How to work like everything depends on it, without letting it
A framework for ambition without burning yourself alive
A few years ago, I realized that my biggest fear was not failure.
It was effort.
Specifically, the audacity of trying very hard and still being wrong.
I noticed it when I was fairly young and still in school. I was terribly bad at math, and instead of studying more, I subconsciously decided to do the opposite. If I did not really try, then failing would not mean much. It would be disappointing, but not surprising. If I gave it my all and still failed, the loss would feel much heavier. Not just a grade, but proof that effort was not enough.
At the time, I did not have the words to describe this behavior, let alone understand why it felt so instinctive. It just felt safer.
This logic followed me into adulthood, but it reversed, almost without me noticing it happen. As a child, I protected myself by trying less. As an adult, I do it by trying more. From the outside, it looks like ambition. From the inside, it feels like a very elaborate safety plan.
I would reluctantly describe myself as a workaholic, which feels like a dramatic word until I look at my calendar. I work multiple jobs, I go to university, and I always seem to have a few side projects running in the background. On paper, it looks like drive, discipline, maybe even passion. And that is usually how it is perceived. But in practice, it’s anxiety with a calendar.
I keep myself busy because being busy is my security blanket. If I work hard enough, I tell myself, the probability of failure decreases. If I put in dramatically more effort than necessary, maybe I can make success unavoidable. Or at least harder to argue with.
Think of it like rolling a dice. The goal is to roll as many sixes as possible. One roll is risky, ten rolls feel strategic, and a hundred rolls start to feel like a plan, something you can point to and defend. Or at least like you’ve earned the right to be disappointed.
What this logic quietly ignores is that no matter how often you roll, the dice is still a dice. You can improve your odds, but you cannot eliminate chance or the element of luck, no matter how convincing your reasoning looks. Sometimes things just don’t land.
For a long time, I told myself I was working this hard because I wanted more. More success, security, and more certainty, preferably in that order. But I’ve since figured out that this wasn’t the whole truth.
A big part of it was fear. Not the dramatic kind, that announces itself loudly. The quiet, internal kind. I wanted to make failure less likely. And if it did happen anyway, I wanted it to hurt less, to feel defensible rather than devastating. I wanted to be able to say I did everything I could.
I notice it most in moments that should be “neutral”. Group projects where I quietly take over because the grade matters to me more. Long days where I add “just one more thing” because stopping feels riskier than continuing. Not because I love the work, but because effort feels like protection.
That’s when I realized something important. I wasn’t trying to win faster, I was trying to make losing survivable. Preferably without an identity crisis. This is what sunk cost anxiety feels like in real life.
Once I saw it that way, work stopped feeling like a promise or a deal I was making with the universe. It stopped being this silent contract where effort was supposed to guarantee an outcome. Instead, it became something quieter. A way to build resilience and a way to know that even if things didn’t work out the way I hoped, I wouldn’t fall apart.
That doesn’t mean I stopped reaching for proof altogether. I still catch myself refreshing emails, rereading feedback, or adding one more task just to feel safer. The difference is that now I notice it.
I won’t lie to you, that shift didn’t completely remove the fear. But it made it easier to live with.
What I was really afraid of were sunk costs. Time and effort I could not recover, no matter how much I wanted to. I worried that the more I invested, the more painful it would be if things did not work out. Especially if other people, who seemed to try less, still succeeded with ease.
That comparison hurts because it exposes something we do not like to admit. Outcomes are not proportional to effort. Timing, visibility, and luck play a vast role in people’s success, whether we like it or not. Some doors open because you were ready, others open because you happened to be there.
Once I accepted that, I stopped trying to use effort as a guarantee and started using it as insurance.
Insight alone wasn’t enough, though. I needed something to fall back on when the fear showed up again. Here is the framework that helped me, not fix the fear, but make it manageable.
Step 1: Stop making effort prove something
I stopped asking whether something would definitely work and started asking what I would still have if it did not. Is there value in the work itself, independent of how things turn out? This could look like many different things: skills, confidence, proof that I can operate under pressure. If those were there, the effort was not wasted.
Step 2: Invest in yourself, not one outcome
I stopped tying my identity to one future version of success, the kind that only exists if everything goes right. Instead, I focused on becoming someone who could recover quickly if plans changed. That made work feel stabilizing instead of existential. It helps you build a version of yourself that is resilient and resourceful, one that can make lemonade when life gives them lemons without pretending lemons were the goal.
Step 3: Contain the damage
I introduced small rules into my life that kept effort from taking over everything, rules that sound simple but matter more than they should. The most important one to me is NO laptop in bed. My nervous system needed a hard boundary. Apparently, so did my sleep. The key is to have a space of true rest. I know most of you have probably heard this before, and even I didn’t think much of it at first, but let this be your sign to try it. Also, long drives are my time for thinking or connection. I use them to have phone calls with friends I don’t usually have time for during the week and for letting my brain wander without a to-do list.
Step 4: You are not a Performance Review
This is the hardest one for me.
Even after trying my best to fix everything else, I still needed some form of evidence. Grades, praise, being needed, any sign that my effort had landed somewhere. That’s where it gets tricky. If effort only counts when it is visible, then your worth is always up for review. I had to stop auditing myself through feedback, to stop using recognition as reassurance that I was doing enough. Not everything meaningful leaves a paper trail. Some work happens quietly, and some progress only shows up later. Letting effort exist without proof feels uncomfortable, almost irresponsible, like I was letting myself off the hook too easily.
It turned out to be the thing that made everything else sustainable and lighter, but also steadier. Repeat after me: Effort doesn’t need an audience to count.
None of this removed fear completely. I still strive for recognition and still wish for a comfortable life. I still worry about irrelevance more than I care to admit.
But the fear has now changed shape.
Working hard stopped feeling like a wager on one outcome and started feeling like preparation for many. Failure did not get smaller, but it became survivable.
If you take nothing else from this, take this:
You are allowed to care deeply about your future without turning every effort into a referendum on your worth.
Effort is not proof that things will work out.
It is proof that if they don’t, you won’t be lost.
Currently listening to: Normal Girl by SZA
If you enjoyed this essay, don’t forget to check out my other recent pieces:
This was perfect timing for me to read it! I love the part about investing in yourself because, let's be honest, it's a turning point where we truly begin to unfold. Although the outcome might be unpredictable, but it is so good to be immersed in ourselves and working towards our goals!!
You reframed that in a way I never would have considered👏🏻✨