Questions after a late diagnosis

What does success look like for me now?

By Jenny Lucas. From my essay I am terrified of burning out before I get to be "successful", first published 11 June 2026.

I have a fear I do not say out loud very often, so I am going to say it here. I am frightened that I will burn myself out completely before I ever get to be successful, and that the very act of reaching for the life I want will be the thing that takes me out before I arrive.

It is not an irrational fear. I have done it before. I spent years being competent and capable and utterly depleted, pouring myself into work until there was nothing left, and I have the burnout to prove that I know exactly how that story ends. This girl has got a wardrobe full of those particular t-shirts. So when I feel the old familiar pull, the one that says just keep going and just do what is expected and just hold it all together and you will be fine, a part of me goes very still and very afraid.

What makes it complicated is that the pull is not stupid. There is a steady draw on my energy from everything that already has a claim on me, the work that keeps the lights on while I build the thing I actually want, the people I love, the body that needs feeding and resting and moving. And subtly underneath all of it there is the oldest voice I own, the one that says you are competent and wise, but you are also burnt out to fuck and you are letting yourself be the sacrifice for success all over again. It does not matter to that voice that this time the success is mine. The pattern is always the same, give everything and keep nothing and call the whole thing ambition.

So I have been asking myself what success even is and the honest answer surprised me, because almost none of it is about money or status or the things I was told to want. Success, for me, is feeling well. It is feeling cared for and rested and energised. It is having the autonomy to be intentional with my time and my ideas and my energy and my love. It is being able to look after myself without negotiating for the right to. It is being visible but protected. It is being in tune with my mind and my body and my spirit and actually trusting the intuition that has been right far more often than my anxiety would like to admit. And yes, it is having a real impact, scores of people feeling better and more in control of their own lives because of something I made, but even that does not mean a thing if I have to vanish to deliver it.

Which brings me to the thing I keep circling back to. I used to worry that putting my wellbeing first would get in the way of progress, that rest was a luxury I would earn once the work was done. I had it completely backwards. There is no progress if wellbeing is not the thing held most sacred, because the depleted version of me cannot build anything worth keeping. Success without wellbeing is not success at all. It is just a more elaborate way of losing yourself, and I have been there and I am not going back.

Some days I have to stop being so far up in my own head about it and trust that it is all being engineered to work in my favour, even the slow bits, even the parts that feel like waiting. I am learning to receive instead of only ever earning. I am learning that I am allowed to be supported, that rest does not have to be deserved, that I can want a soft and spacious life and a wildly impactful one at the same time and not have to choose between them.

Because the truth is that the blueprint I inherited, the one that says you must sacrifice yourself to be worthy of success, is a curse, and I have decided I am the one who breaks it. I have two daughters who are watching how I do this. They are watching whether their mother believes she has to bleed for a good life or whether she gets to build one that actually holds her. I want them to inherit the second story. I want them to grow up knowing it is possible to be fulfilled and successful and genuinely nourished all at once, because they watched it happen at their own kitchen table.

I am still frightened, some days more than others. But I am doing it differently this time, on purpose, with my wellbeing as the ground I stand on rather than the thing I set on fire for warmth. And if you are reading this and you recognise the fear, I want you to know it does not have to be proof that you will fail. It can be the exact thing that makes you build a kinder way.

More questions after a late diagnosis