I’ve been feeling pretty discouraged at work lately. I seem to crumple whenever there are real stakes to what I’m doing. This is a problem for a career that I feel somewhat defined by. If there are no stakes, then I’m happy, but then what’s the point. If there are stakes, then I struggle and disappoint myself.

I’m almost 29 at the time of writing this post, and it bothers me that I’m still figuring this out.

It feels like I should I be satisfied with any of the pithy common sense responses I can think of:

• “There’s nothing to figure out. This is just the way everyone experiences life and accepting it is about all you can do.”
• “If it’s worth doing, it probably isn’t easy, and if it’s easy, it probably isn’t worth doing.”
• “Hard work is its own reward.”
• “No one else is disappointed with your work like you are. You may not be perfect, but no one’s expecting you to be.”
• “You shouldn’t define your life or self-worth by your career. Caring about what you do isn’t the same as being defined by what you do.”
• “Who cares if you’re not exceptional 100% of the time? No one is.”
• “You struggle when there are stakes because you inflate the severity of those stakes 1000x fold. If you take a more reasonable stock of the situation, you’ll feel a more proportionate accountability pressure. One which will feel much more manageable.”

I wish there was a way to translate a thought more directly into an internalized feeling.