📣 “I Stopped Chasing Success—And It Found Me Anyway”

I used to think success was a finish line. A shiny, faraway place you get to only after bleeding for it.

I believed in hustle like it was a religion. I woke up at 5 a.m. every morning, filled five pages in my productivity planner, crammed my calendar with back-to-back meetings, and convinced myself that rest was for the weak. I listened to podcasts about high performance. I read books with titles like Crush It, Work Harder Than Anyone, No Excuses.

I made excuses for my exhaustion. "It’s just a busy season," I told myself.

Except the season never ended.

What did end? My energy. My joy. My sense of self.

The Burnout I Didn't See Coming

The collapse wasn’t dramatic. There was no hospital visit. No grand intervention.

It was quiet. Insidious.

It looked like:

- Forgetting basic words mid-sentence

- Crying after Zoom meetings for no reason

- Feeling dread every Sunday like it was a countdown to a war I didn’t sign up for

Lying awake at 2:30 a.m., heart pounding, mind racing

People around me called me “driven.” But what they didn’t see was that I was driving myself off a cliff.

The Pause That Saved Me

Eventually, my body staged a rebellion I couldn’t ignore.

I took a leave of absence from work—something I once thought was only for people with “real” problems. I turned off notifications. I stopped posting on social media. I even deleted LinkedIn for a month, which felt like losing a digital limb.

At first, I panicked. If I wasn't producing, who was I?

If I wasn't achieving, what was I worth?

I had no idea how deeply I had tethered my identity to my output.

And so, I unraveled. Slowly. Painfully. Necessarily.

Relearning How to Be a Human

In that silence, I discovered something I hadn’t felt in years: stillness.

I started journaling again—not to “process for productivity,” but just to hear myself think.

I took long walks without podcasts. I stared at trees like an old person who knows better.

I reconnected with friends who didn't ask what I “did,” but how I felt.

I read fiction. I started cooking. I let myself nap. I let myself cry. I gave myself permission to not know what was next.

That’s when something unexpected happened.

Success Showed Up, Uninvited

A few weeks into my so-called “sabbatical,” I got a message from someone I’d worked with years ago.

They were starting a new venture and wanted me to consult. No application. No pitch. Just trust.

Then, someone discovered my old blog and asked to republish one of my posts—for actual money.

Then, a friend introduced me to someone who became a mentor. Not because I networked hard, but because I had space in my life to receive them.

The irony? I was doing less than ever—and yet more was flowing to me.

The Truth We’re Never Taught

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

We’ve been sold a version of success that costs us our souls.

The 24/7 grind, the constant optimization, the pressure to brand every moment—it’s not making us more successful. It’s making us sick.

And the cruel twist?

Many of us are burning ourselves out to build lives we don’t even want.

What I Know Now

Real success isn’t something you chase. It’s something you align with.

It doesn’t require self-erasure. It requires self-connection.

You don’t have to kill yourself to be worthy.

You don’t have to earn rest.

You are not a machine.

You’re a human being. And being is enough.

If you’re tired—truly tired—this is your permission to pause.

Not forever. Just long enough to remember who you are without the pressure to perform.

Trust me: the life you actually want can find you.

But only if you're still enough to hear it knocking.

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