Pretending Is Exhausting

Back in late summer 2021 I had just had a long conversation with my own coach about the weight of pretending.

Pretending to be someone you’re not. Pretending to want something you don’t. Pretending you’re OK with living up to someone else’s expectations of you.

Hours later I watched the superstars of Team USA fight to pretend to keep it together on the world stage.

The ones whose shoulders were carrying the weight of the Olympic Games.

You didn’t need a degree or certification in #mentalhealth to know that phemons like Simon Biles and Katie Ledecky were struggling to hold their sh*t together.

Thank God for masks (for once) to block the tears and emotions following their disappointing performances.

Pretending that not realizing your Olympic dreams isn’t soul-crushing (in front of BILLIONS) is exhausting.

Words so powerful they were felt all the way from Tokyo.

Trying to live up to something, whether you’ve placed the expectations on yourself or they were placed there by an entire country, wreaks havoc on your heart and mind.

Even when there’s not Olympic gold, a lifetime of notoriety, and the thrill of the highest level of personal accomplishment on the line, pretending you’re on point all the time is 1000x more exhausting than the actual physical performance.

So what’s the answer?

How do you find mental and emotional solace whether you’re going for Olympic gold or peak performance in HS, college, or on the job?

Find a team you can trust.

Find a team that will let you be yourself and listen.

Find a team who doesn’t think you’re broken or wants to fix you.

Learn from someone who knows what it’s like to feel the exhaustion from pretending to be someone she’s not and has found her way out of it by creating her own success formula.

You’re under no obligation to have it together all the time. You don’t have to pretend here.