What Works

1The Validation Spiral

I couldn't shake the feeling of precariousness—that all that I'd worked for could just disappear—or reconcile it with an idea that had surrounded me since I was a child: that if I just worked hard enough, everything would pan out.

—Anne Helen Petersen, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation⁷

“BINGO!” I HEARD my classmate call out. I started to feel my eyes well up with tears.

My second-grade teacher noticed. She guided me out of the classroom and into the hall. She gently asked why on earth I was crying over a game of bingo. As only a precocious 8-year-old could, I tried to explain that I hated bingo because it required no skill. It was pure luck. There was no strategy to employ, no natural talent to rely on to win. Either your numbers were called or they weren't. I couldn't extract value out of a win. There was no meaning to victory—although loss still hurt. My teacher gently explained that it was “just a game” and encouraged me to enjoy it. But that's the thing. There has been nothing in my life that has been “just a game.” Every win was a small indication that things would work out, that I'd be okay. Every loss was a devastating reminder that I could lose everything—and probably would.

What I couldn't quite explain at the time was that there was no way I could parlay a game of bingo into validation that I was good enough. Today, I know this feeling—this fear—well. It's with me all the time. I'm self-conscious to admit that this ...