When Growth Starts to Feel Like a Performance
It’s not that you’re faking it. You’re just tired of having to prove you’re healing.
Hey, checking in, because the quiet stuff matters too.
Today’s reflection: what happens when growth stops feeling like yours, and starts feeling like something you’re curating for other people.
There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that hits when you realize personal growth has started to feel… performative.
Not fake. Not shallow. Just a little too external; Like your healing only counts if it’s visible, digestible, or inspiring to someone else. Maybe you’ve felt it. That weird internal pressure to have something to show for your progress: an insight, a boundary, a stunning emotional turnaround. Or at least, a good quote to slap on your Instagram story about choosing peace over drama (while lowkey hoping your ex sees it).
Growth used to mean surviving the day without texting someone toxic. Now it feels like you need a six-slide carousel, a testimonial, and a personal brand just to prove you're evolving.
The culture of curated growth
We live in a world that sells healing as a lifestyle, just like it sells self-care. (I wrote about that pressure here, but growth has its own branding problem.) There are manifestation coaches with affiliate links. Journals with gold-foil quotes. A wellness influencer in a hammock whispering affirmations into a jade crystal mic.
Even well-intentioned content starts to make it feel like growth should be obvious and aesthetically pleasing. You’re not just working on yourself. You’re supposed to glow while doing it. You’re supposed to become content.
Story time: A few months ago, I cried after setting a boundary that felt like it ripped my stomach out. Later, a friend said, “Wow, that’s so empowering. You’re really in your healing era.” And I thought… sure. Let’s call it empowering. But also: I just sobbed in a Trader Joe’s frozen aisle while holding a bag of frozen dumplings like a therapy rock.
Sometimes growth is a breakthrough. Sometimes it’s just a breakdown you come back from.
The Wellness Olympics
There’s this unspoken competition in the healing world. I call it the Wellness Olympics. (Coming soon to the 2028 LA Summer Games; emotional regulation, now with scoring.)
Who has the cleanest trauma processing language?
Who can set a boundary with the most grace (and least visible resentment)?
Who can cry and turn it into a reel by noon?
It’s absurd, and yet we internalize it. We compare our chaos to someone else’s curated clarity and assume we’re behind. Or broken. Or not doing it right. They have a transformation arc. You have three half-finished voice notes and a therapy bill. They say comparison is the thief of joy, but somehow, it still sneaks in wearing a $90 wellness hoodie, clutching a gratitude journal, and whispering, “Keep up.”
You’re not failing at growth just because your life doesn’t look like an eight-step makeover. You’re not less healed because your emotions don’t come with subtitles and a warm color palette. Some days, healing means eating breakfast and not catastrophizing by 10 a.m. That’s not bronze medal work. That’s Olympic-level endurance. You just don’t get a trophy for it.
You’re not faking it, you’re just tired
There’s a sneaky voice that shows up when growth is hard to measure.
If I were really healing, wouldn’t I feel lighter by now? Shouldn’t I be done spiraling about this? (You don’t have to bounce back)
You start to doubt your progress because you can’t narrate it tidily. You feel like you’re falling behind in a race you didn’t sign up for. Maybe you pretend you’re more okay than you are. Saying “I’ve done a lot of inner work around that” when you really mean “I’ve cried about this eight different ways and still have no idea what I’m doing.”
But growth doesn’t always look like growth. Sometimes it’s just… not reacting. Or recovering faster. Or realizing you’re triggered and saying, “Wow, that sucked,” instead of setting your whole life on fire. That’s still growth, even if it’s invisible. Even if no one claps for it.
The pressure to be enlightened
One of the weirdest parts of healing is the expectation to stay in your highest-self era. As if once you start healing, you’re supposed to float above conflict, sip herbal tea, and say “I release what no longer serves me” instead of, say, screaming into a pillow. You might catch yourself mid-meltdown thinking, “Wait, I’m supposed to be evolved now.”
But healing isn’t a magical personality transplant. It doesn’t mean you’ll never get petty or panicked again. It just means you notice it more. You catch yourself earlier. You mess up and, instead of spiraling for days, you come back quicker. Progress isn’t perfection. Sometimes it’s whispering, “Yep, still human.”
