Nobody can validate your career but you

In 2022, I achieved the type of validation for my work within the publishing industry I had always dreamed of...

...the kind that you dream about saying "if I just get X, then I'll finally feel okay about my life"...

...and let me tell you, it helped my mental health ZERO.

Absolutely ZERO.

This is nothing against any of the amazing opportunities I've been afforded or the type of access that I could have only dreamed of this time last year.

And it provided opportunities I am working on right now, but it did NOTHING to improve how I felt about myself, my work, or make me feel validated at ALL.

That said, in conjunction with that, I have been doing a TON of mindset work which has helped me immensely, so since this is an industry that has a 70%+ burnout rate, and the people inside of it suffer from a higher rate of "ifonly" syndrome and imposter syndrome that most others, here are a couple of things that DID help.

• falling in love with the work I have done, and realizing that at the end of the da…