Have you ever had one of those moments where you catch yourself performing?
Trying to look good, sound good, appear composed… even when something inside you knows it isn’t quite true?
I was reflecting on how much of my life, if I’m being brutally honest, has been shaped by the attempt to look good.
Look good at work. In friendships. In the relationships that matter most.
It’s subtle, almost invisible, but powerful.
And as I followed the thread, I noticed how this quiet performance shapes so much of my behaviour and pretty much everyone I speak to about it.
We protect certain images of ourselves.
We immunise against judgment, from others or from ourselves.
We avoid the parts of us that feel inconvenient or unpolished.
There’s an understandable safety in trying to look good.
It lets us stay in control… or at least feel like we are.
But it also takes us away from the deeper truth we’re craving.
Because when we’re focused on looking good, we can’t fully be honest.
Not with others.
And certainly not with ourselves.
And honesty, I mean real honesty, is where something shifts.
Where we stop long enough to see what’s actually going on beneath the surface or notice the ache we’ve been trying to keep under cover.
It’s like giving up the performance just long enough for truth to breathe.
When that happens, something opens.
Call it a pathway, a possibility.
An opening to a different kind of life which is rooted not in the behaviours that protect our image, but the ones that align with what we deeply long for.
That requires you to be willing to no worry about being impressive.
Instead it invites being true, present and alive in a way that feels real.
Photo by Zach Guinta on Unsplash