The hidden cost of performing wellness
When we feel pressure to show our healing, we shape it into something palatable. We downplay the hard days. We rush to turn the mess into a message.
“This breakup taught me so much.”
“This boundary was a loving choice.”
“This spiral was actually a gift.”
Sometimes those are true. Other times? You’re just trying to make meaning fast enough to avoid discomfort. To stay in control. To convince yourself the pain was worth it. But healing rarely takes the scenic route. It takes the weird, winding back roads with no cell service. It’s not always wise. It doesn’t always lead to a breakthrough. Sometimes it just… hurts, and later, it hurts less.
When your healing becomes a script
Sometimes we speak in healing scripts.
“I’m honoring my nervous system.”
“I’m calling my power back.”
“I’m learning to trust the process.”
All lovely sentiments, unless they’re just armor. Unless they’re polished phrases we use to avoid feeling what’s raw. There’s nothing wrong with the language of healing. But it helps to pause and ask: Do I actually feel this right now, or am I fast-forwarding through the mess? (This pressure to “stay positive” can become its own trap, what Psychology Today calls toxic positivity.)
Growth isn’t about sounding enlightened. It’s about being honest.
A story that didn’t make the cut
One time, I swore I was “at peace” with a certain relationship ending. I even posted a quote about stepping into my power. Cut to the following week: I was scrubbing a frying pan like it owed me money, blasting Beyoncé’s Don’t Hurt Yourself, and whisper-screaming “You tried it” to no one in particular.
I had wrapped my pain in a narrative before it was ready. Told myself I was healed because it sounded better than “I’m still sad and I hate this.” Looking back, I wasn’t lying. I was coping. But the real shift came when I admitted the truth; not to everyone, just to myself.
Some things can live quietly inside you. Not every breakthrough needs a caption. Not every emotion needs to be transformed into wisdom. You don’t need to turn your pain into a post. You’re allowed to grow without narrating it.
Slow growth is still growth
This is your permission slip to heal like a human being, not a brand. To let your progress be nonlinear, quiet, and real. To have nothing to post, and still be proud of how far you’ve come.
Sometimes healing isn’t a breakthrough. It’s simply staying in it.
You don’t have to be the hero of your healing
Some days, growth feels like a performance review you didn’t sign up for; like you’re expected to narrate the plot, deliver the wisdom, and wrap it up with grace. That pressure can quietly tip into performative wellness, where healing becomes something you’re expected to demonstrate, not just feel.
But maybe your only job is to stay with what’s true. Even if it’s boring. Even if it doesn’t fit the storyline.
You don’t need to be a walking insight. You don’t need to spin your struggle into something shareable.
Sometimes the most honest thing you can say is: “I don’t know what this is yet. I just know it’s mine.”
In case you need to hear it
You are not falling behind.
You’re not less worthy because you can’t articulate your growth.
You’re not “doing it wrong” just because you’re tired or quiet about what’s shifting.
Healing isn’t about becoming someone better.
It’s about becoming more honest.
More whole.
More you, even when that version is still under construction.
And… a few ways to return to honest growth
If growth is starting to feel like a performance, here are a few ways to come home to yourself:
1. Pause the impulse to explain.
Try going a week without turning your growth into lessons. No takeaways. Just feel it.2. Notice your healing script.
Do your words sound polished but not quite true? Gently name what’s underneath, even if it’s raw.3. Let your insights be yours.
You don’t have to share every feeling to validate it. Privacy is powerful too.4. Return to small wins.
Like staying in the room with your discomfort. Not fixing it. Just being with it.5. Let some things stay unresolved.
Growth doesn’t mean solving everything. You can be healing and uncertain at the same time.
And… also because emotional healing isn’t always grand gestures, here’s a little honest check-in from me:
One thing that grounded me: Being okay with no big revelations. Just a Tuesday where nothing spiraled.
One thing that ungrounded me: Feeling like I needed to turn every emotion into a teachable moment.
Your turn. What’s one small thing that grounded or ungrounded you this week?
If this resonated, here are a few companion reads:
When self-care starts to feel like work
The tiny things that don’t wear us down
You don’t have to bounce back
Emotional hygiene shouldn’t start with a fire alarm
Before the emotional cliff: the stories we don’t see
If you’re new here, here’s your soft landing