An antidote from my therapist

UntilProud

If you can practice treating each day as its own contained effort - a chance to reinforce your standards without obsessing about outcomes - it might help ease that internal pressure.

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I constantly apply external validation on my victories. When I decide these external validations are no longer fulfilling or sustainable, I quit so quickly and easily. I'm deciding that having a sense of standards (self inflected, not external, but internal) about my life and the things I choose to do or not do, I have the ability to create stability in my attempt at permanent/long term execution. I am realizing that standards does not equate to perfection, as maybe my internal dialogue may have originally concluded, but standards are more about setting boundaries and terms on things you find important. It's not requiring things to be elevated on your behalf; it's about accepting that if you set a bar to reach a goal, the bar cultivates a desire for something beyond the 'given'. It shows that a level of expectation signifies a strong foundation and a healthy respect for what is earned in life, not given. Especially when it comes to what is fundamentally important in the matter.

I desire a future where the fuel I apply to my day to day is no longer dependent on finite, poor quality energy (say, strictly validation from others or only motivation)...but that it is naturally occurring, self producing, unshakable and concrete.