that for granted. because for the first time, i could actually ask myself,

what do i even like? what kind of person do i want to be? what are my values, if no one’s watching?

and from there, something started to shift. slowly, messily, but definitely. i began piecing myself back together. not to optimise, but to understand. i revisited old hobbies. i got curious again. i stopped seeing myself as a broken machine and started seeing myself as a person trying to come home. i learned that self-worth is something you have to practice, not just understand. and it wasn’t some overnight awakening, it was a series of small, practical decisions. collecting little tools. testing what worked. figuring out how i needed to interrupt the old thoughts and reroute them.

for me, verbalising things helped. saying things out loud. because my brain is so loud and cluttered already, i have to get the thoughts out. sometimes it’s a voice note. sometimes it’s just me talking to myself like: stop. that’s not true anymore. other times, journaling works better. i have different tools for different moods, like an emotional first-aid kit i’ve built over the years. but it didn’t start with clarity. it started with a mess. and a decision to stay with it long enough to find my way out.

that’s the truth. this isn’t a theory to me. it’s not just something i read and found interesting. it’s something i’ve lived. i’ve been the person who couldn’t start, who couldn’t finish, who feared the consequences of both. i’ve been the person who burned out from trying to be enough. and what i’ve learned is this: your self-worth can’t be a prize at the end of a performance. it has to exist before, during, and after. otherwise, everything collapses the second you fall short.

this is how i started untangling myself from ego-driven outcomes. and in the rest of this essay, i’ll try to put words to what helped, not perfectly, but honestly. not to tell you who to be, but to offer you the scaffolding to find your own way back.