It’s January 1st, and your Instagram feed is already full of green smoothies, gym selfies, and 10-point transformation plans that would exhaust a professional athlete. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking you should be doing more. Being more. Achieving more.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth psychologists are starting to talk about: that drive to be extraordinary might not be ambition. It might be anxiety.
The Performance You Learned as a Child
Therapist Keven Duffy works with high-functioning adults who believe their need to be exceptional is a strength. But over time, a pattern emerges. Their drive to feel special stems from a deeper fear of being ordinary and therefore unlovable.
Research by psychologist Eddie Brummelman tracked 565 children over 18 months and found something crucial: narcissism develops in kids whose parents overvalued them, telling them they were superior and deserved special treatment. Meanwhile, children who developed healthy self-esteem had parents who showed consistent warmth regardless of achievement.
The difference? Narcissistic children learned “I’m better than others.” Children with self-esteem learned “I’m worthy as I am.” If you grew up performing to earn love, January 1st probably feels crushing.
Why Your Resolution List Might Be a Red Flag
Rebecca, a successful lawyer Duffy worked with, needed constant reinforcement that she was special. Her mother praised her effusively when she excelled but withdrew emotionally when Rebecca struggled. Rebecca learned early: be exceptional or be invisible.
“When I’m dating someone, I need constant reinforcement that I’m special to them,” she told her therapist. At work, accomplishments only brought temporary relief before the familiar emptiness returned.
Sound familiar? If your New Year’s resolution list feels less like excitement and more like proof you need to submit to the universe, you’re caught in the same pattern. That 10-item list isn’t ambition. It’s anxiety dressed up as productivity.
The Permission You Didn’t Know You Needed
Psychologist Irvin Yalom writes that mature self-acceptance requires mourning the grandiose self — letting go of the fantasy that you’re uniquely special or exempt from human limitations.
That might sound depressing on January 1st. But it’s actually liberating. Accepting ordinariness doesn’t erase your uniqueness. What it does is relax the crushing pressure to overachieve just to prove you deserve love. You don’t need to be the most interesting person at the dinner table to deserve connection. Being average at most things isn’t failure. It’s being human.
What Happens When You Stop Performing
A year into therapy, Rebecca had a realization: “I’ve been looking for an extraordinary partner because I need proof that I’m extraordinary. Honestly, I just want someone who loves me when I get anxious or leave the dishes in the sink. I want to be boring sometimes. I want someone who loves me even when I haven’t accomplished anything, when I’m just me. Unremarkable me.”
Her career didn’t collapse when she gave up trying to be exceptional. Healthy ambition still existed, but it came from realistic expectations, not desperate attempts to prove she deserved to exist.
Your January 1st Permission Slip
So here’s your New Year’s resolution if you want one: Try being ordinary this year.
Accept that you’re mostly average. That’s not lowering your standards. It’s recognizing you don’t need to be exceptional at everything to deserve love, rest, or a peaceful morning with coffee. Unhook your worth from achievement. Notice when you’re performing for validation.
Increase your tolerance for being unremarkable. If you need to be the center of attention, practice being observant instead. Sit with the discomfort of not standing out.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have goals. It means your goals shouldn’t be proof that you deserve to be alive. You already deserved that on the days you failed tests or cried over everyday disappointments. The work is learning that ordinariness doesn’t equal worthlessness. You deserve love not because you’re special, but because you exist.
This year, instead of making a list of ways to become exceptional, try making peace with being exactly who you are right now. Put down the performance. Skip the 5 AM workout if you don’t want to wake up at 5 AM. Be boring. You might find that the moment you stop trying to prove you’re extraordinary is the exact moment you start feeling free.